Do you have an eye for fashion? If so, now’s your chance to prove it.

Polyvore, a social networking site dedicated to fashion, allows users to create and arrange outfits (or sets as they call them) on an online interface much like Flickr’s. Users can create their sets based on anything from specific trends to song titles or colors and patterns. The options are limitless; your creative mind is free to wander the racks in this virtual house of style.

Polyvore functions like an endless online closet. All the items are grouped under appropriate categories like: dresses, tops, shoes, pants and accessories. Sift through the categories, and drag and drop your desired items into your palette. The site features a multitude of retail items that can be mixed and matched into personalized combinations. If you can’t find the perfect pair of pumps to match your Chanel dress, you can download the “clip to Polyvore” tool and snag photos from other sites to be used in your collage. Arrange your set as you see fit, add backgrounds, text and any artistic elements you wish.

Once completing your set, you can publish them for all to see. You can imbed your collage on your blog or even on your Facebook page. The social features of the site allow users to “friend” other active members, leave comments and join groups.

Another really interesting aspect of the site is the option to purchase the items you’ve included in your sets. All retail images are linked back to the stores they were clipped from, prices included.

Here’s an example of a set that I created myself.

The only thing better than winning an Oscar? The food you’ll get at the Governor’s Ball—the fancy eat-and-drink-a-thon that follows the Academy Awards presentation each year.

The L.A. Times has a preview of this year’s Asian-inspired menu and it’s not exactly P.F. Chang’s. Catered by chef Wolfgang Puck, this year’s crop of anointed golden guys and gals will get their grub on to the tune of mini Kobe burgers, caviar-topped crab cakes, black truffle and ricotta cheese pizza, plump raw oysters and a sea of top-grade sushi—all amid an enchanting Zen garden floral motif.

More than 1,500 guests will pile into the glitzy Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center for this year’s ball. Luckily for Puck, that shouldn’t pose too much of a threat; the Spago chef has helmed the Governor’s Ball kitchen for 15 consecutive years.

Writer N. Frank Daniels should be on top of the world. This week, Harper Perennial finally began distributing his Web-based book, Futureproof, nationally.

I say finally because it's been a long time coming for Daniels, who published Futureproof on his own via the Web several years ago. He essentially did what many DIY artists and bands have been trying to do: harness the power of online community. With a grassroots effort on his blog and MySpace page, Daniels developed a network of fellow off-the-radar writers and their fans. According to Daniels:

MySpace's network of writers banding together to promote and sell their books is a crucial tool in reaching an ever-expanding audience. With its millions of prospective readers and co-promoters, MySpace is making this democratized version of what is not only published but read a new force to deal with in the information age.

It certainly brought attention to his coming-of-age story, which centers around Luke, a high school drop-out, and his friends as they navigate the streets of Atlanta. And now that he's found a mainstream distribution channel, it's interesting to read past entries on his blog about everything from his vision for his book and its Web presence to dealing with publishers who seemed only to be interested in an easily marketable or plot-driven novel as opposed to the kind of story he created.

If you, like so many, have become lost in the deluge of job loss numbers from U.S. newspapers, there is now a virtual map that tracks the casualties—for better or worse.

The cleverly titled Paper Cuts was founded by Erica Smith, a graphic designer at the daily St. Louis Post-Dispatch who—after watching multiple friends and colleagues get gifted with pink slips—sought to paint a broader picture of the losses. She began aggregating numbers from press releases, wire reports and grapevine tip-offs, and ended up with some of the most comprehensive tallies on the topic to date.

And the numbers are staggering, particularly when the years 2008 and 2007 are inspected side-by-side. In 2007, the estimated 2,185 job losses, including layoffs and buyouts—illustrated in multicolored pushpins—freckle Smith’s map in shallow clusters at its four points. Flip to 2008 and the map is covered with a dense thicket of pushpins, representing an estimated 15,554 job losses—approximately 15 percent of the total newsroom workforce.

Adding insult to injury, Smith recently told the American Journalism Review that her count could be substantially undershooting the actual number, as many news outlets do not announce their cuts; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ total, which encompasses all newspaper positions from editors to delivery drivers, shows a total of more than 22,000 in 2008.

So far, Smith counts nearly 1,000 cuts in 2009. With The New York Times reporting today that its earnings were down 48 percent year-over-year in the last three months of 2008, the best we can do...

Just in time to hype the March opening of Watchmen is a new viral campaign that falls in line with a major trend in entertainment marketing where the advertisements are actually done for fictional products that only exist in the movie or show. In the case of Watchmen, they've created a Web site for The New Frontiersman, the fictional right wing conspiracy 'zine beloved by my favorite character, Rorscharch. The site includes a sweet 1970's style video of an NBS newscast from the alternate history of Watchmen, a picture of Dr. Manhattan taking a picture of Louis Armstrong on the moon, and some other classified files that look neat but won't make much sense if you haven't read the graphic novel.

You can even sign up for their rss feed or follow them on Twitter if you're interested in making sure you know the latest conspiracy theories from an imagined alternate history.

Though the site looks a lot like 42 Entertainment's Dark Knight viral campaign, the design is actually courtesy of The PPC Group on behalf of Paramount, which is distributing the film outside of the U.S.