Use Twitter’s name even when you’re dissing it: that could be a good way to ensure some publicity, given the hype around everyone’s current sweetheart. But maybe Scribd, the social publishing startup that lets you upload all kinds of documents online and embed them into blog posts, does have a point about the misinformation that Twitterers could be putting up in 140-character bursts.

After all, at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) conference last week, CUNY J-school professor Sandeep Junnarkar did begin his workshop on Twitter for journalists with a caveat: “Everything you find on Twitter is rumors, false information. That’s the default position.” Kind of like what journalists and students are always told about Wikipedia.

A press release that landed in my inbox from Scribd seeks to distinguish the San Francisco-based startup as “anti-Twitter” — the antithesis of Twitter. Scribd is “quickly becoming a trusted source for unfiltered, detailed information about the swine flu,” the release says.

In support of that contention, Scribd says people can search for comprehensive information in real time from organizations like the WHO, CDC, American Red Cross, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, The White House and others. Statements, tips and other detailed documents are uploaded to the site every day. What’s more, 80 percent of swine flu-related documents on Scribd have been put up in the past three days, as more and more people become concerned about the spread of the disease.

To cater better to the widespread interest and concern, Scribd has put up a special section on its homepage dedicated to swine flu information from health agencies, including checklists, disease descriptions, public health fact sheets, handouts and other documents. (Check out the WHO swine flu update document here.)

Facebook recently released some trend charts that measure how many of its members are talking about the disease. Meanwhile, on Twitter, the messages continue to be as diverse as ever — an effortless mix of information, opinion and emotion.

One recent Tweet I found: “(Name removed) hopes he dies of swine flu so he won’t have to hear about swine flu anymore.”

There have been plenty of doomsday forecasts about 2009 advertising spending, brought on by the financial crisis. Especially when online advertising, so long on the rise even as print ad revenue fell, started falling too.

Now, Adweek threatens to mess up the picture:

So far, the first months of 2009 aren’t looking as dire as once predicted for the online ad market, according to buyers and sellers. However, many report that business has slowed down, resulting in intensifying pressure on pricing, particularly in the ad networks space.

But the abysmal first quarter that many anticipated — one in which shell-shocked clients either delayed all decision making or went into budget-slashing mode — hasn’t happened, said many industry insiders.

“I was one of the people that thought Q1 would be disastrous, but so far it’s not that bad,” said Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com. While Spanfeller said that business wasn’t exactly going gangbusters, “things have been OK. It’s not the nuclear winter we feared.”

But wait, there is still pain to go around in the online ad world. Check out Silicon Alley Insider’s Jan. 26 writeup of an AdAge story about ad networks:

The amount Web publishers can charge advertisers for every thousand impressions of their ads — a rate called the CPM in industry jargon — is off by about 20% industry-wide. Worse, that’s with publishers only selling around 30% of their inventory, down from 60%.

Some say the ad networks are to blame. Essentially, the argument goes: Publishers can’t sell out their inventory, so they turn to ad networks, which sell remnant ads at a 89% to 94% discount. Agencies and advertisers can’t resist the discount and begin to buy their way onto premium sites through ad networks only. This drives down the amount of inventory publishers can sell on their own and increases their reliance on ad networks. The vicious cycle continues.

So things aren’t so hot after all, people will continue to lose their jobs, more companies on all links in the advertising chain will continue to suffer, even if the winter won’t be nuclear, as Forbes’s Spanfeller said. The upside? Short sellers won’t be able to resist big media stocks. See? Someone always wins.

Keep an eye on

• Speaking of job cuts, check out the bloodletting at Reed Business Information. When you can’t sell your subsidiary, slash it instead. (FishbowlNY)
• New York Times staffers learn about Twitter. It’s not supposed to be this hard, is it? (New York Observer)
• Everybody can use an editor, even Wikipedia contributors who are angry because the online encyclopedia’s top brass are thinking about adding a layer of proofreading and fact-checking. Note to self: Being subjected to editing is not the same thing as depriving you of your rights. (The Guardian)

Here’s a blog entry from our San Francisco technology reporter David Lawsky:

Geeks who can write a bit do fine at Wikipedia, but the online encyclopedia thinks that non-geeks often have been scared off. That insight has translated into an $890,000 grant for Wikipedia from the Stanton Foundation.

It will use the money to smooth and simplify software for posting on Wikipedia and to attract volunteers who are good writers but not-so-great technical computer users.

Wikipedia wants to get “smart-knowledgeable people who are less tech-centric … to help write and edit the encyclopedia,” says the handout from Wikimedia Foundation, quoting its executive director, Sue Gardner. Wikimedia owns Wikipedia.

It seems like a fitting project for the Stanton Foundation, because it has to do with making communications technology more accessible. The namesake is the late Frank Stanton, who was president of CBS after World War II and led its transformaton from a radio network to TV.