Quick, Buy Tina Brown's Website Before She Does

According to Liz Smith, Tina Brown is calling her soon-to-launch news website The Daily Beast, in homage to the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.

Or is she? As of this moment, the URL dailybeast.com is for sale. I entered a bid of fifty bucks but was told I'd have to offer at least three figures to nab it. That made me reconsider whether I really want to get in a bidding war with Barry Diller, who's backing Brown in the venture.

Dailybeast.com's current owner appears to be someone called James Moy, who also holds thedailybeast.com. So far I haven't been able to get in touch with him. This is what he has posted on the sites right now:

There's also thebeast.com, which is owned by a company called Beast Financial Services

Here's what else I've heard about Brown's new site, whatever she's calling it: She has been describing it to people as a smarter, more "curated" version of the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post, with overtones of Kurt Andersen's Very Short List cultural e-newsletter. (Brown has said the site won't be a direct competitor to Huffpo, whose founder, Arianna Huffington, is a close friend of hers.) She and her editor in chief, Edward Felsenthal (formerly of Portfolio) are putting the finishing touches on an editorial staff of half a dozen or so, which will include a photo director, a video person and a couple of other editors. One of those editors will be Jane Spencer, a young reporter from The Wall Street Journal's Hong Kong bureau. An official announcement of the site's name and launch date is expected within the next couple weeks.

I've left messages for Brown and Felsenthal but not yet heard back.

Credit to Gawker for spotting the Daily Beast mention in Liz Smith's column.