It seems The Huffington Post picked the story up, cherrypicked the best data and wrapped it up with a flaccid, “See more stats from Ad Age here” link.

THP has thrived by “aggregating” and “curating” content from real publications with real reporters, real editors and real overhead. The New York Times‘ Bill Keller calls it piracy. Here in Fort Worth, we have another word for “aggregating” and “curating.” It’s called rustling and Arianna has assembled an impressive herd since launching THP a few years ago.

When accused of piracy/theft/plagiarism/rustling, etc., Huffington’s defense is that THP’s link drives traffic to the offended sites. It’s this point that Dumenco disputes and disproves with Google Analytics numbers.

The numbers, unlike Huffington, don’t lie.

Read the entire Dumenco story to see The Huffington Post‘s apology for getting caught.

Santacon NYC participants on Driggs Ave., in Williamsburg

We learned that this was a gathering point for the 2009 NYC Santacon, Brooklyn edition. There are five gathering points for Gotham Santas and they’ll converge at one location later today, but it’s secret.

We continued along Driggs where we were met by converging Santas approaching from east and west. We passed McCarren Park and ended up at the Warsaw Polish National Home in Greenpoint at 261 Driggs Ave., where the Santas filed inside to get their secret marching/crawling orders. Since we weren’t Santas, we weren’t allowed inside.

We departed for Kasia’s only to learn that it’s closed on Saturdays??? So, down the block to Bagelsmith for fresh, custom-made bagels and hot coffee.