Mediagazer: The Last Pop Star: Michael Jackson's Estate Signs the Biggest … (Marlow Riley/mediaelites)

CNN:

Erickson joins the Best Political Team — Erick Erickson has joined CNN. — (CNN) - Prominent conservative commentator and RedState.com editor Erick Erickson will join CNN as a political contributor, appearing primarily on CNN's new show John King, USA¸ the network announced Tuesday.

Discussion: Gawker, The Caucus, Runnin' Scared, The Atlantic Wire, Mediaite and The Politico

Alex Koppelman / Salon:
What was CNN thinking with latest hire?

Discussion: RedState, The Impolitic and Washington Monthly

Eve Conant / The Gaggle: How Will Conservative Bloggers Attack the Mainstream Media Once …

Heather Hopkins / Hitwise Intelligence:

Twitter and News and Media Websites — A couple of weeks ago, I did a follow up post on my blog entry, “Facebook Largest News Reader?”. The entry illustrated that Facebook users prefer Broadcast Media while Google News readers prefer Print Media. Several readers requested that I add Twitter to the mix.

Discussion: GigaOM, VentureBeat, Fast Company, 901am, Web Analytics World, Silicon Alley Insider and WebNewser

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Monica Guzman / Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

New media ventures blossom in Seattle — News is ever-changing, and the business of covering it is growing — especially in Seattle. — On Thursday, seattlepi.com marks a year as an online-only Web site. It emerged as a successor after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper ceased publication on March 17, 2009.

Discussion: The Daily Weekly, PubliCola and HyperlocalBlogger

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Why the Future of Video Ads Looks a Lot Like Ancient History — Video publishers are still monkeying around with different ad formats. The latest, used by just about everyone except Google's YouTube (GOOG), is a menu that lets video watchers pick their own ad before the video starts.

Discussion: AdAge and A.V. Club

Mike Taylor / FishBowlNY:

New York Observer to Relaunch ‘Media Mob’ Blog — The New York Observer will be relaunching its “Media Mob” blog tonight under the name “Media Mob With Koblin and Gillette,” FishbowlNY has learned. — As the name indicates, the new vertical will prominently feature print media reporter John Koblin …

Discussion: FishBowlDC

Jason Fell / Folio:

Publishers Make, Save Money Through Partnerships — In tough times, some publishers lean on each other to get by. — The business of magazine publishing isn't what it was five years ago. On the consumer side, publishers saw advertising pages slide 25.6 percent in 2009 …

Discussion: The Wire

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

Deadline Panic at AOL Over Hipster Contributors — AOL hired an army of underemployed music lovers to interview bands at South by Southwest. But the citizen journalists, paid $50 per story, are missing their deadlines, so AOL sent a panicked mass email (below).

Discussion: Ex-Spectator, Romenesko, FishBowlLA and Silicon Alley Insider

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Times Online Blocks Media Monitor Meltwater — Public relations news monitor Meltwater, which is still refusing to pay UK newspapers for crawling their websites, has now been blocked from indexing Times Online, the most serious of Rupert Murdoch's UK newspapers.

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Audit Bureau Revises Guidelines For Broader Inclusion Of E-Reader Newspaper, Mag Editions — With pre-orders for the iPad off to a fast start in preparation for the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) product's release next month, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has modified its guidelines for counting sales …

Discussion: MediaPost, mediaelites, Guardian and Online

Aaron / YouTube Biz Blog:

Opening up YouTube to new display advertisers — One of our goals is to democratize access to display advertising and make it accessible and open — like search advertising — so new advertisers can participate easily. We launched Display Ad Builder in 2008 to help businesses easily set up and run display ad campaigns.

Discussion: ClickZ, paidContent, fierceonlinevideo.com … and NewTeeVee

Paulgillin / Newspaper Death Watch:

Garfield on Media Chaos — In this video interview, Bob Garfield, the author of The Chaos Scenario discusses the changes being brought about by the collapse of the mass advertising model, and with it the mass media. While Garfield is fundamentally optimistic about the future …

Jason Fell / Folio:

Trade Magazine Ad Pages Fell Nearly 30 Percent Last Year — B-to-b titles fared only slightly worse than consumer counterparts. — The advertising fallout that pummeled consumer magazines in 2009 also hammered b-to-b magazines. Advertising pages for trade magazines declined 28.6 percent compared …

Discussion: The Wire and FishBowlNY

Elisehu / Hey Elise:

Contextualizing Context — Some great thinkers in media are leading what I'll call the “context movement”, a push toward giving audiences more satisfying, better understanding of the worlds in which they live instead of simply presenting ephemeral, episodic stories as journalists always have.

Discussion: @JeremyLittau, Strange Attractor and The Future of Context

Erik Heinrich / Time:

Cisco CRS-3 Router Speeds Streaming, Worries Film Execs — The Cisco CRS-3 Carrier Routing System, a next-generation Internet router, can handle 12 times the Internet traffic of the nearest competing product — Steve Wisbauer / Photodisc / Getty Images — Cisco's CRS-3 router made a bit …

Discussion: fierceonlinevideo.com …

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Boulder way: A bookstore's experiment with microdistribution — The “Recommended” section at the Boulder Book Store, an independent bookseller in Colorado, features a mix of titles and genres. And also: a mix of distribution models. Among the traditionally published works on display stand …

Peter Kirwan / Wired.co.uk:

Ads nauseam: The battle to save UK privacy online — Two years ago, BT did something odd. It ran a trial of behavioural advertising technology developed by a company called Phorm without seeking permission from 18,000 of its broadband customers. — BT's covert trial may yet land Ian Livingstone …

Todd Shields / Bloomberg:

FCC Broadband Plan Raises Broadcasters' Alarm, Wireless Cheer — The U.S. plan to expand high-speed Internet service might come at a cost to broadcasters and that may signal a fight when lawmakers are asked to help turn television airwaves over to wireless competitors.

Discussion: Online NewsHour and Epicenter

Marlow Riley / mediaelites:

The Last Pop Star: Michael Jackson's Estate Signs the Biggest Record Contract in History — Despite the general industry downsizing, labels are still willing to pay to make Michael Jackson the next Tupac. His estate has just signed a $200 million contract with Sony (that could go up to $250 million) …

Discussion: The Wire and Los Angeles Times