Mediagazer: No Free Lunch for Ning Users; Still Plenty of Bargains Elsewhere (Audrey Watters/ReadWriteWeb)

11:50 AM ET, April 18, 2010

Top News:

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Volcano-Stranded Travelers Turn to Social Media — The Icelandic volcano eruption that stranded hundreds of thousands of travellers in Europe and elsewhere on Friday showed no signs of letting up on the weekend, continuing to belch a plume of ash that covered much of the European continent.

Discussion: The Imagination Age, Telegraph, TechCrunch Europe and Towleroad News #gay

Michael Roberts / The Latest Word:

Ignore user: New web tool lets readers block other kinds of tools — annoying commenters — The more often a given commentator visits a newspaper website, the more likely he is to decide that some of the other commentators bug the hell out of him. — But now, readers …

Laura Sydell / NPR:

Is Apple Acting Like An Old-Time, Broadcast Network? — Back in the day when broadcast networks ruled, they cast a wary eye on anything too political or provocative. — When Joan Baez went on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1968, CBS censored the dedication to her husband who was in jail for resisting the draft.

Discussion: Geekosystem

Clark Hoyt / The Public Editor's Journal:

Anonymous Sources Postscript — Unfortunately, there were more examples of anonymous sources that drew reader complaints than I could include in this week's public editor column. — Here are two more: — James Johnson of Silver Spring, Md., was upset by an article late last month …

Mark Fitzgerald / Editor and Publisher:

More Upbeat News: Moody's Removes Negative Outlook on Newspapers — CHICAGO Moody's Investors Service — the big credit agency firm that over the past 18 months cut its ratings of nearly all newspaper publisher to junk levels — said Friday it had changed its sector outlook for U.S. newspapers to stable, from negative.

Rafat Ali / paidContent:

If SNL Were To Do A Sketch About BusinessWeek Redesign... ...With an earnest young editor, too polished for his own good. Except this isn't a sketch, it is real. BusinessWeek under Bloomberg, brilliantly dubbed Bloomberg BusinessWeek, is relaunching the magazine on Apr 23rd …

Audrey Watters / ReadWriteWeb:

No Free Lunch for Ning Users; Still Plenty of Bargains Elsewhere — The social networking platform Ning announced today that it was making some substantial changes to the company. The news, coming just one month after Jason Rosenthal replaced Gina Bianchini as CEO, was sour for both employees and for many users of the service.

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Social Media Use on the Rise in TV Newsrooms [STATS] — A new study of television, radio and online media by RTDNA and Hofstra University reveals that use of social media in TV newsrooms is on the rise. 77% of TV newsrooms now use Twitter, with 36% of newsrooms claiming they use the microblogging service “constantly.”

Roger Ebert / Roger Ebert's Journal:

Video games can never be art — Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it. That seemed to be a fool's errand, especially given the volume of messages I receive urging me to play this game or that and recant the error of my ways.

Discussion: EdCone.com

Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Tumblr: 'We're pretty opposed to advertising' — NEW YORK — Tumblr is drawing up all kinds of off-the-wall methods to make money from its micro-blogging and social-networking website. Founder David Karp and his 11-person team hasn't quite struck gold yet, but they refuse to venture …

The Atlantic Wire:

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Bill O'Reilly Loves Comcast — It's safe to say Comcast isn't a particularly beloved company. In 2004 and 2007, it had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency. There are entire Web communities devoted to trashing it.

Discussion: Mediaite

Brad McCarty / The Next Web:

Google Wave Helps Journalist Win Pulitzer Prize. — There have been a lot of discussions lately about how the Internet is changing traditional media. Viewpoints from either side tend to await the chance to discredit the other and we end up with story after story about how the Internet is going to be the death of pen and paper news.

Discussion: Google Wave Blog