Mediagazer: Google looks to make peace with Murdoch (Financial Times)

7:10 AM ET, May 19, 2010

Top News:

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Yahoo Buys Associated Content for $100 Million — Deal Will Shore Up Portal's Content Offerings, Help Produce Low-Cost Media — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Yahoo has acquired startup Associated Content for slightly more than $100 million in a deal the at gives the portal new technology and a new strategy for producing low-cost media.

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Yahoo's Buy of Associated Content Makes It a Publisher, Syndicator, Wire, Ad Rep...and More — So what indeed is Yahoo? CEO Carol Bartz has been trying to paint the new picture of it not being in Google's space, but being different. Not a search company, to be sure, a media company of some sort …

Discussion: Romenesko, Kirk LaPointe's … and Silicon Alley Insider

Yodel Anecdotal:

Welcoming Associated Content to the Yahoo! Family — Interview with Luke Beatty, Associated Content @ Yahoo! Video — Today we announced we are acquiring Associated Content, a pioneer in delivering crowd sourced content. We are at their headquarters today talking with employees and I spent …

Discussion: BoomTown, WebNewser, Trends in the Living Networks, Gawker, Epicenter, DealBook and Beet.TV

Steve Krakauer / Mediaite:

Breaking: Campbell Brown Leaving CNN After Network Grants Release From Contract (UPDATE) — Mediaite has learned CNN has granted anchor Campbell Brown's request to be let out early from her contract. — She has agreed to stay on and anchor the 8pmET hour until a replacement is found.

Brian Stelter / New York Times: Cable Bombast and Ratings Lead CNN Anchor to Quit

Financial Times:

Google looks to make peace with Murdoch — Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, said the internet company had had talks with Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper proprietors about helping run subscription services for their online sites

John Gapper / John Gapper's Business Blog: Google is agnostic about charging for news

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:

Users' trust of online news rises — British web surfers say they now trust online news sources more than television bulletins and newspapers, ignoring the adage to never believe what you read on the internet. — A survey of media literacy by Ofcom , the media regulator …

Discussion: The Wire and Kirk LaPointe's …

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Mediagazer: From zero to big traffic driver in just two short months — Last week we were perusing our Google Analytics report here at the Lab and one data point stood out: A site barely two months old had inched into our top 10 referring sites for the previous month.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, WebNewser, TNW Apps and Mediagazer News

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Blumenthal scandal lifts veil on how political campaigns shop opposition research to the press — The New York Times' big scoop on Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal's misrepresented record of service during the Vietnam War wasn't even an hour old when one of Blumenthal's rivals …

Discussion: The Plum Line, The Atlantic Online and The Politico

Jon Ward / The Daily Caller:
McMahon campaign says they ‘fed’ Blumenthal story to New York Times

Discussion: NPR, PostPartisan, New York Times, The Plum Line, The Politico, the nytpicker, Vanity Fair, Romenesko, The Awl and Politics Daily

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

GQ's iPad App Does...Okay — So we're six weeks past the iPad launch. Has Apple's gadget saved the publishing business yet? — Nope. But it might be generating a few extra bucks. — Publishers are being tight-lipped and/or vague about their iPad sales, but here's some directional news …

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog and Poynter Online

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:
GQ's Men of the Year Issue on iPad: 365 Copies Sold

Discussion: VentureBeat, FishbowlNY, BRANDING UNBOUND, Journalism.co.uk, Guardian and New York Magazine

Reuters:

Twitter expects hundreds of advertisers — (Reuters) - Twitter, the rapidly expanding microblogging service, plans to have hundreds of advertisers using its new ad system in the fourth quarter as the company ramps up plans to become a self-sustaining, profitable business.

Discussion: Soup

Tim Elfrink / miaminewtimes.com:

Posner Plagiarizes Again — Disgraced Miami Beach author Gerald Posner is desperate. He apparently whitewashed an account of his serial plagiarism on his Wikipedia page, then threatened Miami New Times with a lawsuit for writing about it. And now he's retained an 83-year-old lawyer infamous …

Discussion: Gawker

Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:

Google to fight government if AdMob deal blocked — (Reuters) - Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Tuesday his company is prepared to fight the U.S. government “very hard” if regulators block the search leader's acquisition of mobile advertising firm AdMob.

Discussion: paidContent

New York Observer:

Si It Isn't So! Condé Considers Move Downtown — Si Newhouse is intent on finding Condé Nast a new home. — Only 11 years after Condé Nast moved into 4 Times Square, Mr. Newhouse has stepped up a three-year-long real estate search and is setting his sights on, of all places, lower Manhattan.

Richard Siklos / New York Observer:

Hollyworld: High-Low Split for Media Pay — Lately, media pay has become something of an extreme sport. — Last we checked, this was an industry in the midst of a recession and a scary transition. And yet Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently ranked the 10 most overpaid CEOs in America last year …

Michael Malone / Broadcasting & Cable:

NBC, Affiliates Work Toward Long-Term Commitment — Body discusses 10-year deals with network — Some 182 NBC affiliates met with the network in New York Monday (May 17) following NBC's upfront presentation at the Hilton. The meeting covered the long-term viability of the network-affiliate relationship …

Discussion: MediaPost

Adam Yamaguchi / The Huffington Post:

Laura Ling: Captive in North Korea — When the phone rings at 1 a.m., I usually ignore it. But early in the morning of March 19, 2009, I awoke to the sound of my cell phone buzzing on the nightstand. It was a call I never expected to get. — Laura Ling and Euna Lee …

Discussion: Associated Press and Gawker

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Tercek Out As OWN Digital Head; Vision Differed From CEO's Plans — His LinkedIn profile still says president of OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Digital Network but paidContent has learned—and confirmed with the company—that Robert Tercek is no longer with the new network.

Alex Weprin / WebNewser:

ESPN Unveils Social Games, Foursquare-Like App At Upfront — ESPN held its 2010 upfront presentation for media buyers, advertisers and the press Tuesday, and interactivity was at the heart of the show. — While much of the presentation focused on what the network has on its linear channels …

Discussion: rbr.com, Multichannel, B&C, FishbowlDC, Media Decoder, GalleyCat and FishbowlLA

David Conn / Guardian:

Lineker quits Mail over FA sting — • Lineker attacks paper for undermining 2018 World Cup bid — • Agent Jon Holmes accuses Mail on Sunday of ‘crass judgment’ — Gary Lineker has quit his weekly column in the Mail on Sunday in protest at the newspaper's publication …

Peter Osnos / The Atlantic Online:

The Rise of Bloomberg News — By any standard, Michael Rubens Bloomberg is one of the most successful public figures of our age. As the third-term mayor of New York, a billionaire many times over, and in the top tier of global philanthropists, he has stature nonpareil among his mogul peers …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, WE ARE YOUR FEK and Inside Cable News

Matthew Belloni / Hollywood Reporter:

NIKKI FINKE IN TALKS FOR HBO PAYDAY — EXCLUSIVE: HBO is trying to make a deal with litigious showbiz blogger Nikki Finke. The network is negotiating an arrangement with Finke to bless “Tilda,” its planned comedy about a Hollywood blogger very much like Finke.

Discussion: Gawker, LA Observed and New York Magazine