Mediagazer: How The Most Expensive Penis Joke Ever Killed Gothamist

Deal Between Gothamist and Rainbow Media is Officially Dead — We don't know whether Knicks and Cablevision owner James Dolan will be writing a new blues song about this, but we've learned here at the Voice that what was earlier just a rumor is now definitely true …

Discussion: Gawker, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine, NYConvergence, DealBook and New York Observer

Choire / The Awl:

The Strange, True Story of Gothamist and Jimmy Dolan — Gothamist, a metro website company, founded in 2003, now has 13 city-specific websites, which reach 2.7 million unique readers a month, according to Quantcast. For a long time, in my opinion, Gothamist was stubborn about growing as a business.

Discussion: Mediaite and Gawker

Jon Bershad / Mediaite:

How The Most Expensive Penis Joke Ever Killed Gothamist - Rainbow Deal — The multi-million dollar deal for Rainbow media to buy Gothamist and its family of local city blogs has fallen apart and, yesterday, the Village Voice wrote a post theorizing that most of the blame fell on an article …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

YouTube's Secret “News Experiment” Explained! (Warning: Not Really That Secret) — Is YouTube getting into the local news business? No, not really. — But! SF Weekly has a weird, confusing tale about YouTube's sort of secretive effort to launch a “local news experiment” in San Francisco.

Discussion: Lost Remote and NewTeeVee, more at Techmeme »

Alexia Tsotsis / The Snitch:

YouTube Explains Top Secret ‘News Experiment’ to Local Media, But Doesn't Really — Sometimes this new media transition thing can be so, how you say, awkward. — According to SFAppeal blogger Eve Batey, Google-owned video aggregator YouTube is up to some hush hush citizen journalism project here in our very own San Francisco.

Discussion: HyperlocalBlogger and MediaPost Raw, more at Techmeme »

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Diller says paywalls at NYT, other media will eventually work — Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, spoke with Bloomberg Television's Betty Liu about the outlook for readers paying for online content. Diller said that, like the music business, paid content online will eventually succeed.

Discussion: The Wrap

Diller Says Valuations Kept IAC From Buying Companies — Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, said recent acquisitions his company considered fell apart over valuations. — IAC, which operates the Ask.com search site and the Match.com dating site …

Discussion: New York Observer and Company Town

Prescott Shibles / eMedia Vitals:

Should publishers trust Google's new paywall initiative? — Google is currently recruiting publishers for a new paid content system that will launch by the end of the year, according to a report in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. While Google has positioned this move as a means of helping newspapers …

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

5 Staffers Flee Newsweek, Hedge-Funder Phil Falcone May Be Trying To Buy It (WPO) — All's been quiet on the Newsweek front recently, but here are a few interesting updates. — By our count, five staffers have left Newsweek since The Washington Post Co. announced on May 5 that it was putting the money-losing magazine up for sale.

Zeke Turner / New York Observer:

Jim Frederick Named Online Managing Editor of Time — John Huey and Rick Stengel named Jim Frederick online managing editor of Time.com and the executive editor of Time magazine in an announcment to Time Inc. staff this morning. — “In addition to running TIME.com, Jim will continue …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and New York Magazine

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Cooper Becomes Loud Voice for Gulf Residents — “There aren't any small people here,” the CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said from Louisiana on his prime-time program Wednesday night, emphatically rejecting the remarks by BP's chairman that the oil company cares “about the small people.”

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Inside Cable News and Romenesko

Guardian:

Sky Sports News to go behind paywall in battle with Freeview — Subscription model seen as best bet over long term, while analysts say Sky may load rival with poor content — News Corporation is to put another of its services behind a paywall as it emerged yesterday that Sky Sports News is to be pulled from Freeview.

Discussion: Shaping the Future …

Nielsen Wire:

Web Users Alter Surfing Habits Very Little While Watching TV — While new devices like the iPad continue to drive simultaneous usage (people watching TV while they are also online) there appears to be very little difference between people's online usage habits when they're watching TV and when they are not.

Discussion: TVbytheNumbers

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Ustream's Live Mobilizer Gives Bands And Brands Live Streaming iPhone Apps — Popular live video platform Ustream is adding a new product to its repertoire today: an iPhone application platform called Ustream Live Mobilizer that offers brands, celebrities, and bands a customizable iPhone application …

Discussion: Beet.TV

Ben Dowell / Guardian:

Peter Riddell to quit Times after 19 years — Veteran Times journalist to leave as part of latest round of voluntary redundancies at the paper — Veteran Times political commentator Peter Riddell is leaving the paper after 19 years as part of the latest round of voluntary redundancies …

Discussion: Press Gazette

Michael Shain / New York Post:

Hooked up — CNN matches Spitzer with columnist. Eliot Spitzer has found a new woman. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is the “leading candidate” to share a new 8 p.m. show on CNN with the former governor, according to sources close to the talks. Parker, 58, is probably best known …

Discussion: Mediaite and Inside Cable News

Stuart Elliott / New York Times:

Advertising: Known Faces Displace Amateurs in Online Videos — Just as the unknowns who showed up on screen in the early days of television gave way to radio and movie stars like Jack Benny and Bob Hope, more famous faces are supplanting everyday people in Web series, particularly when the video clips are sponsored by advertisers.

Discussion: iMediaConnection Blog

Laura McClure / Mother Jones:

I Can Haz Media Empire? — He's allergic to cats. He's got surprisingly good grammar. Meet Ben Huh, the meme maestro behind LOLcats and FAIL Blog. — Post Comment — People usually don't know quite what to make of the Cheezburger Network, and CEO Ben Huh wishes more of them would just ask.

Mike Reynolds / Multichannel News:

Multiplatform Usage Soars Around World Cup: ESPN XP Research — Those Watching TV, Using Three Other Platforms, Spent Over 5 Hours Daily WIth FIFA Tourney — Futbol fans are cottoning to ESPN's myriad platforms presenting 2010 World Cup matches and fare.

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, paidContent:UK, NewTeeVee and MediaMemo

Aaron Chimbel / Online Journalism Review:

News convergence isn't easy for student journalists, either — By Aaron Chimbel: The Millennials in our journalism classrooms are supposed to be wizards of the Web. After all, almost their entire lives have been spent consuming media in a converged landscape, reading newspaper stories …

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

BBC Worldwide makes move into pay-to-play gaming — BBC Worldwide bids to open up new revenue stream as it faces loss of income from having to hive off part of its magazines — BBC Worldwide is to make its first foray into pay-to-play gaming linked to TV programming with an online version of The Weakest Link.

Discussion: Gamasutra and Digital Spy

EditorandPublisher.com:

E&P's Interactive Media Conference Kicks off with a Wake-up Call — NEW YORK — Editor & Publisher's Interactive Media Conference opened with a roar Wednesday with an opening keynote by Journal Register Co. CEO John Paton — who urged those in attendance at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino …

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

EXCLUSIVE: Battle Raging Over Age Listings on IMDb — By listing birth dates, industry workers say the popular movie database leads to age discrimination — One of the biggest movie sites in the world, IMDb.com, is facing a hornet's nest of controversy over its policy of publishing the ages …

Discussion: Tuned In, Cinema Blend Feeds, newsfeed.time.com, /Film and Company Town

Rick Klau / tins:

Techdirt saves journalism - Harper's Magazine — Last night I was lucky to be invited to join a group of super smart people at an event hosted by Techdirt (and sponsored by Google). The event was provocatively (and with tongue planted firmly in cheek) titled “Techdirt Saves* Journalism” …

Joe Mandese / MediaPost:

MediaDailyNews: WPP Digital Acquires Stake In Real-Time TV Analytics Firm — WPP Digital Acquires Stake In Real-Time TV Analytics Firm — Madison Avenue giant WPP Group has made another strategic investment in an advanced TV industry developer, acquiring a stake in Ace Metrix …