Mediagazer: How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made (Marshall Kirkpatrick/ReadWriteWeb)

4:35 PM ET, July 15, 2010

Top News:

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made — How do you take the social web by storm in a day, winning over even the coldest of hearts and gaining international acclaim - with commercials? — A team of creatives, tech geeks, marketers and writers gathered in an undisclosed location in Portland …

Robin Sloan / Snarkmarket:

Why Old Spice matters — So the Old Spice campaign was funny, surprising, and perfectly-calibrated. These would be reasons enough to like it. But I'm not going to let you stop there. Here's how I think the campaign establishes an important new precedent—not for online advertising, but for online storytelling across the board.

Discussion: Fast Company, NewTeeVee, make the logo bigger, New York Magazine, brandflakesforbreakfast and WatchingTV Online

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

Penthouse Owner Makes $210M Bid for Playboy — Marc Bell, owner of Penthouse magazine and FriendFinder networks, made his promised bid on Playboy Enterprises on Thursday, offering to pay $210 million for the struggling bunny brand. — Bell's bid is effectively $25 million …

Discussion: Romenesko, MinOnline, Multichannel, Folio, Gawker, The Wire, MarketWatch, Hollywood Reporter, Chicago Breaking Business, Globe and Mail, Baltimore Sun, AVN, FishbowlNY, Stocks To Watch Today and Jezebel

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Wait, Google Is Responding To Algorithm Criticism Behind A Paywall? — The New York Times ran a controversial op-ed piece yesterday entitled “The Google Algorithm.” Basically, the piece wonders if the government shouldn't step in to control the way Google tweaks its search engine results.

Discussion: Financial Times

New York Times:

The Google Algorithm — Google handles nearly two-thirds of Internet search queries worldwide. Analysts reckon that most Web sites rely on the search engine for half of their traffic. When Google engineers tweak its supersecret algorithm — as they do hundreds of times a year …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Hot Air, Technology News, The Next Web, Silicon Alley Insider, Hit & Run and Free Press, more at Techmeme »

Matea Gold / Show Tracker:

PBS dominates News and Documentary Emmy nominations, but CBS also scores big — PBS flexed its usual strength when the News and Documentary Emmy nominations were announced Thursday, racking up 37 nods for its coverage of Taliban youth, the death of Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan …

Kevin Allocca / TVNewser:
Letterman Extortionist Nominated for News & Doc Emmy

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Wrap, Mediaite, Moraes on TV and Gawker

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Blog Networks Try One More Time to Turn Local Journalism Into Cash — Can building a network of local bloggers help turn online journalism into a money-making proposition? Two new media ventures are hoping that it can, and have partnered with a startup called GrowthSpur to try and make that hope become a reality.

Discussion: Journal Register Company, NetNewsCheck Latest and GrowthSpur Blog

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Is There an iPad Premium? Hearst Says Its Popular Mechanics App May Cost More Than the Print Version — Internet axiom: Digital stuff-movies, music, whatever-should cost less than its physical counterparts. Because it costs less to make it. — But don't tell Hearst.

David Kaplan / paidContent:
Hearst Magazines Outlines Major App Rollout For Second Half Of 2010

Discussion: MediaPost, Poynter Online, eMedia Vitals, Crain's New York Business, AdAge and New York Observer

Emma Hall / AdAge:

Virgin Plans New Magazine as IPad App if Advertisers Sign Up — Billionaire Branson's Daughter Holly Is in Charge of Project — LONDON (AdAge.com) — Virgin is planning to extend its brand into consumer magazines with the launch of a new title, Maverick, which will be available as an app for the iPad, iPhone and eventually, Android.

Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:

Washington Post acquires iCurrent, a personal news aggregator (exclusive) — The Washington Post Company has acquired iCurrent, an online tool that allows users to collect news automatically according to their interest. The purchase price was not disclosed, and while not a big deal, it was likely north of $5 million.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Burst Media Company Blog, paidContent, Inc.com and Guardian

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Newsonomics of the dead cat bounce — [Each week, our friend Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of the news business for the Lab.] — The season's upon us, as newspaper and media companies announce their second-quarter earnings.

Discussion: Gannett Blog, NetNewsCheck Latest, Romenesko and Associated Press

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

The Daily Caller grabs Olbermann domain name — Tucker Carlson says he's going to start using a new email address: Keith@KeithOlbermann.com. — Carlson, a conservative pundit and editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller site, was in good spirits Thursday after acquiring the domain name …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, WebNewser, The Wire, Inside Cable News, The Huffington Post, Hot Air, Mediaite and New York Magazine

Emily Steel / Wall Street Journal:

Google Wins Omnicom as Ally — Internet Firm Will Help New Partner Tap Ad Exchange in Return for Ad Buying — Google Inc. plans to announce Thursday it has landed advertising company Omnicom Media Group as a partner in online display advertising, an area the Internet giant is seeking …

Discussion: paidContent, MediaMemo, the Econsultancy blog, Search Engine Land, AdExchanger.com and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Andy Alexander / Ombudsman Blog:

Post online strategy: Grow audience, and engagement — Quick quiz: Among staff-written stories, what's generated the most page views on The Post's Web site in the past year? Something about the BP oil spill, perhaps? The Haiti earthquake? The health-care reform vote? — The answer: Crocs.

Discussion: The Latest Word and Romenesko

Steve Buttry / Pursuing the Complete Community …:

Academics measure new media (again) by old-media yardstick — For academics studying whether “citizen journalism” is going to “replace” traditional journalism, let me save you some time: It won't. It's not trying to. It shouldn't. — Journalism is not, never has been and should not become a zero-sum game.

Stu Woo / Wall Street Journal:

Newspaper War Rages in West Marin — POINT REYES STATION — This sleepy town of 800 residents is home to west Marin County's two weekly newspapers. A nasty battle will decide whether it is big enough for both of them. — Last month, the upstart West Marin Citizen accused …

Adweek:

Online Video Ad Segment Poised to Explode — Look for rapid growth over the next few years — The online video advertising market is poised for rapid growth over the next few years, according to eMarketer. — The research firm estimates online video advertising spending will grow …

Discussion: VideoNuze and MediaPost

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Joel Stein makes me feel ‘stomach-sick’ — Commentary: His ‘My Own Private India’ piece is shameful — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — When Joel Stein issued an apology for his recent Time magazine column, entitled “My Own Private India,” he took pains to point out that he felt “stomach-sick” for hurting so many people's feelings.

Todd Spangler / Multichannel News:

Providers Likely To Charge For ‘TV Everywhere’: Analyst — 39% of Pay-TV Subscribers Would Pay $5 or More Per Month for Access to TV on PCs — Cable, satellite and telco TV providers at some point probably will institute a separate subscription for “TV Everywhere” services …

Discussion: MediaPost and WebNewser

Subtraction.com:

A Change — For many months now I've been thinking about the long-term trajectory of my career, wrestling with some serious questions about what it is I want to do with the few talents I'm lucky enough to have. After a lot of internal debate, I came to the conclusion that the time is right for me to make a change in my job.

Discussion: Romenesko, New York Observer and The Wrap

Joshua Cohen / Tubefilter News:

Will Hulu's ‘Ad Selector’ Become Online Video's Advertising Standard? — Online video ad revenues in the US are on track to pass $1.3 billion this year. That's a big industry, but when compared to the behemoth $70 billion business that is traditional television advertising, it's little more than a rounding error.

Discussion: digiday:DAILY, Post Tech and NewTeeVee

Kate Sheppard / Mother Jones:

“They Just Don't Know Who They're Messing With” — If you've been reading Mother Jones lately, you've heard about BP's stranglehold on media access in the Gulf, which has included preventing reporters from visting oil-soaked public beaches and barring its spill cleanup workers from talking to the press.

Discussion: CJR

Jeremy Porter / Journalistics:

Journalists Find Some News Releases Useful — 75 percent of journalists find well-targeted news releases with high-quality content useful, according to a new survey of 750 journalists conducted by Oriella PR Network, an alliance of 15 PR agencies around the world. — Surveys like this drive me crazy.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

Gawker:

News Anchor Admits Chupacabra Story Is a Naked Ploy for Ratings — “What would it be, if we didn't have a story about a chupacabra?” the perky Texas news anchor wondered aloud. Her co-host's reply: “It would not be a ratings month—I'm sorry, can I say that?” — The segment was about this mysterious, headline-grabbing beast.

Discussion: Mediaite and WOAI-TV

Antonina Jedrzejczak / The Wire:

Mediabistro Ramps Up Coverage Of Startups — Mediabistro is beefing up its coverage of startups. — The website announced today that it has hired Kenneth Musante, a freelance writer and former CNN staffer, to write “mb Startups,” a new recurring feature that will appear …