Mediagazer: Effron leaves The Week to join Thomson Reuters (Jim Romenesko/Romenesko)

8:45 PM ET, August 2, 2010

Top News:

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Harman Signs Deal to Buy Newsweek From Washington Post Co. — It's Official: Audio Tycoon to Take Control of Storied Newsweekly — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — It's official: Sidney Harman, the businessman who made his fortune selling stereo equipment, has secured a deal to buy Newsweek …

Washington Post:

Dr. Sidney Harman to Purchase Newsweek from The Washington Post Company — Companies: — Related Quotes — SymbolPriceChange — WPO — 433.89 — WASHINGTON—(BUSINESS WIRE)—The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO - News) announced today that it has signed a contract to sell Newsweek to Dr. Sidney Harman.

Discussion: Newsweek, Romenesko, The Huffington Post, Mediaite and On Media's Blog

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Newsweek editor Meacham expected to leave after sale — Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jon Meacham is expected to exit after the deal to sell the magazine to stereo-mogul Sidney Harman is completed, The Post has learned. — “Meacham has told [Harman] he should look for a new editor and is ready …

Discussion: The Wrap, paidContent, AdAge, MediaMemo, Romenesko, Gawker and FishbowlNY

Michael Corkery / Deal Journal:
The 411 on Newsweek Buyer Sidney Harman

Discussion: New York Observer, FishbowlNY and New York Magazine

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
Newsweek's Meacham prepares to leave the magazine

Discussion: Romenesko

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News: Newsweek's Fineman helped bring Harman to the table

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:
Newsweek's new owner should make changes

Discussion: Media Decoder

Nick Wingfield / Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft Quashed Effort to Boost Online Privacy — The online habits of most people who use the world's dominant Web browser are an open book to advertisers. That wasn't the plan at first. — In early 2008, Microsoft Corp.'s product planners for the Internet Explorer 8. browser intended …

Discussion: MSDN Blogs, Epicenter, Online NewsHour, AdAge, Stephen Baker, Engadget, Gizmodo, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, The BLT, THINQ.co.uk, Digits, Consumer Reports … and eMedia Vitals

Scott Rosenberg / Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard:
You are not an eyeball: Why tracking is the ad biz's last gasp

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, CJR and cyber.law.harvard.edu

David Kaplan / paidContent:
Ad Tracking Is Getting More Detailed - But Is That A Problem For Consumers?

Discussion: iMediaConnection Blog, NetNewsCheck Latest and LOTAME

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:

Wired to Produce Short Films For iPad — Wired, the magazine about the intersection of tech and culture, launched its iPad edition in June with a buffet of multimedia, including videos, audio and interactive graphics. — With its August issue, it's going one step further …

Discussion: SteveOuting.com, Media Buyer Planner and eMedia Vitals

Max Read / Gawker:

A Guide to Old Media Tumblrs — The hip microblogging service Tumblr isn't just for photo blogs about dogs wearing human clothes anymore! As The New York Times writes today, it's also for media companies flailing about on the internet. Are they succeeding? Let's find out! — Are you familiar with Tumblr?

Jenna Wortham / New York Times:
Media Companies Try Getting Social With Tumblr

Gawker:

Will Wired Proclaim ‘The Web is Dead?’ — Word from inside Wired is the magazine is prepping a cover story in which editor Chris Anderson declares that “the Web is Dead.” At a magazine founded by digital utopians, that would be something close to sacrilege.

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Free Content Isn't a Right, Nor Is His Job, CEO Says — As NBC Universal prepares for a planned takeover by cable giant Comcast Corp., its chief executive, Jeff Zucker , may be auditioning for a big job: his own. — After years of slashing costs at NBC and saying broadcast television is broken, Mr. Zucker sees a brighter outlook.

Discussion: NewTeeVee, Deal Journal, Company Town and BLTv

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Forbes Blogs To Get A Big Upgrade, Every Reporter Will Have One — Forbes.com will complete a major upgrade of all its blogs by tomorrow afternoon, we hear from several sources familiar with the plans. — The blogs will relaunch on a completely revamped WordPress installation that's expected …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Following up on the need for follow-up — Matt Thompson, currently of NPR and always of Snarkmarket, left a comment on my post from Friday about the need for follow-up journalism — including a link to a Snarkmarket post he'd written back in 2007. After reading that entry …

Bill Mitchell / Newspay:

GlobalPost to Test ‘Soft Meter’ with Journalism Online — Phil Balboni believes in his bones that consumers will eventually pay for online news. — But the runway he envisions — maybe 10 or 15 years — is too long to count on, even for the well-financed GlobalPost venture he founded 19 months ago in Boston.

Discussion: paidContent

Richard Gray / Telegraph:

Minority Report-style advertising billboards to target consumers — Advertising billboards similar to those seen in the film Minority Report, which can recognise passers-by, target them with customised adverts and even use their names, are being developed by computer engineers.

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

CBS, Comcast ink 10-year content deal — Comcast gets greater on-demand access to CBS, Showtime — NEW YORK — CBS Corp. and Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable operator, on Monday unveiled a 10-year content and carriage agreement that provides for retransmission consent of CBS TV stations until the year 2020, among other things.

Discussion: TVNewser

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Newsonomics of membership, part 2 — [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.] — New news organizations have embraced the membership model …

Discussion: Romenesko and MinnPost

James Hibberd / The Hollywood Reporter:

Steve Levitan: Take ‘Modern Family’ offline — If it was up to Steve Levitan, his ABC hit “Modern Family” wouldn't be available online. — During an ABC-sponsored coffee break at TCA, Levitan said he's unsuccessfully lobbied Disney-ABC TV Group president Anne Sweeney to remove online versions of his hit show.

Discussion: MediaMemo, NewTeeVee, PopWatch, TVbytheNumbers and TV Tattle

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Effron leaves The Week to join Thomson Reuters — MESSAGE FROM STEPHEN ADLER, SVP & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, PROFESSIONAL DIVISION — Colleagues: — I'm delighted to share the good news that Eric Effron, most recently executive editor of The Week magazine and formerly editor and publisher of Legal Times …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

New Site Aims to Connect Reporters and Publicists — There are few professional relationships that seesaw between love and hate more than those of public relations people and journalists. While they provide valuable help to each other at times, they rarely need the same things at the same time.

Discussion: Romenesko, NewsBasis Blog and Talking Biz News

Will Richmond / VideoNuze:

Howcast is Innovating in Crowded How-to Video Market — Last week I got a heads-up on milestones that Howcast, a player in the how-to video market, has recently achieved, from Sanjay Raman, Chief Product Officer and co-founder. Howcast is now doing about 25 million playbacks per month …

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Elizabeth Spiers Is Launching 4 New Blogs, Working On Conde's Gourmet App — Elizabeth Spiers, the blogger maven and founding editor of Gawker, is launching four new sites for the Toronto-based blog network b5media, she announced today in her email newsletter, SpiersList.

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Yahoo Restructures U.S. Ad Sales Force-With No New Head (But Apparently a Lot of Prince Charmings) — Yahoo announced today that it was restructuring its advertising sales force, after being without a head of its key U.S. unit since mid-March. — Big news: No new top ad sales exec.

Discussion: paidContent and Silicon Alley Insider

David Kaplan / paidContent:

‘Bravo Now’ iPad App Launched To Promote Season Finale Of ‘Bethenny’ — Just in time for the season finale of the Real Housewives of New York City-spinoff, Bethenny Getting Married?, Bravo is introducing an iPad app that it hopes will have users promoting the show as it airs.

Discussion: MediaPost

Silicon Alley Insider / The Wire:

Fake Steve Jobs Interviews Henry Blodget About Digital Media And Business Insider — The Transcript — Newsweek tech editor Dan Lyons (a.k.a., Fake Steve Jobs) was kind enough to send Henry Blodget a bunch of questions a few weeks ago in connection with an article on digital media businesses.