Mediagazer: Welcome to Slate Labs (Slate)

11:40 AM ET, August 10, 2010

Top News:

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

It's Official: EPIX, Netflix Announce “Multi-Year” Deal For Streaming Movies — EPIX and Netflix, mum yesterday, are now happy to talk. The two companies have confirmed a big, expensive deal which gives Netflix the ability to show the pay TV service's movies on its streaming video offering.

Discussion: Company Town, Beet.TV, VentureBeat and NewTeeVee, more at Techmeme »

Claudia Eller / Company Town:

Netflix and Epix working on major digital partnership to shake up pay TV landscape — In a deal that could transform the landscape for digital movie distribution, start-up pay-TV channel Epix is in serious negotiations to give Netflix exclusive online rights to films from its three equity partners …

Discussion: NewTeeVee, Multichannel, Online Video News, TVWeek.com, paidContent, Media Decoder, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, CrunchGear, MediaMemo and Gizmodo

Big Think:

Carl Bernstein: The “Golden Age” of Investigative Journalism Never Existed — Legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein says that he's not as concerned about the state of investigative journalism as some of his contemporaries are—in fact, he thinks that newspapers like the New York Times …

Discussion: Guardian

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:

Google Agonizes on Privacy as Ad World Vaults Ahead — A confidential, seven-page Google Inc. “vision statement” shows the information-age giant in a deep round of soul-searching over a basic question: How far should it go in profiting from its crown jewels—the vast trove of data it possesses about people's activities?

Discussion: Company Town, The Huffington Post, Gizmodo, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, John Battelle's Searchblog, Silicon Alley Insider and Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, more at Techmeme »

Mike Taylor / FishbowlNY:

ProPublica's Top-Paid Employees All Made Six Figures in 2009 — Add a fat paycheck (by the standards of today's struggling journalism market, anyway) to the list of reasons why it's awesome to work for ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit investigative outfit.

Discussion: Romenesko, eMedia Vitals, WebNewser and The Awl

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Demand Media Is Afraid That Google is Going to Compete With It — In the “risk factors” section of its IPO filing on Friday, content-creation company Demand Media raises an interesting possibility: that Google — which Demand said it relies on for about a quarter of its revenue …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and MarketingVOX

Patrick Smith / psmith, journalist:
Demand Media: The $114 million content machine that has nothing to do with news

Discussion: BoomTown and Silicon Alley Insider

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

BoomTown Checks In at the Online-Only Seattle Post-Intelligencer — A little more than a week ago, while I was in the Pacific Northwest for a Microsoft (MSFT) event, I decided to pay a visit on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. — Or, as its brand is known now: seattlepi.com.

Discussion: Romenesko

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

Times Puts Some Ads Outside The Wall And On iPad As Web Display Reduces — Though they are often cast as distinct business models, advertising and paid content are not necessarily mutually exclusive - or are they? — Observations from Times Newspapers' digital properties point to two different answers...

Discussion: Poynter Online and nicommercial.com

Slate:

Welcome to Slate Labs — Today we're kicking off an exciting new project at Slate called “Slate Labs,” which you've apparently already located if you're reading this. See that “labs” in the URL, where it should say “www”? That means you're officially off the reservation.

Discussion: Brooks in Beta and Romenesko

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Twitter Hires Sales Force From Yelp, Facebook — Meanwhile, Virgin America Uses Automated Tool to Buy Tweets — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Want to buy an ad on Twitter? Now there's someone to call. — The micro-blog service, which still classifies itself as “pre-revenue,” …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, The Wall Blog and Local Media Watch, more at Techmeme »

Soup:

Why TBD.com is better executed than most news sites. — Today TBD.com launched, a local Washington D.C. news site that understands how the web works. — First, they're linking out to stories that they didn't write. Sites like Techmeme and Mediagazer are eating the lunch of MSM news sites …

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
First Look: TBD Wants More From Users But Does It Deliver?

Discussion: DNAinfo.com, Romenesko, Mashable!, Mediaite, New York Observer, GigaOM and National Media

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Bloggers And Cable Pundits: The New Newsmakers … This summer's lurching news cycle has served up fresh evidence that the legacy media have less say than ever in determining what stories to consider newsworthy — and which not to. — Instead, as new media players drive much of the news agenda …

Newsweek:

Take This Blog and Shove It! — When utopian ideals crash into human nature—sloth triumphs. — In the history of the web, last spring may figure as a tipping point. That's when Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”—a site that grew from 100,000 articles in 2003 …

Tricia Duryee / paidContent:

How Two Former Ringtone Giants Are Faring As That Market Crumbles — Ten years ago, three brothers in Germany founded Jamba, jumping head-first into the global fad of selling ringtones, which ultimately grew to be a billion-dollar industry. Since then, the well-known mobile content company has taken a number of twists and turns.

Robin J Phillips / BusinessJournalism.org …:

Former BusinessWeek.com editor launches b-school site — John A. Byrne, former editor of BusinessWeek.com and the man behind BusinessWeek's influential b-school rankings, launched a new website today. — PoetsandQuants.com, a site devoted to the coverage of graduate business school education …

Leslie Katz / CNET News:

Could MetaMirror reflect future of interactive TV? — Like to get instant player stats and trivia while watching TV sports matches? MetaMirror, a concept software platform out of Ireland, would overlay such data on a secondary device, keeping your television screen free of extra clutter while you watch the big game.

Discussion: PSFK

Alex Alvarez / FishbowlNY:

U.S. Magazine Circulation Falls — Well, Food Network Magazine might have cause to celebrate, but, overall, newsstand sales aren't looking so great. The Audit Bureau of Circulations shows that total circulation for 440 magazines dropped 2.3 percent to 313.8 million from this time last year.

Discussion: Bloomberg, AdAge and The Wrap

The Wall Blog:

The Times points way with new infographics for the iPad — by @gordonmacmillan, posted on 9 August, 2010 at 2:13 pm, filed under Apps, Media Owners and tagged Apple iPad, Applied Works, Battle of Britain, George Osbourne, Manolo Blahnik, Open web, Sex and the City, The Times. Bookmark the permalink.

Danielle Sacks / Fast Company:

Alex Bogusky Tells All: He Left the World's Hottest Agency to Find His Soul — Alex Bogusky, the Elvis of advertising, has left the business. Is this a New Age midlife crisis or his greatest rebranding campaign? — “The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation …

Discussion: alexbogusky's posterous, MediaPost, AdScam/The Horror!, Gawker and AdPulp

New York Times:

Hewlett Took a P.R. Firm's Advice in the Hurd Case — SAN FRANCISCO — As the career of Hewlett-Packard's chief executive Mark V. Hurd hung in the balance, a public relations specialist convinced the company's directors that H.P. would endure months of humiliation if accusations of sexual harassment …

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider, Fortune, VentureBeat, BoomTown, DailyFinance, VatorNews, Gizmodo, Engadget, Electronista and blogs.ft.com, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Hampp / AdAge:

If You Build a Web Series Around It, Will They Come? — For Some Brands, the Answer Is an Enthusiastic Yes; for Others, Not So Much — LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — In the past three years, it seems “Make me a branded web series” has become the new “Make me a viral video” for marketers …

Discussion: Beet.TV and NewTeeVee