Mediagazer: If You Build a Web Series Around It, Will They Come? (Andrew Hampp/AdAge)

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

First Look: TBD Wants More From Users But Does It Deliver? — Robert Allbritton may only want zip codes, as he told paidContent in an interview, but the staff at newly launched TBD.com wants a lot more... In order to get personalization, users are required to provide full names, zip code, year of birth and even gender.

Discussion: National Media, rbr.com, The Solomon Scandals, Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable, WebNewser, Zombie Journalism and Romenesko

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 …

Erik Wemple / tbd.com:
Letter from the editor: TBD is a little less TBD

Discussion: DNAinfo.com, Mashable!, GigaOM, Mediaite, New York Observer, Romenesko, DCist, Gawker, Lost Remote, E-Media Tidbits, suzanne yada, The Solomon Scandals, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, State of the Fourth Estate, The Wire and Newsonomics

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: Silicon Alley Insider, ReadWriteWeb, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com and John Battelle's Searchblog, more at Techmeme »

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Forbes Bloggers' Compensation Will Be Tied To Web Traffic — Last week, we posed the question of what it means for Forbes' writers that new chief product officer (still not sure what that title is all about!) Lewis D'Vorkin is starting to make some big adjustments to the editorial model.

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: nicommercial.com and Poynter Online

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: Hollywood Reporter, MediaMemo, VentureBeat, Gizmodo and NewTeeVee

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: Romenesko

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 papers like the New York Times …

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 …

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, Gawker, MediaPost and AdPulp

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

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 …

David Carr / New York Times:

A Gamble on a Weekly That Paid Off — Let me get this straight: A very rich guy buys a financially and editorially beleaguered weekly magazine, saying he wants to preserve an important journalistic asset. That will never work, right? — I have three words for the haters: New York magazine.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, MarketWatch, Romenesko, FishbowlNY, eMedia Vitals, New York Observer and On Media's Blog

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: NewTeeVee and Beet.TV

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

AdGrok Simplifies Keyword Bidding And More On Google AdWords — Using Google AdWords for search advertising is necessary for many businesses but choosing the right keywords to bid on can me a challenging task for those who are unfamiliar with the process. There is an art to search engine marketing …

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Can Petraeus shift Afghanistan narrative? — Public support for U.S. involement in Afghanistan continues dropping, according to recent polls. And yet confidence in Gen. David Petraeus—the newly installed commander of the Afghan war initiative—remains comparatively high.

Discussion: The Politico and The Huffington Post

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, The Wall Blog and Local Media Watch, more at Techmeme »

Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:

Google's count of 130 million books is probably bunk — Google's core Internet search technology famously grew out of a grad school project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to index the world's books, and the modern Google Books Project actually touts itself as the part of Google that carries on the founders' original vision.

Discussion: kottke.org and ResourceShelf

David Kaplan / paidContent:

E.W. Scripps Online Revs Rise, Despite Downward Pull Of Print Bundling — E.W. Scripps' online advertising revenues continued to rise in Q2, and the company offers a breakdown that shows where the success is and where it's still struggling. For one thing, it shows the drag that tying print …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost and rbr.com

Johnny Diaz / Boston Globe:

A new read on masculinity — Magazines see a market for stories about parenting, home life — Publisher Lisa Hickey, cofounder Tom Matlack, and editor Benoit Denizet-Lewis of The Good Men Project Magazine, an online venture. (Michele Mcdonald for The Boston Globe)

Discussion: Romenesko

Will Richmond / VideoNuze:

Is Demand Media's “Factory” Approach the Future of Online Video - or Not? — Friday's $125 million IPO filing by Demand Media, the foremost content “factory” or “farm,” raises the question of whether its low-cost, high-volume content creation model is the future for independent online video …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Online Video News and New York Times

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: Fortune, VentureBeat, BoomTown, Gizmodo, Engadget, Silicon Alley Insider and Electronista, more at Techmeme »