Mediagazer: Q & A: David Plotz and Chris Wilson on Slate Labs (Lauren Kirchner/CJR)

5:20 AM ET, August 20, 2010

Top News:

Facebook Places: What it means for media brands — Facebook has launched its much-anticipated location-based service, “Facebook Places,” which allows users to “check in” to certain locations such as restaurants, bars, music festivals, etc. Dubbed a “collective memory” …

Discussion: BetaNews, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, CNN, The Snitch, Gadgetwise, Faster Forward, Webmonkey, The Social, VentureBeat, blogs.ft.com, PSFK, CenterNetworks, Financial Times, O'Reilly Radar and Runnin' Scared, more at Techmeme »

Terry Heaton / Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog:

Another opportunity lost — Facebook's announcement yesterday of its entry into the “check-in” space is yet another blow to local media. Local businesses — many of whom already are deep into Facebook — are now being encouraged to create their “places” pages, which is what users will see when they check in via Facebook.

Discussion: Fast Company, TechCrunch, eMarketer and Blog Posts, The Praized Blog and Poynter Online

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Time Inc. breaks the iPad logjam — This week's People app is free to subscribers. Time, SI and Fortune are expected to follow — Image: Time Inc. — There's more to the iPad issue of People that appeared on the Apple (AAPL) App Store this morning than Sandra Bullock's new joy.

Discussion: blogs.ft.com, MarketingVOX and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

AP advises staff on location of Islamic center and mosque — The Associated Press, one of world's most powerful news organizations, issued a memo today advising staff to avoid the phrase “Ground Zero mosque.” — The Upshot reported Tuesday that the AP started using the phrase “Ground Zero mosque” in some headlines in late May.

Discussion: Metropolis, Romenesko, ap.org, Hot Air, Scocca, City Room, Michelle Malkin, Rhetorica, Atlas Shrugs, Media Matters for America and The Daily Caller

Meghan Keane / the Econsultancy blog:
Social media lessons from the “Ground Zero Mosque”

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Politico, Salon and Think Progress

Mike Fleming / Deadline.com:

Google Founders Sergey Brin And Larry Page Get Feature Film Treatment — EXCLUSIVE: The founders of Facebook aren't the only game-changing geeks poised to have their story told on a movie screen. Michael London's Groundswell Productions has teamed with producer John Morris to acquire movie rights …

Discussion: Speakeasy, Crikey, New York Magazine, VentureBeat, Fortune, Gizmodo, Underwire, The Wrap, ScreenCrave.com, L.A. Times Tech Blog and Just Jared, more at Techmeme »

Steve Krakauer / Mediaite:

NBC/MSNBC Get An Iraq Troop Withdrawal Exclusive - But What Did It Mean, And Who Helped? — There's no question NBC News had an impressive, gripping scoop last night: the last U.S. combat troops are leaving Iraq. NBC News' Richard Engel was embedded, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was in Baghdad …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, The Nation, Online NewsHour, New York Times, Guardian, Hot Air, Romenesko and The Wire

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
Pentagon says ‘no favoritism’ toward NBC in coverage of Iraq withdrawal

Discussion: TVNewser, Romenesko, Inside Cable News, Chickaboomer, The Huffington Post, Online NewsHour and B&C

Wall Street Journal:

Get Ready for Ads in Books — For those who think this too radical a notion, consider the overwhelming product placement in movies, music videos and video games. — With e-reader prices dropping like a stone and major tech players jumping into the book retail business, what room is left for publishers' profits?

Discussion: GalleyCat, ReadWriteWeb, The Atlantic Wire and TeleRead, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Hearst Opening ‘Think Tank’ For Apps — As Hearst Magazines continues its app rollout through the end of this year, the publisher is opening an “App Lab” at its New York headquarters next month. The lab will serve as a “think tank” for marketers and ad agency staffers to help jump start some collaborations.

Discussion: Hearst Corporation and MEDIA BEESWAX

Rob ORegan / eMedia Vitals blogs: Hearst Magazines sees 29% YOY growth of digital properties

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

How Technology Is Renewing Attention to Long-form Journalism — When we're constantly inundated with information via e-mail, text messages, push alerts, tweets and Facebook updates, it's hard to make time for that 5,000-word New Yorker essay we bookmarked or the serial narrative we keep telling ourselves we'll read but never do.

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

The New Villains of New Media: Apple, Google & Facebook — They're supposed to be the good guys, right? — No longer. Over the past year, several technology giants have begun to shed their status as white knights. And it's precisely because they've been held to such a high standard …

Discussion: MediaPost

Ryan / Hawaii Blog:

Civil Beat Puts Public Data Behind the Paywall — The headline proclaims, “Civil Beat Shares Hawaii State Employee Salaries” — but there's a catch: you have to pay to get full access to the information. — To be sure, there's a reasonable and deep debate to be had over whether the names …

Chris Faraone / thephoenix.com:

Is micro-news the future? — AOL thinks so, and the Globe and GateHouse are fighting back — AOL is like the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps going and going through a staggering number of transformations and reinventions, and now it's betting $50 million that it can beat America's newspapers …

Discussion: Romenesko and PJNet

Rachel Sterne / The Daylife Blog:

The Accidental News Explorer: Pandora for News — Ready for Pandora for news? — Our friend Brendan Dawes has developed the Accidental News Explorer, an application that “celebrates serendipity” by dynamically revealing related news topics based on the article you're reading.

Discussion: TeleRead

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Bill O'Reilly Used Unknowingly To Sell Investment Scheme — This summer Bill O'Reilly, the biggest star on Fox News Channel, lent his name — inadvertently, Fox says — to a dubious financial scheme peddled by Newsmax, the right-wing Web site. — Mr. O'Reilly was the featured guest …

Discussion: Romenesko, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Inside Cable News and Gawker

Steve Johnson / Chicago Tribune:

For Ben Huh and his Cheezburger Network, Internet success rolls in on little cat feet — Ben Huh came to Chicago in the mid-1990s to find success as a journalist. A decade later, he left it to try to make his mark as an Internet entrepreneur. He has done that, big time.

Discussion: Romenesko and AdPulp

The 48th New York Film Festival:

Film Comment September/October 2010: Revenge of the Nerd — The misanthropic soul at the heart of The Social Network, David Fincher's 21st-century moral tale — It was E.M. Forster, of course, who scripted that immortal, oft-abbreviated imperative: “Only connect, and the beast and the monk …

Discussion: Awards Daily's Oscar Countdown and The Middletown Press, more at Techmeme »

Jim Romenesko / Poynter Online:

Poynter Forums — From BILL BRAZELL: Re: Ms. Huston's defense of the Wall Street Journal on privacy: — On behalf of the WSJ, Ms. Huston ignores all questions of disclosure to assert that “WSJ.com does not sell personally identifiable information of its online users or subscribers.”

Christopher K. Sopher / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The kids are alright, part 2: What news organizations can do to attract, and keep, young consumers — [Christopher Sopher is a senior at the University of North Carolina, where he is a Morehead-Cain Scholar and a Truman Scholar. He has been a multimedia editor of the Daily Tar Heel and has worked for the Knight Foundation.

Discussion: Younger Thinking

MediaShift:

Social Media, Entrepreneurship Dominate AEJMC 2010 — Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.

Nick Axelrod / WWD:

No News at the New York Times Magazine... Fashion at Google: Out or In?... NO NEWS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The proposals are in to executive editor Bill Keller (he received upward of 20 applications, according to sources), but that's as far as The New York Times has gotten in the process …