Mediagazer: Cable companies make comparison shopping ridiculously tough (Los Angeles Times)

Ellen McCarthy / Washington Post:

Candy Crowley, veteran CNN reporter, takes on competitive Sunday morning slot — There's no secret about what works on cable news these days. — Flashy graphics and raised voices burst through the screen to jostle into our agitated, unfocused, Twitterized minds. — Anchors are loud, beautiful and opinionated.

Discussion: On Media's Blog, Chickaboomer and Inside Cable News

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Li returns to Reuters to become tech and media editor — Thomson Reuters Announces Return of Industry-Leading Journalist Kenneth Li — Kenneth Li appointed Reuters Editor-in-Charge of Technology, Media and Telecoms — New York August 24, 2010 Thomson Reuters today announced the appointment …

Discussion: The Wire and FishbowlNY

Wall Street Journal:

Author to Bypass Publisher — In a significant defection for the book industry, best-selling marketing author Seth Godin is ditching his traditional publisher Portfolio after a string of books and plans to sell his future works directly to his fans. — Guilty Plea in Disney Case

Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:

Google Goes to the Guggenheim to Take YouTube Fare Upmarket — In an effort to woo skittish advertisers to the video sharing service, Google is adding more high-class fare — YouTube will fill the cylindrical atrium of New York's Guggenheim Museum with video installations …

Adrian Monck / Guardian:

Can apps save news journalism? — Wired argues that apps have supplanted the web - but whether the model works for news organisations is another matter — Just when you thought the web was the unassailable media platform of the 21st century, it is cut down by that killer app from the 18th, ye olde magazine.

Discussion: Editors Weblog

John Plunkett / Guardian:

TV ads skipped by 86% of viewers — Nearly 90% of people watching timeshifted shows fast-forward the ads, but TV remains the most memorable form of advertising — Nearly 90% of television viewers always skip through the adverts on their digital video recorder but TV still remains …

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

News Corp. To Integrate Fox Audience Network Into MySpace — News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) is answering some questions about the future of its Fox Audience Network now that president Adam Bain has left for Twitter; the company says it will now be integrating Fox Audience Network's team and technology with MySpace.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, BoomTown, ClickZ, WebNewser, paidContent and lalawag

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Still Surging, Tumblr Rockets Past A Billion Posts — Last month, we gave an update on the state of Tumblr that included some pretty impressive stats: over 6 million users, 1.5 billion pageviews a month, and 4.5 million new posts a day. Throw those all out the window.

malcolm coles:

Want an SEO job? Check out the Daily Mail's robots.txt file ... Want a job as SEO manager at the Daily Mail? Check out their robots.txt file (just don't tell them you saw it here ...). In the middle it says: … Daily Mail's robots.txt file contains an SEO job advert — Genius!

Discussion: TechCrunch Europe, The Next Web, paidContent and Search Engine Land

Zeke Turner / New York Observer:

Washington All-Star Matt Cooper Joins ‘National Journal’ as Managing Editor — The National Journal has added another ace to its increasingly stacked deck of Washington talent. Veteran Matt Cooper has joined the aggressively relaunching Atlantic Media-owned National Journal Group as managing editor.

Discussion: The Wire, On Media's Blog and The Politico

Zachary Woolfe / Capital New York:

The fabulous New York life of Lauren Leto — “I don't want to buy any furniture,” Lauren Leto said. “Literally I have four suitcases. I'm trying to keep it to four suitcases.” — She was sitting with a reporter at Cafe Select on Lafayette Street, just a few blocks from the fully furnished apartment …

Los Angeles Times:

Cable companies make comparison shopping ridiculously tough — There are apparently no state laws or regulations that require telecom firms to disclose taxes and fees up front. — ByDavid Lazarus — Santa Monica resident Dan Sanders was interested in a fully monogamous relationship with Verizon Communications.

Discussion: DSLreports

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Audioboo's new direct messages - the future for personalised radio? — Audioboo is brewing a new feature that will let users send private messages to each other - like Twitter's direct messages, but audio. Destination: Massive. — Describing it as a social answerphone, Audioboo thinks it should be ready for release next month.

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Steelberg Brothers Raise Another $20 Million For Celeb Company BAT — Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT), which uses research and interactive technology to market a massive roster of celebrities, has closed a $20 million third round led by Miramar Venture Partners.

Discussion: TechCrunch

Steve Myers / Poynter Online:

What the Steven Slater Story Says about How News is Created and Shared — When Flight 1052 went wheels-up on Steven Slater's (presumably) last flight with JetBlue, he was just a man. Hours after he took the evacuation slide, he was a legend. — How we got to this point …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Stijn Debrouwere / stdout:

Two cultures in media criticism — Last month, I wrote a guest piece for Paul Bradshaw's Online Journalism Blog about how, sometimes, it's really okay to give readers what they want. The piece got some interesting comments from, well, old-timers in the craft.

Discussion: FleetStreetBlues

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

We Need a “FailFaire” for Journalism Startups — Most experiments fail, but we can learn from mistakes. — Last week we read in The New York Times about a recurring failure-themed party called “FailFaire.” The gathering is meant to inspire conversations about nonprofit ventures gone wrong …

Discussion: Romenesko

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

New: ReadWriteWeb Now Makes You Smarter Than Ever Before (Thanks to Apture) — ReadWriteWeb readers are some of the most educated on the social web, surveys tell us that. Smart people never stop learning, though, do we? Now reading ReadWriteWeb is all the more educational with the addition …

Discussion: TechCrunch and VentureBeat

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:

Press Clips, Day 7, Lunch Edition: “S**tshow"-War-at-The-New-York- Observer-Edition — Press Clips is on hiatus for a special project we're working on. But while we were gone, everything at the New York Observer has gone completely haywire. Here's what's happening: — Observer Madness, Observed:

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Gawker and New York Magazine

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

‘David After Dentist’ and a New Brush With Fame — We've all been there. Fresh out of the dentist office after a little procedure that leaves us numb in the jaw or tipsy from laughing gas, or both. But most of us didn't have our parents there to capture it on video as David DeVore did.

Discussion: AdFreak and SocialTimes.com

The Ausiello Files:

Exclusive: Backstage drama erupts at HBO's showbiz-themed ‘Tilda’ as showrunner exits — The future of an HBO project that's loosely based on Hollywood's irascible blogger Nikki Finke is in doubt after an on-set blowout that's strikingly similar to some of the juicy posts that can be found on Deadline.com.

Discussion: Gawker, TV Squad, TVWeek.com, New York Magazine and Movieline

R. Thomas Umstead / Broadcasting & Cable:

Fox Debuts On-Demand Product — Network marks first cable VOD foray with Cox pact — Marking the first time Fox has offered its top programming fare via a cablebased video-on-demand platform, a slate of Fox shows will make their cable VOD debuts this week on most Cox Communications systems …