Mediagazer: Time Life: The last digital holdout (JP Mangalindan/Fortune)

9:00 PM ET, September 27, 2010

Top News:

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Breaking: AOL Close to Buying TechCrunch — AOL, the New York-based online media company, is on the verge of acquiring TechCrunch, the online blogging network started by former attorney, Michael Arrington. The deal is at a sensitive stage and might fall apart yet, but I don't think so.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Runnin' Scared, VentureBeat, At Your Servers, Silicon Alley Insider, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Talking Biz News, PE Hub Blog, broadstuff, Soup and The Seattle Times

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Study Finds That Apple Dominates Tech News — A customer, Evan Wiendczak, spoke after buying the first iPhone 4 on Fifth Avenue in June. — A new study confirms what some in the technology industry have long sensed: Apple commands an inordinate amount of the media's attention.

Discussion: PC World, blogs.chron.com, Neowin.net, Rebooting The News, FM Blog and 9 to 5 Mac

Journalism.org:

WHEN TECHNOLOGY MAKES HEADLINES — THE MEDIA'S DOUBLE VISION ABOUT THE DIGITAL AGE — The mainstream news media have offered the American public a divided view of how information technology influences society, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:

Breaking: John Koblin Quits the New York Observer (Updated) — We just got word that the New York Observer's star media reporter John Koblin has left the paper. This goes in line with rumors we were hearing that Koblin would be out following his yearly US Open coverage.

Discussion: Romenesko, FishbowlNY, The Wrap and New York Magazine

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:

Direct Line: Peter Kaplan on The John Koblin Hire, An iPad App, and WWD's Future — Well, big media change: John Koblin was hired by longtime former New York Observer editor Peter Kaplan — who is now the editorial director of Fairchild — to go report on media for Women's Wear Daily.

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared: How Angry NYT Editors and HBO's Bored to Death Make the Case for Media Reporting

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Exclusive: Want Twitter to Help You Find More Followers? Pay Up For a “Promoted Account.” — Twitter is still working to get its first two ad products up and running. But it's going to launch a third, anyway: Tomorrow the company will show off “Promoted Accounts” at an ad industry conference in New York.

Discussion: New York Observer, ReadWriteWeb, Lost Remote, The Next Web and Adrants, more at Techmeme »

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Twitter Boosts Marketer Reach With Plan to Blast Promoted Ads — Positive Signs So Far, With Higher-Than-Average Interaction Rate — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Even after six months, campaigns with nearly 40 different marketers and repeat customers such as Ford, Virgin America and Verizon, Twitter still views its ads as experimental.

Discussion: The Next Web, msnbc.com, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Silicon Alley Insider, Softpedia News, Fast Company and eMedia Vitals

Mayhill Fowler:

Why I Left The Huffington Post — Yesterday The Huffington Post “posted” the last piece I will write for them, probably, barring the serendipity of life. Below is my email exchange with Roy Sekoff, the founding editor, on the subject. Arianna Huffington, for her part …

Discussion: Romenesko, Gawker, Ben Smith's Blog and LA Observed

Martin Robbins / Guardian:

This is a headline about science — In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding? — In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes …

Discussion: Neatorama and kottke.org

Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:

AOL Loses Star Media Reporter Jeff Bercovici To Forbes — Veteran media reporter Jeff Bercovici is quitting AOL and going to Forbes, a source tells us. — Forbes is undergoing a transformation under Lewis Dvorkin, who came to the company through its acquisition of True/Slant last spring.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, Gawker, The Wire, The Wrap, Talking Biz News, WebNewser and AdPulp, more at Techmeme »

Paul Kim / WordPress.com News:

Welcome Windows Live Spaces Bloggers — We're excited to announce that WordPress.com is now the default blogging platform for Windows Live Spaces users. We've worked with our partners at Microsoft to create a simple migration service for Spaces bloggers to easily bring all their posts, comments, and photos to WordPress.com.

Discussion: The Windows Blog, PC Magazine, TechFlash, The Next Web, Raanan Bar-Cohen, Neowin.net, ReadWriteWeb and PC World, more at Techmeme »

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Windows Live Outsources Blogging, Migrating 30 Million Users To WordPress.com

Discussion: TechFlash and paidContent, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Gawker's Denton: Twitter's Audience ‘Too Elite’; Blogs Look Ludicrous — In general, online media needs to turn itself into TV, said Gawker Media head Nick Denton, identified in this week's New York magazine as the “demon blogger of Fleet Street,” in a Q&A with AllThingsD's Peter Kafka at the IAB's Mixx 2010 conference.

Discussion: Romenesko

The Politico:

The Fox primary: complicated, contractual — With Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee all making moves indicating they may run for president, their common employer is facing a question that hasn't been asked before: How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll?

Discussion: On Media's Blog, TVNewser, The Huffington Post, The Note, Ben Smith's Blog, The Wire, The Wrap and Disinformation

Malcolm Gladwell / New Yorker:

Why the revolution will not be tweeted. — At four-thirty in the afternoon on Monday, February 1, 1960, four college students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth's in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. They were freshmen at North Carolina A. & T., a black college a mile or so away.

Discussion: MediaMemo, New York Observer and The Awl

Mike Shields / Mediaweek:

Networks Have Sharing Issues With Hulu — Advertisers are drawn to Hulu in part because the site is a popular place for fans to stream shows like NBC's 30 Rock and The Office. Trouble is, Hulu doesn't actually sell any inventory in those shows. — In fact, according to sources …

Discussion: NewTeeVee and TVbytheNumbers

Neerav Bhatt / Rambling Thoughts Blog:

Modern Journalists Technology Toolkit To Cover Live Events — Republishing in full not allowed without permission.. Source: bhatt.id.au/blog/ — In bygone days a journalist covering an event was likely to be accompanied by a photographer, cameraman or both.

Discussion: Poynter Online, Jon Slattery and Teaching Online Journalism

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

Nielsen Introduces New Ad Measurement Product — Proving a return on investment is crucial in advertising, and the Nielsen Company, the media ratings behemoth, is hoping that its new product will help advertisers and media companies measure their investments more accurately.

Discussion: Nielsen Wire, TVWeek.com, MediaPost and GigaOM, more at Techmeme »

Scott Rosenberg / Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard:

Slate: Don't close that corrections window — open it all the way! — Craig Silverman had a fascinating column last week about changes that Slate has made in its corrections policy in the wake of an embarrassing dustup with Politico. Here's Craig's pithy summary of this bizarre Escher-esque episode …

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Times Two — Jill Abramson, the Times' first heiress apparent. — When Jill Abramson moved back to New York from Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2003 at the age of 49 to become managing editor of the New York Times, she commemorated the homecoming like a battle-hardened soldier returning from the front: She got a tattoo.

Discussion: Romenesko and On Media's Blog

JP Mangalindan / Fortune:

Time Life: The last digital holdout — Get your box set via P.O. Box! With dusty product offerings, outdated formats, and an aging demographic, the privately-owned company has nowhere to go but the selling block. — If you're up at night channel-surfing around the tube, you'll still see them …

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

HarperCollins to Start Conservative Imprint, Broadside Books — For a conservative, Adam Bellow has impeccable liberal credentials. He is a longtime resident of the Upper West Side in New York, a son of the novelist Saul Bellow and a book editor in the Manhattan-based (meaning left-wing) publishing industry.

Discussion: DailyFinance, Yahoo! News, GalleyCat, New York Observer, Gawker, On Media's Blog and HarperCollins Publishers

Henry Blodget / The Wire:

Here Are 304 Reasons Why The New York Times Needs To Put Its Paywall Up Immediately — We clicked on a New York Times ad this morning. — Not because we're actually thinking of ponying up to get a paper-based New York Times delivered to our door (why on earth would we do that?

Bloomberg:

Sony, Warner, Disney Said to Plan $30 Home Film-Viewing Option — Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co. are in talks with the largest cable TV systems to offer films for as much as $30 per showing soon after they run in theaters. — The studios are talking with In Demand …

Discussion: Electronista, NewTeeVee, Online Video News, The Wrap, CrunchGear and Technology News, more at Techmeme »

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Literary Icon in New Era — New Yorker Launches on iPad Tablet, Adds to Pressure on Apple for Subscriptions — The New Yorker is launching an iPad version of the magazine Monday, in a significant test of an iconic, old-media brand's efforts to refashion itself for the tablet-computer age.