Mediagazer: Block by Block: Once you've launched, what's Phase 2 of a community news startup? (Megan Garber/Nieman Journalism Lab)

1:20 AM ET, September 28, 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, MediaMemo, paidContent, VentureBeat, Runnin' Scared, At Your Servers, Silicon Alley Insider, Gawker, Bay Area BizTalk, WebNewser, L.A. Times Tech Blog, PE Hub Blog, Tech Trader Daily, broadstuff, Soup and The Seattle Times, more at Techmeme »

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:

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, The Wrap, FishbowlNY and New York Magazine

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

Wall Street Journal:
To Advertisers, Twitter's a Fledgling

Discussion: MediaPost, FM Blog, ReadWriteWeb, Silicon Alley Insider, The Next Web, Gawker and The Wall Blog

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:
Twitter Boosts Marketer Reach With Plan to Blast Promoted Ads

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

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

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.

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, Ben Smith's Blog, Gawker 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: The Atlantic Wire, Neatorama and kottke.org

Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:

The real-time curation wars (exclusive first look at Curated.by) — Back in March I wrote a post about the seven needs of real-time curators. Over the next week or so no less than three companies are shipping services that will fulfill that dream with tools that comply with all seven needs.

Discussion: iMediaConnection Blog and PSFK

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
There Are Stories Out There On Twitter, Flickr, YouTube — Build Them With Storify

Discussion: VentureBeat

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 and WebNewser

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, ReadWriteWeb, Neowin.net, The Next Web, TechFlash, PC Magazine, Raanan Bar-Cohen 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 »

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

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Block by Block: Once you've launched, what's Phase 2 of a community news startup? — Jay Rosen called it “entrepreneur atomization overcome.” And, for an event that put nearly 100 formerly disconnected community news publishers together in one place, it's an apt description.

Discussion: Jen Lee Reeves, Vtdigger.org and BlockByBlock

Steve Green / Las Vegas News from the Las Vegas Sun:

Executive says suing over R-J copyrights worth the negative publicity — One of the executives behind the copyright infringement lawsuits over online Las Vegas Review-Journal stories says the newspaper industry hasn't done a good job of protecting its copyrights.

Discussion: Romenesko and mediabistro.com

/ Jonathan Stray:

Designing journalism to be used — There are lots of reasons people might want to follow the news, but to me, journalism's core mission is to facilitate agency. I don't think current news products are very good at this. — Journalism, capital J, is supposed to be about ideals such as “democracy” and “the public interest.”

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 …

Dean Starkman / CJR:

Of Hamsters and Values — “The Hamster Wheel,” my argument against news organizations' cranked-up productivity requirements for reporters, generated some nice discussion, including a post by Felix Salmon over at Reuters, who pushed back against some of its main points.

James Hibberd / The Hollywood Reporter:

Another Twitter feed gets CBS comedy deal — Exclu: Call it “$#*! My Roommate Says.” — CBS is developing two new comedies, including a project based off a Twitter feed produced by social-media master Ashton Kutcher. — Following on the successful launch of its Twitter-inspired comedy “$#*!

Discussion: Mediaite, From Inside the Box, Splitsider, Gawker, WebNewser, Movieline, TV Tattle and New York Magazine, more at Techmeme »

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

Tara Conlan / Guardian:

Why children's television has to rely on merchandising deals — As the BBC celebrates 60 years of television shows for children, the genre faces a funding dilemma — Once upon a time, 60 years ago, the BBC children's department was born. From the appointment of Freda Lingstrom in 1950 …

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 …