Mediagazer: It's Official: AOL Acquires TechCrunch (Nick Saint/The Wire)

1:10 PM ET, September 28, 2010

Top News:

Tim Armstrong: We Got TechCrunch! — I'm very pleased to announce that we have acquired TechCrunch. Details are in the press release below, and I'm sure founder Michael Arrington will have a few words to say as well. This is a great complement to our continued investment in world class content.

Nick Saint / The Wire:

It's Official: AOL Acquires TechCrunch — It's official: speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, Michael Arrington just announced that AOL has acquired the leading tech blog. — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong joined Arrington on stage, and the two just signed the agreement in front of the crowd.

Discussion: MediaMemo, Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent and TechCrunch

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Why I am Not a Journalist: A True Story — The short answer is: I wanted to be, but I screwed it up, so I couldn't be. — Discovering journalism in college saved me. At the time (1976) I was on a track that would have led to an assistant manager's job at an Applebees.

Discussion: Romenesko and Media Nation

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Exclusive: Here's a Deal That Is Happening-AOL Buying Web Video Distributor 5Min — Here's a deal we can confirm: AOL is buying Web video start-up 5Min Media. — The price for the deal is between $50 million and $65 million, sources close to the situation said. AOL (AOL) plans to announce the deal Tuesday morning.

Discussion: New York Observer, Online Video News, Deal Journal, The Huffington Post, paidContent, VC Cafe and Silicon Alley Insider, more at Techmeme »

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Confirmed: AOL Buys Video Syndication Company 5min (For $65 Million)

Discussion: MediaMemo, Business Wire, Online Video News and NewTeeVee

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Huffington Post fires back at ex-blogger Fowler — The Huffington Post is firing back at Mayhill Fowler, one of the site's many unpaid bloggers, who scored a major political scoop during the 2008 presidential campaign. — Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz took issue with Fowler's decision Monday …

Discussion: LA Observed and Romenesko

Mayhill Fowler:
Why I Left The Huffington Post

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

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

TheWeek.com Staffs Up With Radar Refugees — For years, The Week didn't concern itself much with the web. It's a publication, after all, that already performs the same basic function as most blogs and aggregators — curating and contextualizing the news cycle; only it does so in print, and on a weekly basis rather than a daily one.

Discussion: Romenesko, mediabistro.com and Most Recent Home Page Posts …

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Analyst: NBC Network Is Worth ‘Negative $600 Million’ — USA's estimated value: $11.7 billion. — NEW YORK — USA Network is the most valuable part of NBC Universal at $11.7 billion, but the NBC network is worth a negative $600 million, according to Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan.

Discussion: Company Town, NewTeeVee, TVbytheNumbers and Mediaweek

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL's Project Devil Aims To Update The Banner Once And For All — Just in time for the first day of New York City's Advertising Week, AOL (NYSE: AOL) sought to get a jump on attention getting news with its latest effort to build a better advertising business.

Dan Zak / Washington Post:

‘The Wire’ writer David Simon among MacArthur genius grant winners — David Simon bristled as he listened to the voice mail. A lawyer in Washington wanted to talk about a “personal matter.” Expecting a lawsuit or subpoena or worse, Simon dialed her back after a lunch in Baltimore two weeks ago.

Discussion: New York Observer, New York Times, Reuters, The Awl, TV Tattle, New York Press and New York Magazine

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books — Author John Pipkin worries about the e-book business model: 'I've had to rethink my plans in terms of supporting my family full time as a writer.' — When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel “Sleight” this year …

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

/ 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.”

Discussion: Text Technologies and Rebooting The News

Jack Shafer / Slate:

The Op-Ed Page's Back Pages — Upon turning 40 years old last week, the New York Times op-ed page threw an 18-page party for itself in its print edition (Sept. 26) and staged a weeklong—Sept. 20-27—celebration on the Web. As self-lionizing shindigs go, the Times affair was fairly sedate.

Discussion: New York Times

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

There Are Stories Out There On Twitter, Flickr, YouTube — Build Them With Storify — The main reason I love services like Tumblr and Posterous is that they make personal blogging simple. While you certainly still can write long-winded pieces about whatever you want, you can also just use …

Discussion: VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:

Condé Nast Creates Award, Perk for Business-Savvy Editors — Historically, Condé Nast editors have worked in a rarified world where they were encouraged to put out the best quality magazines possible, without regard to costs. — Now come new signs that editors are being encouraged to adopt a business mind-set.

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:

How Angry NYT Editors and HBO's Bored to Death Make the Case for Media Reporting — Well, it's media reporting day-a-palooza here, which means that seven more people are reading this blog than they are on the average day. So while we're at it, here's how to explain the relevancy …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:
Direct Line: Peter Kaplan on The John Koblin Hire, An iPad App, and WWD's Future

Discussion: Cision

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:
Breaking: John Koblin Quits the New York Observer (Updated)

Discussion: The Wrap, New York Magazine and Romenesko

Jonathan O'Connell / Washington Post:

Bloomberg hiring more than 100 people in D.C. area for Web-based government information venture — Bloomberg, the New York giant of financial news and data, is hiring more than 100 people in Washington and has leased new space as it prepares to launch its Web-based government information venture, Bloomberg Government.

Discussion: Romenesko

Steve Pond / The Wrap:

IMDb CEO on Growing Pains — and Turning 20 — Back in 1990, Col Needham, a frequent user of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies, began combining user-posted lists to create a searchable database of actors, actresses and directors. It might not have seemed like much at the time …

Sue Zeidler / Reuters:

Disney's ABC looks inside and outside for ABC News chief — * Looks for person with technology experience — * Considers internal and external candidates — Will Silicon Valley digerati shape the destiny of Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) ABC News? — That's the question that Anne Sweeney …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Indie Radio God Nic Harcourt Gets a New Gig: Picking Videos for “The Live Buzz” — For a certain kind of music fan, Nic Harcourt is a rock star. Even though he doesn't play any instruments. — From 1998 through 2008, Harcourt was the driving force at KCRW, the super-influential public …

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Dailymotion Hits 70 Million Monthly Uniques with 57 Percent Jump in North America: Launches in Australia, Next Morocco — PARIS — Dailymotion, the Paris-based online video site, has registered a 21 percent rise in unique visitors around the globe to reach 70 million, according to the latest numbers from comScore Media Metrix.

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: TechCrunch, Silicon Alley Insider, The Wall Blog, NYConvergence, New Media Age, hypebot, The Daily Caller, New York Observer, Adrants, The Next Web, Wall Street Journal, AdAge and Lost Remote, more at Techmeme »

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Windows Live Outsources Blogging, Migrating 30 Million Users To WordPress.com — Back in 2006, we covered the launch of Windows Live Spaces, a blogging service for Windows Live users. Today the service is headed in a new direction: Microsoft has teamed with Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com …

Discussion: TechFlash and paidContent