Mediagazer: Post-Gazette's Premium PG+ Service Profitable But No ‘Holy Grail’ (Bill Mitchell/Newspay)

7:05 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.

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Why AOL Bought TechCrunch — Tim Armstrong Explains Why AOL Decided to Buy This Time Rather Than Build — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told Ad Age today that he wants a “build-first” culture at his company, in which the growth is sparked internally, like the world's oldest startup.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
We Nailed It! AOL Has Bought TechCrunch

Discussion: TechCrunch and The Snitch, more at Techmeme »

journalists.org:

Finalists for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards announced — Finalists for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, many pushing the envelope of innovation and excellence in digital storytelling and distribution, were announced today by the Online News Association and its partner, the School of Communication at the University of Miami.

Discussion: Lost Remote, West Seattle Blog, Romenesko, Journalism.co.uk, Salon, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica

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: MediaPost, AdAge, The Wrap, Online Video News, New York Observer, Deal Journal, The Huffington Post, paidContent, VC Cafe and Silicon Alley Insider

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

Discussion: Business Wire, MediaMemo, Online Video News and NewTeeVee, more at Techmeme »

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, CJR and Media Nation

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Condé Nast's iPad Apps Are Too Portly. Blame Adobe. — The Wired iPad app has a weight problem. — The first one came in at about half a gigabyte of memory, and it hasn't shrunk that much since. — And Condé Nast's newest iPad app, from the New Yorker, isn't much better …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Folio, Apple and kottke.org

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek: Condé Nast Creates Award, Perk for Business-Savvy Editors

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: Gawker, Mediaite, Romenesko, DailyFinance, LA Observed, Mayhill Fowler and Ben Smith's Blog

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Yahoo Exec Churn Continues, With Media Head Pitaro Ready to Bolt — Last week at a Goldman Sachs investment conference, voluble Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz tried to minimize the impact of the recent spate of significant executive departures at the Internet giant.

Discussion: The Wrap, paidContent, The Wire, MediaPost Raw and Tech Trader Daily

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Knight Promises To Cover Journalism Online Costs For Some News Orgs — The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has funded any number of experiments to create sustainable journalism, investing millions of dollars in startups, academics and more. The latest effort offers …

Discussion: WebNewser

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Twitter Shelves @EarlyBird Deals — At today's IAB Mixx conference in Manhattan, Twitter COO Dick Costolo announced that Twitter would be retiring its Early Bird advertising product, at least for now. — Early Bird allowed select advertisers to promote exclusive offers for Twitter users through …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

Steve Rosenbaum / Silicon Alley Insider:

VCs Are Blowing It And Will Totally Miss The Web Video Revolution — Venture Capitalists did the right thing five years ago—they got excited about video. Back then, video meant hardware. Pipe. Technology. It was a big problem, and for lots of folks, it seemed like there could be a big winner.

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.

Discussion: Burst Media Company Blog

Bill Mitchell / Newspay:

Post-Gazette's Premium PG+ Service Profitable But No ‘Holy Grail’ — A year into its subscription-based PG+ service, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has learned a few things about charging for content online: — Profitability is possible, if only modestly so, with incremental online services that control costs.

Discussion: Editors Weblog and eMedia Vitals

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

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

How Ken Jautz plans to boost CNN ratings — Calls Piers Morgan, Eliot Spitzer ‘excellent communicators’ … The Hollywood Reporter: What has been the biggest problem for CNN, and how do you fix it? — Ken Jautz: The biggest issue is to improve our primetime ratings.

Discussion: The Wire, Mediaite and Inside Cable News

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 …

Discussion: The Awl

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

Star Tech Writers Spurn AOL for Rupert Murdoch — It was looking like News Corp. might lose Wall Street Journal stars Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, who host a lucrative conference for the company. But the pair are staying and swimming in money. Credit a well-timed overture from AOL.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, MediaMemo, GigaOM Pro and paidContent

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:

CBS, NBC upset PBS at News & Doc Emmys — Nominated Letterman extortionist loses to ‘60 Minutes’ — NEW YORK — In an upset at Monday night's 31st annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, CBS News with seven honors and NBC News with six wins plus a CNBC award edged out usual frontrunner PBS, which earned five awards.

Discussion: TVNewser and TVWeek.com

Maureen O'Connor / Gawker:

Which Tabloids Lie the Most? — In the constantly-contradicting world of tabloid journalism, is anyone reliable? We analyzed 20 months of reported break-ups, marriages, and pregnancies to tabulate our first-ever Tabloid Reality Index, batting averages for America's five major celebrity glossies and the rumors they monger.

Discussion: Mediaite and The Consumerist