Mediagazer: Ongo gets $12 million in financing (Michelle Kessler/USA Today)

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.

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Why We Sold TechCrunch To AOL, And Where We Go From Here — By now you must have heard the news that AOL has acquired us. Here are videos of the on stage signing of the agreement and an interview with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong immediately afterwards. — So how did all this happen?

Discussion: Guardian, broadstuff, MediaNama, Webmetricsguru, AOL Corp, USA Today, WebNewser and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

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.

more at Techmeme »

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:
AOL feels the Crunch

Discussion: ClickZ

Scott Rosenberg / Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard:
Independent commercial Web publishing: still exhausting?

Discussion: The Atlantic Online and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Michelle Kessler / USA Today:

Ongo gets $12 million in financing — Silicon Valley start-up Ongo has announced an initial $12 million round of financing from USA TODAY parent Gannett, The New York Times Co. and The Washington Post Co. Ongo, founded by former eBay veteran Alex Kazim, plans to launch a consumer service …

Discussion: paidContent and Mashable!

Russell Adams / Digits: New York Times Backs News-Aggregation Software Company

Mimi Turner / Hollywood Reporter:

Jeff Bewkes: Beware of Apple, Amazon deals — TW chief says low-cost digital giveaways devalue TV fare — LONDON — Time Warner boss Jeff Bewkes told British media execs that television is entering a second golden age of creativity and reward but warned against the danger of low-cost digital giveaways.

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

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

First Ben Silverman Online Program-"Ready, Set, Dance!" -Debuts on Yahoo — Yahoo and Electus, the multiplatform content studio headed by former NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman, debuted its first original, branded entertainment programming tonight with “Ready, Set, Dance!”

Carol Marie Cropper / NetNewsCheck Latest:

Gilbert: Only 1 In 10 ‘Old Media’ Will Survive — DALLAS — Fewer than one in 10 traditional media outlets are likely to survive, Clark Gilbert, president and CEO of a Salt Lake City digital media company, suggested to those gathered at the Local Mobile Advertising Conference here Tuesday.

Discussion: GigaOM Pro

Jack Shafer / Slate:

Advertisements for Themselves — The newspaper industry is likely to hit a 25-percent low in advertising sales this year. If so, it will end up billing about half of what it billed in its record year of 2005. — But the newspaper industry aims to win back those advertisers, of course.

Discussion: State of the Fourth Estate

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: MediaMemo

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

Dan Duray / New York Observer:

Steele Magnolia: The Curbed Founder Takes His Shelter Network National — Curbed network founder and president Lockhart Steele insists that the new national version of his flagship site won't be competing with shelter magazines. — All the same, one of the fledgling site's …

Discussion: Observer

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Diller Resigns as Live Nation Chairman — Tweet — Barry Diller is stepping down as chairman of Live Nation's board as the company struggles to carve out a strategy following a sluggish summer concert season. — In a statement, Diller, who is the chief of IAC/Interactive …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter

Bloomberg:

Yahoo, RealNetworks Music License Fees Voided by Court — Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — A U.S. appeals court in New York reversed a series of lower-court decisions setting license fees for the Internet companies Yahoo! Inc. and RealNetworks Inc. to stream songs online.

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: Republicans on Fox gain valuable face time — Candidates hosting shows or being interviewed reach out directly to their base. — Silly, silly Tim Pawlenty. — The governor of Minnesota visits the flood disaster in the southern end of his state and calls a special session …

Discussion: Most Recent Home Page Posts …

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, more at Techmeme »

Andrea Pitzer / Nieman Storyboard:

Michael Jones on heroes, villains and the science of narrative — We spoke last week with Michael D. Jones, who is applying statistics to narrative here at Harvard during his fellowship at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Jones, who received his Ph.D. earlier this year from the University …

John Koblin / New York Observer:

It's Autumn. Do You Know Where Your Magazine Editors Are? — Over the summer, two weeklies announced job searches for two editors. It's autumn now, and The New York Times Magazine and Newsweek are still on the hunt. So where do things stand with the two biggest media stories of the moment?

Discussion: mediabistro.com

Patrick Smith / psmith, journalist:

Say hello to TheMediaBriefing.com: a new algorithm publishing model for the media industry — I've been rather quiet in recent weeks and with good cause: I've been helping to build a new digital media business, Briefing Media Ltd, and its first site www.themediabriefing.com, which goes live today (Tuesday).

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

Money, Volunteers, Money, Patch, and Money — Last week, some of the busiest people in journalism pried themselves away from their laptops, stood up from their kitchen table offices, and met face to face. It was the Block by Block Community News Summit, where the publishers …

Discussion: RJI, J-Lab and Jen Lee Reeves

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: MediaNama and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »