Mediagazer: @ Monaco Media Forum: James Murdoch's First Rule (Staci D. Kramer/paidContent)

10:55 AM ET, November 12, 2010

Top News:

Daily Beast, Newsweek to Wed! — Some weddings take longer to plan than others. The union of The Daily Beast and Newsweek magazine finally took place with a coffee-mug toast between all parties Tuesday evening, in a conference room atop Beast headquarters, the IAC building on Manhattan's West 18th Street.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Company Town, Tuned In, Gothamist, Media Nation, AdAge, WebNewser, The Daily Beast, TechCrunch, Deadline.com, New York Magazine, New York Observer and Mixed Media

Nick Summers / New York Observer:

Observer Exclusive: Newsweek and Daily Beast to Merge — Newsweek and The Daily Beast will announce tomorrow morning that the two publications will merge, a source close to the deal tells The Observer. — It will be a 50-50 merger of the two companies. The editorial staffs will combine under …

Discussion: Adweek, Mediaite, The Daily Beast, MediaPost, paidContent, The Wrap, Romenesko, The Daily Caller, DailyFinance, NY Daily News, Macleans.ca, The Wire, TBD All News, AdAge, Journalism.co.uk, eMedia Vitals, Gothamist and Post Now, Thanks:taylorbuley

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Newsweek and Daily Beast Have a Deal — Tina Brown is back in the world of print. — After a brief and interrupted dalliance, Newsweek, the 77-year-old magazine, and The Daily Beast, Ms. Brown's two-year-old Web site, have decided to put their cultural differences aside and will join forces.

Discussion: Romenesko, Washington Post, Guardian, NPR, The Huffington Post, TheStreet.com and Journalism.co.uk

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:
‘Beast’ talks on again

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Romenesko, New York Observer, Gawker and New York Magazine

Wall Street Journal:

Valuing Facebook's Ads — The Site Commands 24% of Online Display Ads, but the Dollars Don't Match — Facebook Inc. is attracting more advertising, but marketers are still trying to figure out the value of those ads. — New data from comScore Inc. show that in September 24% …

Discussion: SAI and MediaPost

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Can Adding Staff Curators Help Digg Recover? — Digg has had a rough time since it launched a redesign of the site several months ago; users reacted badly to the loss of certain features and the site's new focus on more “mainstream” sources of content, and the new CEO spent his first few weeks apologizing …

Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Digg Adds Editors to Break News Faster

Discussion: TechCrunch, Digg Blog, The Next Web and Download Squad

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

@ Monaco Media Forum: James Murdoch's First Rule — The Monaco Media Forum isn't exactly Fight Club but James Murdoch, News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) CEO for Europe and Asia, has a first rule: “First rule—if you are going to monetize something, you probably should not give it away for free.”

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Media Matters Pays $86,000 In Auction To Have Lunch With Murdoch

Discussion: Media Decoder, New York Observer, Mediaite, Yahoo! News, The Atlantic Online and Gawker

Wall Street Journal:

James Frey's Next Act — For James Frey, success and controversy are a package deal. — His 2003 debut book, “A Million Little Pieces,” was named Amazon Book of the Year and has sold eight million copies in more than 30 languages. When it was revealed that parts of the purported memoir …

George Winslow / Broadcasting & Cable:

iPad Users More Likely to Cut Pay TV — A new survey from The Diffusion Group (TDG) finds that people who own iPads or are planning to purchased one in the new few months are significantly more likely than average adult broadband users to either downgrade or cancel their pay TV services.

Discussion: TVWeek.com and MediaPost

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Kommons Launches Quora-Like Platform To Question Public Figures — Leveraging on the success of Quora, niche Q&A sites are popping up everywhere. There's a Quora for the enterprise, and even a Quora for the legal community. Even Facebook is throwing its hat in the ring with Facebook Questions.

Glenn Davis / Mediaite:

Rachel Maddow Interviews Jon Stewart — Right after Bill O'Reilly got a former president on his program, Rachel Maddow had a big guest of her own - Jon Stewart. Stewart was a game guest despite clearly not feeling too well, and explained his thoughts on the Rally to Restore Sanity …

Hunter Walker / New York Observer:

Just How Big Is Patch.com? — After receiving approximately $50 million in funding from AOL, the hyperlocal news network Patch.com went on a hiring spree that earned it the ire of alt-weeklies and the nickname “Poach” from one rival. — Trepidation about the rapid rise of Patch hasn't been limited to its competitors.

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Where does Google TV go from here? — Sony displays Google TV-powered sets. — Those beautiful Sony television sets featuring Google TV are starting to look a lot like high-priced door jambs. — Google TV enables users to view Web sites and Internet video on their home TVs.

Discussion: Stop Big Media News and MediaPost

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Newsonomics of journalist headcounts — [Each week, our friend Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of the news business for the Lab.] — We try to make sense of how much we've lost …

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Mediabistro launches blog about Twitter — Mediabistro Launches AllTwitter Blog Covering Business and User Aspects of Twitter — Mediabistro (a division of WebMediaBrands Inc., Nasdaq: WEBM) has launched AllTwitter, a new blog covering news, providing tips, and supporting opinions about social media platform Twitter.

Discussion: Slate and New York Observer