Mediagazer: F.T.C. Backs Plan to Honor Privacy of Online Users (New York Times)

11:30 AM ET, December 2, 2010

Top News:

Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:

Diller steps down as IAC CEO, Malone swaps stake for cash — (Reuters) - Barry Diller is stepping down as chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp, the company said, adding it had bought out one of its largest shareholders, John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. — IAC said on Thursday Liberty …

Discussion: New York Observer, The Wrap, CNET News, On Media's Blog, Company Town, New York Magazine and The Huffington Post

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Liberty Exits IAC For Evite, Gifts.com And $220M In Cash - Diller Steps Down As CEO — Big move for Liberty Media, IAC and the latter's Barry Diller today. The former has exchanged its entire equity stake in the Internet holding company for a combination of assets and cash in a transaction intended to be tax-free to both companies.

Discussion: IAC - Media Room, Gawker, Broadcasting & Cable, paidContent, New York Observer, FishbowlNY, MinOnline, MediaMemo, Deal Journal and SAI

Felix Salmon:

The new Gawker Media — Gawker Media's big company-wide redesign, a year in the making, will finally come out of beta on January 3. It will the biggest event in Gawker Media history, for all three arms of the company—editorial, sales, and technology. It's a concerted attempt for Gawker Media …

Discussion: The Wire, John Gapper's Business Blog, The Wrap, PSFK, New York Magazine, Guardian and The Awl

Anil Dash:
Gawker Is A Blog. Just Like Twitter.

Discussion: Stowe Boyd and Bits, more at Techmeme »

Joe Flint / Company Town:

Journalism is in hour of ‘grave peril,’ says top government regulator — Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps is taking aim at the state of television news, which he says is “in its hour of grave peril.” In both an interview with BBC World News America that airs Wednesday …

Discussion: Mediaite, Multichannel and Money & Company

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:

Wall Street Journal Magazine, New York Section Profitable, CEO Hinton Says — The two-year-old Wall Street Journal weekend magazine and the newspaper's daily New York City section are profitable, according to Les Hinton, chief executive officer of News Corp.'s Dow Jones division.

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu Open to New Investors for Global Expansion — Hulu LLC wants to expand its online video service internationally and would be willing to take on new investors to help it do so, Jason Kilar, its chief executive, said in an interview Wednesday. — Mr. Kilar said there is an “unmet need” …

Discussion: Online Video News, ReadWriteWeb, WatchingTV Online and GigaOM

New York Times:

F.T.C. Backs Plan to Honor Privacy of Online Users — WASHINGTON — Signaling a sea change in the debate over Internet privacy, the government's top consumer protection agency on Wednesday advocated a plan that would let consumers choose whether they want their Internet browsing and buying habits monitored.

Discussion: GigaOM, New York Times, Fast Company, the Econsultancy blog, Free Press, Federal Trade Commission, The Not-So Private Parts, Technology Liberation Front, Search Engine Land, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, paidContent, Shelly Palmer Digital Living, CNBC, The Huffington Post and The Consumerist, more at Techmeme »

Jxpaton / Digital First:

John Paton's Dec. 2 Presentation at INMA Transformation of News Summit in Cambridge, Mass. — The Journal Register Company - the Company I took over in February of this year - could be the poster child for what ails the US newspaper industry. — The company counts its products in the hundreds.

Discussion: GigaOM

David Carr / New York Times:

Best Media Apps for the iPad — The historical media verticals of radio, television, print and Web evaporate inside the frame of an iPad — it's all just content, backlighted and inviting, waiting for the swipe of a finger. Long-form narrative and news has found a reliable wing man in the iPad.

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

YouTube Officially Launches Ads You Can Skip — Yep, you read that right. Today, YouTube is officially launching TrueView, a new ad format that lets users skip over ads they aren't interested in — and advertisers are actually okay with it. — It's a new format that YouTube has been testing …

Discussion: GigaOM, SAI and WatchingTV Online

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

BBC Plans Subscription-Only U.S. iPlayer On iPad — This is huge. The BBC will launch the long-awaited global version of its iPlayer TV catch-up service on a subscription-only basis, and initially only on iPad. — The service, carrying BBC shows like Doctor Who on-demand …

Discussion: Guardian, AppleInsider, MacStories, The Next Web, THINQ.co.uk, App Advice, techeblog.com, MacNN, SlashGear, PC Pro, Electricpig.co.uk, Gizmodo, Financial Times, Engadget and TUAW, more at Techmeme »

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Publishers Pile Into Flipboard For Ad Test — OMD Delivers Marketers Like Pepsi and Infiniti for Test of iPad Social News Reader — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Flipboard, an iPad app that turns shared links on the web into a beautiful digital magazine, is out to prove it's got a business model too …

Discussion: GigaOM, paidContent, Business Week and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

MinOnline:

Texterity and Wonderfactory Offer Mag Apps for Everyone Else — As any of the major magazine publishers who have built their own iPad magazine apps from scratch will admit, this is not a cheap, quick and easy process. Hearst may be able to open an App Lab and Condé Nast may have the pockets …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Oprah Network Denies Talks with Outgoing CBS Exec — Oprah Winfrey's cable venture denied a report on Wednesday that it was in talks to hire Terry Wood, a television guru who groomed Phil McGraw, Rachael Ray and other stars of syndication. — “Absolutely not true,” Christina Norman …

Discussion: Mediaite, B&C, The Wrap and New York Post

Gail Shister / mediabistro.com:

As ‘Early’ Overhauls, ‘Today’ Celebrates 15 Years at #1 — It's good to be king. Ask Jim Bell. — The executive producer of NBC's “Today” - No. 1 for 15 years, as of Dec. 11 - is not exactly quaking in his loafers about the all-new lineup for CBS's third-place ‘Early Show.’

Discussion: Media Decoder, Poynter and TVNewser

Celia McGee / New York Times:

Once an Editor, Now the Subject — IT doesn't really matter whether Serendipity, the restaurant on East 60th Street in Manhattan, was already serving footlong hot dogs in 1975, or its frozen hot chocolate. Neither Nan Talese nor Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis would have ordered them anyway.

Moe Tkacik / Washington City Paper:

Betsy Rothstein's Fisbowl D.C. is the Gossip Column the Beltway Media Deserves — Sure, some people hate her. But there's a good chance they hate themselves, too. — After 13 years in the District, Betsy Rothstein quietly quit her job as a features editor and gossip columnist …

Oliver Chiang / SelectStart:

Google: Actually, News Sites Helped Promote Bad Online Merchant — In response to the disturbing New York Times article about an online merchant, Decor My Eyes, who apparently thrives on actively dissatisfying customers in order to drum up web chatter and make his site more prominent …

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian, Online Journalism Blog and New York Observer, more at Techmeme »

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

‘Objective’ journalism is over. Let's move on. — It's time to retire the difficult-to-achieve and impossible-to-defend conceit that journalists are now, or ever were, objective. — Let's replace this threadbare notion with a realistic and credible standard of transparency …

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Robo-Journalism Site Founder: I Expected a Bigger Backlash — “What? I'm totally a journalist.” Image by jopemoro via Flickr — On Monday, I wrote about StatSheet, a company that uses software to process sports scores and related data into news stories on a constellation of fan sites.

Discussion: Poynter

Steve Buttry / TBD All News:

TBD halting ad sales in network — TBD told members of its community network late Tuesday that it will stop serving ads on member blogs and websites, effective today. — In an email message to network members who had agreed to accept advertising sold by TBD, we said:

Discussion: Lost Remote and paidContent

Maureen Morrison / AdAge:

Effective IPad Ads Are Clean, Simple and Provoke Emotion, Study Shows — Research Examines Visual Attention, Accessibility and Propulsion — Mike Haggerty and Betsy Frank discuss the iPad magazine app study at Ad Age's ME* Conference. — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — When it comes to ads on the iPad …

Discussion: CNET News, AdFreak, ClickZ, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Poynter and NewscastStudio Blog

Matthew Campbell / Bloomberg:

Lagardere in Talks to Sell International Magazines — Lagardere SCA, France's biggest publisher, is in informal talks that could lead to the sale of its international magazine business, whose titles include “Car and Driver” and the foreign editions of “Elle.”

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Media Buyer Planner