Mediagazer: Google: Actually, News Sites Helped Promote Bad Online Merchant (Oliver Chiang/SelectStart)

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, Bits, New York Magazine and The Awl

Gawker Is A Blog. Just Like Twitter. — I love blogs. Nick Denton wrote over on Lifehacker about the pending redesign of Gawker's blogs, with a lot of great insights into the leading edge of web publishing today. As with any thoughtful, provocative writing of such length …

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: ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM and WatchingTV Online

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, Federal Trade Commission, The Not-So Private Parts, Search Engine Land, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Technology Liberation Front, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, paidContent, Shelly Palmer Digital Living and The Consumerist, more at Techmeme »

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 …

Time:

TIME Exclusive: Full Transcript/Audio of Julian Assange Interview — RICHARD STENGEL: Hi, Mr. Assange, it's Rick Stengel. I'm the editor of TIME magazine, and thank you for joining us this evening. — JULIAN ASSANGE: You're welcome. — So sorry about the technical difficulties, but I'm sure it's something you're used to.

Discussion: Guardian, News: News blog, The Wire, Yahoo! News, Vanity Fair, newsfeed.time.com and Swampland, more at Techmeme »

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

State-run papers from China and Russia buy convincing advertorial sections on the WaPo's website — Clicking around the Washington Post, you stumble onto the types of stories you'd expect a national newspaper to cover, like “Judges free homeowners from foreclosure mess” or “Obama reaches out in Indonesia.”

Discussion: Media Week, Press Gazette and New York Observer

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.

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

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: Guardian, Online Journalism Blog, The Official Google Blog and New York Observer, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

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: Electricpig.co.uk, SlashGear, Engadget and Financial Times, more at Techmeme »

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

A royal letdown — Tweet — K ate Middleton and Prince William ended up snagging four celebrity magazine covers this weekend — People, Us Weekly, Star and OK! — but with the exception of People, the engagement isn't translating into booming sales for the weeklies.

Discussion: New York Observer and The Fix

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

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

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

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, New York Post and The Wrap

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: ClickZ, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Poynter, NewscastStudio Blog, CNET News and New York Post

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

Interview: Virgin Media's Cindy Rose On The Connected-TV Explosion — “2011 is going to be pretty transformative for the UK television landscape,” says Virgin Media's director of digital entertainment Cindy Rose. “There's a lot of next-generation television products coming to market.”

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.

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

Brian Moylan / Gawker:

How Did Paris Hilton Get Famous Anyway? — Why did Paris Hilton suddenly become so famous a few years ago while other ditzy fameseekers with no discernible talent—like, say, Tara Reid—fell off the map so quickly? Elizabeth Currid-Halkett breaks it down in her new book.