Mediagazer: YouTube May Buy Video Production Company (New York Times)

10:25 PM ET, December 15, 2010

Top News:

YouTube May Buy Video Production Company — By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and BRIAN STELTER — SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube, the video site owned by Google, is in talks to buy Next New Networks, a Web video production company, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

Discussion: New York Observer, paidContent, GigaOM, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, Media Maverick, Fortune Favors The Bold, The Wire and NYConvergence.com, more at Techmeme »

Next New Networks:

How We Had YouTube's Top 2 videos, and 1 Billion Views, in 2010 — Today we're excited by the news that YouTube announced its 10 Most-Watched Videos of 2010, a list topped by episodes of two Next New Networks shows: The Gregory Brothers' “Bed Intruder Song,” and The Key of Awesome's Ke$ha parody …

Discussion: Company Town and GigaOM

Lev Grossman / Time:

Mark Zuckerberg — On the afternoon of Nov. 16, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was leading a meeting in the Aquarium, one of Facebook's conference rooms, so named because it's in the middle of a huge work space and has glass walls on three sides so everybody can see in.

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:
Zuckerberg named Time's Person of the Year

Discussion: Time, Mediaite, Speakeasy, FP Passport, The Wire, Geekosystem and Media News International

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Twitter Raises $200 Million at $3.7 Billion Valuation; Adds McCue and Rosenblatt to Board — Twitter has completed its latest round of funding-$200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation-with Kleiner Perkins as the lead investor, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Larry Yang / The Official Google TV Blog:

What's new with Google TV? — It's been two months since the first Google TV device went on sale. Since then, we have been hard at work thinking about how we can make the platform even better for our users. In fact, one of the greatest things about Google TV is that it comes with free …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Ars Technica, PR Newswire, TechCrunch, Between the Lines Blog, Fortune, Engadget, GigaOM, Lost Remote, SiliconANGLE, mobiputing, VentureBeat and WebNewser, more at Techmeme »

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Columbia j-school staff: WikiLeaks prosecution ‘will set a dangerous precedent’ — Romenesko Misc. — Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism faculty and officers tell President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder that “while we hold varying opinions of Wikileaks' methods and decisions …

Discussion: CJR, Sunlight Foundation Blog, Salon, Techdirt, New York Observer, Daily Kos, Yahoo! News, American Journalism Review, Wall Street Journal and New York Times

Barton Gellman / Time:

Julian Assange — On Dec. 9, 2006, an unsolicited e-mail arrived for Daniel Ellsberg, the whistle-blower of Vietnam War renown. The return address said only “WikiLeaks,” and the signature at bottom, “WL.” In the orotund prose of a manifesto, the message invited Ellsberg to become …

Discussion: Computerworld, The Wrap and The Social

Paige Albiniak / Broadcasting & Cable:

Exclusive: Multiple Syndicators Pitching Katie Couric on Daytime Talker — While many expect her to stay with CBS News, daytime option emerges — As Katie Couric's contract with CBS News nears its end, multiple syndicators are approaching her about daytime possibilities, confirm several sources.

Discussion: Mediaite and TVNewser

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Bloomberg Hires 2 to Lead Opinion Venture — 12:13 p.m. | Updated Bloomberg L.P. is making a foray into opinion writing, a move intended to further broaden the company's reach beyond its bread-and-butter financial news service. — The company has hired two big names — James P. Rubin …

Discussion: Talking Biz News, American Journalism Review, paidContent, On Media's Blog, The Wire, New York Observer, Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post

Nate Freeman / New York Observer:

Exclusive: Two More Top Editors Out at GQ — Having had a fairly stable masthead for years, Conde Nast men's title GQ is hemorrhaging top-level editorial talent. — In late October style editor Adam Rapoport was named editor of Bon Appetit, and now sources say two more top editors are set to exit.

Discussion: New York Magazine

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Twitter Launches Online Form to Buy Ads, Trending Topics & More … The business end of Twitter has revamped its website tonight and it now includes a form that companies can use to express interest in purchasing Promoted Accounts, Promoted Tweets or Promoted Trends.

Discussion: Mercury News, Twitter Blog, The Next Web, Bits, ClickZ, Fast Company, TechCrunch, New York Post, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Search Engine Land and MediaPost Raw

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

HBO Hopes There's an Audience for Hockey — Emboldened by the success of its “Hard Knocks” NFL training camp show and Emmy Award-winning “24/7” franchise, HBO is set to premiere its latest reality series with a new sport as its focus: hockey. — The four-episode “24/7 Penguins/Capitals …

Discussion: Multichannel

Phil Davidson / Splitsider:

Short and Funny, Part 1: Conversations with Twitter's Top Comedy Writers — It wasn't that long ago, you'll recall, that Twitter was derided as an exercise in vanity for famous people to feed their comically-obsessed fans a glimpse of the celebrity lifestyle, no matter how mundane the details.

Discussion: Gawker, New York Magazine, Deadline.com and eject

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Condé Nast's Epicurious App Adds Pay Model To Mix — Just a week after Condé Nast's iPad-only Gourmet Live added pay-to-download features within the app, the publisher's two-year-old Epicurious app is shifting to a paid model after 3.5 million free downloads. The app itself is still free.

Nicholas Carlson / SAI:

YouTube-Meets-Quora Video Site Vyou Raising ~$2 Million, Publishing iPhone App — New York startup Vyou is looking for money, a source close to the company tells us. — This source, who's not unbiased by the way, told us the video Q&A site has already crossed 1 million monthly uniques and that it's looking to raise about $2 million.

Matt Thompson / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Coming soon to journalism: Matt Thompson sees the “Speakularity” and universal instant transcription — Editor's Note: We're wrapping up 2010 by asking some of the smartest people in journalism what the new year will bring. — We also want to hear your predictions: Take our Lab reader poll …