Mediagazer: YouTube-Meets-Quora Video Site Vyou Raising ~$2 Million, Publishing iPhone App (Nicholas Carlson/SAI)

7:45 PM ET, December 15, 2010

Top News:

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, Speakeasy, Mediaite, 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.

New York Times:

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: Next New Networks, New York Observer, paidContent, GigaOM, Fast Company, Media Maverick, ReadWriteWeb, The Wire, Fortune Favors The Bold and NYConvergence.com, 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, New York Observer, News: News blog, Techdirt, Daily Kos, Yahoo! News, American Journalism Review, New York Times and Wall Street Journal

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 and The Wrap

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

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, The Wire, On Media's Blog, New York Observer and Yahoo! News

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

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, ClickZ, Bits, New York Post, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Search Engine Land and MediaPost Raw

Brian Ries / The Daily Beast:

The Hackers Who Broke Gawker — As Gawker Media users scramble to change their passwords in the wake of a massive security breach, members of Gnosis say they're not planning any more big hacks—but their power has increased exponentially, says Brian Ries. — Members of the hacking group Gnosis …

Discussion: Yahoo! News and The Firewall

Nick Summers / New York Observer:
Turning Gawker On Itself

Discussion: AdAge, Gothamist, New York Post and Poynter

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

E-Readers With Color Open Door for Pictures — Millions of consumers have embraced black-and-white e-readers like the Kindle for reading simple novels or nonfiction — but books with color illustrations have generally remained better read in print. — Now publishers are making headway …

Discussion: Computerworld, GigaOM and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »

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.

David Zax / Fast Company:

“Turbulence,” an Interactive Movie, Coming Soon to an iPad Near You — An Israeli professor of film and television takes a new, more theoretical, approach to developing an interactive film. — The woman's husband is cheating on her, but she does not know this yet. She stands alone in their dark bedroom.