Mediagazer: Cassingles, Mix Tapes and Fast Content (Dave Levy/State of the Fourth Estate)

12:45 AM ET, December 16, 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: paidContent, GigaOM, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, Fortune Favors The Bold, The Wire, New York Observer, Media Maverick 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

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.

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, Geekosystem, The Wire and Media News International

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, The Digital Home, PR Newswire, Between the Lines Blog, GigaOM, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, Fortune, Lost Remote, WebNewser, Engadget, mobiputing, TechCrunch and Ars Technica, 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, Techdirt, Sunlight Foundation Blog, Salon, New York Observer, Yahoo! News, Wall Street Journal, American Journalism Review and Daily Kos

Barton Gellman / Time:
Julian Assange — On Dec. 9, 2006, an unsolicited e-mail arrived …

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

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

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

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

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

TV Couch wants to bring Home Theater to your browser — With the battle for Internet-connected home media players heating up between Boxee, Apple, Google, Roku and game consoles you might think there isn't room for another contender. — TV Couch hopes that isn't the case as it prepares …

Thanks:cbmyers

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 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.

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

Dave Levy / State of the Fourth Estate:

Cassingles, Mix Tapes and Fast Content — My leisure reading recently has taken me in a direction pretty far away from the normal tech, sociology or media books I usually bookworm through. While the current “to read” list has some of those in it, I used a book completely unrelated to that field …

Thanks:levydr