Mediagazer: Christmas Gifts May Help E-Books Take Root (Julie Bosman/New York Times)

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Is What WikiLeaks Does Journalism? Good Question — While the U.S. government tries to determine whether what WikiLeaks and front-man Julian Assange have done qualifies as espionage, media theorists and critics alike continue to debate whether releasing those classified diplomatic cables qualifies as journalism.

scienceblog.com:

Ben-Gurion U researcher reveals newspapers' historic resistance to granting reporters' bylines — A new study by Dr. Zvi Reich, a researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beer-Sheva, Israel, documents the process through which journalists at major newspapers fought …

Discussion: International Business Times

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Does the FCC Want to Kill Hulu? — One of Washington's proposed conditions on the Comcast-NBC U deal will force the merged company to offer NBC's shows to any Web competitor. — So what does that mean for Hulu, which has already locked up exclusive rights to NBC's Web video?

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, MediaPost, Washington Post, Media Decoder, Engadget, Company Town, DailyFinance, SAI, Los Angeles Times and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Google Woos Local Advertisers — Google Inc., which helped popularize the idea of automated ad sales on the Web, has been quietly turning to an old-fashioned tool—phone calls—to compete in the hot market for local business advertising. — The Internet-search giant this year …

Discussion: SAI, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Gannett Blog and Search Engine Land

Michael Humphrey / Techno-tainers:

“Call of Duty” - Newspaper of the Future? — Two days ago, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick compared the “Call of Duty” franchise with Facebook. He told CNN this: … Kotick estimated that “Call of Duty: Black Ops” has already logged 600 million hours on consoles around the world. In six weeks.

Discussion: TeleRead

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

Christmas Gifts May Help E-Books Take Root — The publishing industry used to be afraid of e-books. In 2010 it embraced them. — Publishers expanded their digital divisions, experimented with video-enhanced e-books, worked on digitizing their older titles and made sure that new books …

Discussion: TeleRead

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:

Hulu gets more YouTube-like with playlists — Hulu unveiled some new features today that could help users discover more content on the TV- and movie-watching site, as well as make it a little more social. — The biggest addition is the ability to create playlists.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Jason Falls / Social Media Explorer:

BREAKING: Newspaper Quietly Launches Hyper-Local Location-Based App — It appears the Cincinnati Enquirer is about to take yet another step along the scale of social media innovation by a traditional media member to help increase reader loyalty, advertiser commitment and continued relevance …

Discussion: Poynter, Thanks:jspepper

Irina Slutsky / AdAge:

Why Google Dropped Groupon and Local Just Doesn't Scale — Ad Age Talks to Infectious Greed Blogger and Tech Investor Paul Kedrosky — SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) — Prolific tech business analyst Paul Kedrosky made a name for himself as the founder of longtime blog Infectious Greed …

Discussion: MediaPost

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: The media heroes of 2010 — Traditional reporting can still have an impact in our high-tech times. — The news may not have been bigger in 2010. But it came at us every which way — on cellphones and iPads, laptops and BlackBerrys, even by conventional television and newsprint.

Los Angeles Times:

Theater operators fight studios' plan to release movies in homes earlier — The chains are trying to build support for preserving ‘theatrical windows.’ — Theater operators are mounting a challenge to plans by Hollywood studios to release movies in the home when they are still in theaters.

Discussion: Media Maverick, The Wrap and Company Town

Kimberly Turner / Regator:

Why Blogs (Still) Aren't Dead...No Matter What You've Heard — Stan Schroeder of Mashable recently published a post based on research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The post was originally titled: “Everyone Uses E-mail, But Hardly Anyone Blogs Anymore.”

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Demand Media's Accounting Is Even More Bogus Than It Seems — Demand Media is making headlines today for disclosing its unorthodox method of accounting in a new filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The so-called content farm, which is trying to get approval for a $125 million IPO …

Discussion: MediaPost, New York Magazine, VentureBeat, Yahoo! News and BoomTown

Discussion: Search Engine Land, CNET News, Techi.com and SAI