Mediagazer: National Post rolls out digital “welcome mats” (Megan Garber/Nieman Journalism Lab)

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

A Delay for the Daily: Apple, News Corp. Push Back Launch Date — Turns out you'll have to wait a bit longer to see the Daily, Rupert Murdoch's long-awaited iPad news service. — Apple and News Corp. have made a joint decision to push back next week's planned launch, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Freakonomics Leaving NY Times to Start Own Venture — The New York Times is preparing to erect a pay gate around its website, but Freakonomics, the popular blog started by economics Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, won't be behind it. That's because it's leaving the Times …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

HuffPo's Coleman: 'We'll Double Revenues Again This Year' — As it looks to repeat its ad sales successes from 2010, The Huffington Post is adding a dozen ad sales people to its roster. In an interview with paidContent, Greg Coleman, president and chief revenue officer …

Discussion: Poynter, Thanks:davidakaplan

Austin Carr / Fast Company:

Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Raises New Funding: “50,000 Naked Men” — Following a week's worth of back and forth and blown off interviews, including one scheduled at 11 p.m EST, Chatroulette founder Andrey Ternovskiy finally picks up his cell phone after several rings.

Discussion: Vanity Fair, MediaPost and New York Magazine

Robinsloan / Twitter Media:

The science of the hashtag — So last week I talked about the art of the hashtag: the power of mad libs, universal particulars, and feedback loops. The day after I posted it, the #LessAmbitiousMovies hashtag took off on Twitter—you might have seen it in your timeline.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:

Hand-Wringing in Comcast-NBC Deal — Media Companies Fret Over Proposed Rule Requiring Cable Giant to Offer Content to Any Online Service Working With Rivals — WASHINGTON—Major media companies are raising concerns that government conditions on Comcast Corp.'s impending deal to acquire control …

Discussion: Company Town

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

National Post rolls out digital “welcome mats” — On Monday, Canada's National Post published an article about a local school instituting a ban on gay-straight alliance groups. It's a good local story with broad cultural relevance, and, not surprisingly, it got linked on the web-curiosities aggregator Fark.

Discussion: Poynter and Time

Amanda Andrews / Telegraph:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in talks to buy daughter Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Group — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is in talks to buy the whole of Shine Group, his daughter Elisabeth Murdoch's film and television production company. — Shine's hit programmes include Merlin

Discussion: Guardian

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Newcomer NBC Execs Wait on Sidelines — The peacock is stuck in limbo. — As television networks lay out their programming plans at the Television Critics Association press tour this week, NBC took the unusual step of not scheduling a press conference with top network executives Thursday …

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Business Columnist Joe Nocera Moving to NY Times Op-Ed Page? — Joe Nocera. Image by dsearls via Flickr — The New York Times op-ed page is about to get a big dose of financial intelligence to complement Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman. Business columnist Joe Nocera is set to move to the op-ed page …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Journalism.org, Poynter, The Wire, Gawker, BusinessJournalism.org … and The Huffington Post

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

How Bradford Cross Plans to Save the Media Industry — By now, it's become obvious that the web is disrupting the media business in some fundamental ways — and not just the distribution of content, but the monetization of it as well. Publishers and content producers of all kinds …

Thanks:mathewi

Steve Smith / minonline.com:

Oprah's iPad Sketchbook — The iPad ideas coming out of the magazine world are getting ever more curious. The February 2011 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine directs readers to the iPad App Store where they can find a free sketching app for the iPad that lets readers enter a creativity challenge.

Discussion: New York Observer

Pete Hammond / Deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Sorkin's Full Screenplay For ‘The Social Network’ - Plus Q&A — EXCLUSIVE: Deadline Hollywood presents Aaron Sorkin's full screenplay here for The Social Network. Also, my interview with this frontrunner for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar follows:

Discussion: Boing Boing and Electricpig.co.uk

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Sports Blogger Bleacher Report To Start Paying Contributors — Sports blog site Bleacher Report has been doing pretty well with the Huffington Post model of offering contributors a place to reach a wider audience, but not providing much in the way of remuneration.

Discussion: WebNewser

Emily Bell / Guardian:

Arizona shootings mark a watershed for public discourse — Gabrielle Giffords' shooting was not directly due to networks such as Fox, but it has made the tone of debate a central issue — It has been a big week for the state of public discourse in the United States.

Discussion: On Media's Blog

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

The Practical vs. Idealistic Scenarios for the Near-Term Future of Online Video — Or: How Google's decision to drop native H.264 playback from Chrome serves to prop up Flash Player — Stefan Richter, of FlashComGuru (a Flash developer site) tries answering my five simple questions.

Discussion: Tech Broiler Blog, more at Techmeme »

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Spotify leaps to US — Spotify, the popular European music service, is finally crossing the pond, The Post has learned. — After trying to crack the US market for more than a year, Spotify is close to a deal with one major music company in the US and has gained the support of at least one other …

Discussion: Electronista and SAI, more at Techmeme »

Matt Kinsman / Folio Stories RSS: B2B:

USPS Raising Periodical Rates 1.8 Percent For 2011 — However, increases are limited to Consumer Price Index cap. — The USPS filed new mailing service prices with the Postal Regulatory Commission today, including a 1.8 percent increase for periodicals, starting April 17.

Discussion: Publishing Executive News

Todd Wasserman / Mashable!:

Launch of About.com Founder's “Save-able” Ads Pushed Back — If Scott Kurnit has his way, soon you will go from ignoring online ads to saving them. — Kurnit, the founder of About.com, plans to roll out web ads from McDonald's, Best Buy, Sears, Showtime and others on February 14.

Discussion: New York Observer

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Mobilizing for mobile before it's too late — This column originally appeared in Editor & Publisher Magazine. Click here to subscribe for timely delivery of the magazine. — Amazingly, newspapers are making the same self-defeating mistakes with their mobile initiatives that they did with the Internet.

Mary Wisniewski / Reuters:

June sentencing date set for ex-media mogul Black — (Reuters) - The federal judge presiding over Conrad Black's fraud case told the former media mogul on Thursday she would resentence him on June 24. — The federal appeals court in Chicago ordered Black resentenced by trial judge Amy St. Eve …

Robert Niles / Online Journalism Review:

Don't neglect to set aside time to build the personal network that will guide your journalism career — By Robert Niles: Any journalist ought to know that your stories are only as good as your sources. Start with bad information, and you'll deliver bad information to your readers.

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL Outsources Sports; Fanhouse Brand Absorbed Into Sporting News — AOL (NYSE: AOL) organized a hasty after-market call to announce three content deals designed to buttress its push towards premium content. The most prominent involves a content sharing arrangement with The Sporting News.

Discussion: Mixed Media, Poynter, MinOnline, New York Times, SAI, eMedia Vitals, TechCrunch, WebNewser and CNNMoney Tech Tumblr

Marion Maneker / The Big Picture:

Can Piers Morgan Save CNN? — A series of attempts to resuscitate CNN during the evening hours have culminated in next week's launch of Piers Morgan Tonight. The fumbling around replacing Larry King and the decision to give former Elliott Spitzer a political talk show in the slot …

Discussion: Inside Cable News