Mediagazer: Perfect Market, news ad firm, lands $9 million in funding round led by Comcast (David Sarno/L.A. Times Tech Blog)

6:20 AM ET, January 18, 2011

Top News:

James Robinson / Guardian:

NoW phone-hacking scandal: News Corp's ‘rogue reporter’ defence unravels — Glenn Mulcaire tells high court that News of the World's head of news asked him to hack voicemail messages — News Corporation's defence that phone hacking at the News of the World was the work of a single …

Discussion: psmith, journalist, Jon Slattery and The First Post

Guardian: News Corp braces for new hacking lawsuits

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Media World Awaits The Daily to Forge Model for iPad Content — Macy's, Verizon, Pepsi, Land Rover and Virgin Sponsor News Corp./Apple Project — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In the coming weeks, News Corp. is set to unveil one of its more audacious content bets in recent years: The Daily …

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac and SAI, more at Techmeme »

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:
For Magazines, a Bitter Pill in iPad

Discussion: MediaPost, AppleInsider, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, The Business Insider, MacRumors and 606 Tech Forums

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
iPad is Driving 10 Percent of New Digital Subscriptions for the Financial Times

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Facebook Books $1.86B in Advertising; Muscles In on Google Turf — New Estimate From eMarketer Shows Majority of Social Network's Ad Revenue Comes From Small Businesses — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — It turns out Facebook is a lot like Google after all. — As the social network steams past …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch and Mashable!, more at Techmeme », Thanks:edmundlee

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Under Pay Model, Little Effect Seen on Papers' Web Traffic — While newspapers around the world are anxiously asking themselves what would happen if they started charging readers to view articles online, a few answers have started to emerge. — Steven Brill's Journalism Online experiment …

Discussion: Stowe Boyd

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Exclusive: Roku Lands Its First Cable Channel — Roku is expected to announce Tuesday an unlikely addition to its programming lineup: WealthTV. This will mark the first time a cable channel has joined the streaming device, which begs an obvious question: How is this even possible?

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Company Town, The Next Web and Multichannel, more at Techmeme »

Apple:

Apple Media Advisory — Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees: — Team, — At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

Dan Lyons / The Daily Beast:
Leave Steve Alone!

Discussion: blogs.telegraph.co.uk, IT Blogwatch's blog, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, 9 to 5 Mac and The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

CNN's Piers Morgan puts Twitter to work for TV debut — With a taped interview with Oprah as the premiere episode of “Piers Morgan Tonight” on CNN on Monday night, the show's host and staff gathered in the Presidential Suite of Mandarin Hotel in New York to watch the show's debut.

Discussion: Guardian, Hollywood Reporter, New York Observer, Mediaite and The Wrap

Craig Silverman / Regret the Error:

What would a Twitter correction function look like? — I dedicated my most recent Columbia Journalism Review column to the current debate about whether or not a news organization or journalist should delete an incorrect tweet. I also outlined how a Twitter correction function might work:

David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Perfect Market, news ad firm, lands $9 million in funding round led by Comcast — Perfect Market Inc, a start-up that seeks to help news organizations make more money through online advertising, has won $9 million in new funding in a round led by Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable giant's venture arm.

Discussion: paidContent, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:

Ex-Banker Gives Data on Taxes to WikiLeaks — LONDON — A former senior Swiss bank executive said on Monday that he had given the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other possible criminal activity.

Discussion: Guardian, The Next Web and Mother Jones, more at Techmeme »

Clint Hendler / CJR:

Shielding Reality — Take the time on this holiday to read SF Weekly's fascinating and troubling look from last week at Bait Car, a reality show on TruTv. — The show's producers, collaborating with the San Francisco Police Department, sprinkled cars around the city, keys in them, engines left running.

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Netflix Enrages Subscribers By Limiting DVD Queue — Converting to a streaming-only business isn't easy, as Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) discovered Monday when the company's blog was bombarded by complaints over its decision to remove the ability to add to DVD queues from connected devices.

Discussion: The Official Netflix Blog, ReadWriteWeb, New York Magazine and New York Observer, more at Techmeme »

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Goldman Blames Media Attention For Killing Off Its U.S. Facebook Offering — Both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are reporting this morning that Goldman Sachs has decided to limit its much ballyhooed private offering of up to $1.5 billion in Facebook shares to international investors only.

Discussion: DealBook, Felix Salmon, Techdirt, Bloomberg, VentureBeat, On Media's Blog and New York Observer, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Hulu Rolls Out a Highlights Show-"The Morning After" — Here's Hulu's version of a highlights show: “The Morning After,” a five-minute survey of last night's TV. — It's the show I told you about last month, and I believe it's the first one the Web video site-owned by GE's NBC …

Discussion: Hulu Blog

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch Europe:

Populis, the “European Associated Content”, acquires blog network Blogo for €6m — Populis (formerly GoAdv), which we've previously described as the “European Associated Content”, has just announced that it's acquiring Blogo, a blog network that operates in Europe and South America owned by Dada …

Discussion: paidContent:UK

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Exclusive: Comcast-NBCU Merger Expected to Close Jan. 28 — The Comcast-NBCU merger is poised to go to the FCC for final approval this week, with a final close of the deal to create a new cable and programming giant planned for Jan. 28, TheWrap has learned.

Discussion: Company Town, Media Moves, rbr.com, Multichannel, Broadcasting & Cable, Gawker and TVWeek.com

Thomas Umstead / Multichannel:

Discovery Health Lives On, Combining With FitTV — Network Had Ceded Channel Space To OWN — Discovery Health, thought to be defunct after it was replaced by OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network on New Year's Day, will live on as part of a joint network collaboration with Discovery's 50 million-subscriber, exercise-themed network FitTV.

Discussion: Media Decoder, rbr.com, MediaPost, Broadcasting & Cable and The Wrap