Mediagazer: Kevin Smith Buys His Own Film At Sundance Auction, Swears Off … (David Chen//Film)

7:20 PM ET, January 24, 2011

Top News:

Google's Schmidt eyeing TV — Google honcho Eric Schmidt, who announced his plan to hand over control of the tech giant last week, is eyeballing a career in TV, Page Six has learned. — Sources say the outspoken chief, who broke the news that he's passing the CEO title …

AdAge:
What Larry Page Will Be Up Against at Google

Discussion: MediaFile and San Francisco Chronicle

New York Times:

Olbermann Split Came After Years of Tension — MSNBC never had any doubt about what it was getting when it made Keith Olbermann the face of the network in 2003: a highly talented broadcaster, a distinctive and outspoken voice and a mercurial personality with a track record of attacking his superiors and making early exits.

Erik Huggers / About the BBC blog:

Reshaping BBC Online — The BBC has always created and embraced emerging technologies to remain relevant. Text based journalism, through Ceefax, didn't really feature in the BBC until the late 1970s, which later evolved into BBC Red Button and the BBC News website, the backbone of BBC Online.

Discussion: Guardian, BBC, BBC, Wired.co.uk, Editors Weblog, GigaOM, The Next Web, Free Press, Globe and Mail and FT tech hub, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

BBC's Big Online Cuts: Full Details Announcement — Here is the BBC's full announcement of its online cutbacks...

Discussion: Media Week, Poynter, paidContent, Guardian, Media News International, BBC and WebNewser

Felix Salmon:

The NYT's bizarre iPad paywall — Russell Adams has some inside dope on the price the NYT is intending to charge with its paywall: … This strikes me as peculiar. The idea seems to be that if you want to use the NYT iPad app at all, that'll cost you a hefty $240 per year, over and above the cost of the iPad itself.

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:
New York Times Readies Pay Wall

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

HuffPo ‘fires’ unpaid blogger for participating in labor demonstration — On Wednesday, January 19, more than 200 union members stormed into a Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Washington, D.C., and held a guerrilla-style demonstration for about 10 minutes, protesting a home-builders' group …

Discussion: Talking Biz News and Poynter

Paul Carr / TechCrunch:

NSFW: On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're A Journalist — So here's an odd thing. Since TechCrunch was acquired by AOL, there has been a slight but appreciable uptick in the number of stories we've run about our new parent company. In the last month alone, we've reported their Q1 goals …

Discussion: TeleRead, Business Wire and Regret the Error

Nicole LaPorte / The Daily Beast:

EARTHQUAKE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES — A gripping new film documents a tumultuous year inside The New York Times as layoffs, bankruptcies, and new media decimated America's newspapers—and features a feisty David Carr. Nicole LaPorte reports from Sundance. — In 1969, Gay Talese's The Kingdom …

Discussion: Poynter, New York Observer, New York Times, MinnPost, @hirschorn, @eug and @megan

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Apple's bet on publishing — Apple's upcoming subscription plan is making large publishing companies hysterical. Rightfully so. Some of them built a complete business model for the iPad based on a commercial agreement that is now being revoked. Apple is not only changing the rules …

Discussion: Fortune

Zeke Turner / WWD:

Dan Abrams in Talks With ABC News — ABC News is in talks with NBC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams to take him away from the network where he has spent most of his career. “NBC News thanks Dan for his years of service and dedication. We wish him nothing but the best,” said NBC spokeswoman Lauren Kapp.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post, mediabistro.com, The Wire, The Politico, Poynter, Gawker, Show Tracker and Chickaboomer

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

Twitter App Maker UberMedia Buys Social News Site Mixx — UberMedia, which is behind Twitter clients like Echofon and Twidroyd, has purchased Digg-like news site Mixx. On Mixx, users post interesting stories, photos, or videos and vote and comment on those that others submit …

Discussion: NetworkEffect and TechCrunch

David Chen / /Film:

Kevin Smith Buys His Own Film At Sundance Auction, Swears Off Distributors, and Announces Full Details for Self-Distribution — This evening, Red State premiered in front of more than 1,200 people at the Eccles Theatre at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. As you might have heard …

Discussion: Deadline.com, Techdirt, New York Observer, Boing Boing and GigaOM

Stuart Elliott / New York Times:

An Irreverent Campaign From Bon Appétit — ADVERTISERS have long used cheeky entreaties to pique the curiosity of consumers. For example, Doral cigarettes urged smokers to “Taste me,” the Preakness horse race asked bettors to “Get your Preak on” and current ads for Celebrity Cruises proclaim, “X the rules.”

Discussion: The Fix, MediaPost, @iwantmedia and New York Observer

James Hibberd / Inside TV:

Advice columnist Dan Savage lands MTV pilot — EXCLUSIVE — Savage Love may be coming to MTV. — Columnist Dan Savage is working on an advice show for the network. — MTV has ordered a pilot that follows Savage as he tours college campuses giving his brand of brutally honest (and sometimes graphic) sex and relationship advice.

Discussion: TVWeek.com, Gawker and New York Observer

Paul Armstrong / paidContent:

@Themediaisdying: The Brutal Truth From Two Years In The Twitterverse — The facts for the publishing industry are clear - the vast majority of media outlets are declining in one or more ways. — Two years ago, I registered @themediaisdying - a Twitter account through which I tweet links illustrating …

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu and Editors Weblog

Courtney Boyd Myers / The Next Web:

Forget apps, OnSwipe is the future of publishing. — Sporting sneakers and chugging sugar-free Red Bulls, OnSwipe founders Jason L. Baptiste and Andres Barreto may look like typical overworked kids right out of college. But get them talking about the future of publishing, the tablet market …

MinnPost:

A breakthrough year for MinnPost — In 2010, MinnPost ran its first surplus. — A $17,594 surplus on spending of $1.261 million may not sound like much. But this is tremendous vindication for our business model, because it resulted from 18 percent revenue growth, not budget-cutting.

Discussion: Poynter, KnightBlog and Community Information Needs

Jim O'Neill / Online Video News:

ComScore: Online video ad views see big bump — comScore (Nasdaq: SCOR) reported some 172 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December, almost identical to November viewing, for an average of 14.6 hours per viewer, down slight from November's 14.7 hours.

Discussion: GigaOM

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Harper's Union Spat Intensifies As Big-Name Authors Weigh In [Updated] — John “Rick” MacArthur. — The war of words between Harper's publisher John “Rick” MacArthur and the magazine's union is intensifying. Today, the union is circulating an open letter to MacArthur signed by 84 writers …

Discussion: Mixed Media, GalleyCat, Canadian Magazines, Gawker, Runnin' Scared, @jayrosen_nyu and FishbowlNY

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

SeedSpeak: A geolocation app for better civic engagement — We're all too familiar with terms like “community” and “engagement” when talking about online news. But what if we take it back to the root? Not Twitter followers, blog comments, or Quora questions, but instead a group of people trying to do something together?

James Hibberd / Inside TV:

Kevin Smith, Adam Carolla, Kevin Pollak launching late-night show on AOL — AOL is getting into the late-night game with Kevin Smith, Adam Carolla and Kevin Pollak joining forces for a nightly online video program. — All three men already have popular online programs …

Discussion: /Film