Mediagazer: A modest proposal for paywall purveyors (Mike Orren)

2:25 PM ET, January 25, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Ongo: Aggregation So Good, You'll Pay for It. (Maybe.) — Say “aggregation” to most newspaper publishers and what they hear is “content stealing.” But a new aggregator launching today promises to put some money back in the pockets of publishers by catering exclusively to news junkies who will pay for a better reading experience.

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:

New York Times, Washington Post Join to Sell Content to Subscribers Online — Ongo Inc., a startup funded by New York Times Co., Washington Post Co. and Gannett Co., began offering an Internet service that aggregates news and information from multiple publications for a monthly fee.

Discussion: Noted

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:
LATer to NYT: I pray you're never run by ex-radio hatchet men

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Media Buyer Planner and New York Times

Jay Yarow / The Wire:
Craziest Startup Idea Ever? …

Discussion: The Wall Blog

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

NY Times considers creating an ‘EZ Pass lane for leakers’ — The New York Times is considering options to create an in-house submission system that could make it easier for would-be leakers to provide large files to the paper. — Executive editor Bill Keller told The Cutline …

Discussion: Guardian, msnbc.com, Gawker, FishbowlNY, ArabCrunch, Salon, George Dearing dot com, GigaOM, Poynter, Runnin' Scared, The New Yorker Blog, New York Magazine, Editors Weblog and The Next Web

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

DLD11: James Murdoch On The Daily, Paywalls, Google And Apple — James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and currently Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, was interviewed on stage at the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany. — Murdoch touched on everything …

Discussion: MediaMemo, paidContent, paidContent, New York Observer, MacNN, Noted, App Advice, Macgasm, MacStories and Poynter

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Google To Acquire fflick For $10 Million — Back in August we wrote about a neat service called fflick that looked to harness Twitter to power a movie sentiment and recommendation engine, with an added dash of colorful style. Now the service is getting two big thumbs up from Google …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Venture Capital Dispatch, SAI, Softpedia News, Noted, Fast Company, Electronista and Search Engine Land, more at Techmeme »

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

Times to Staff: We Built You Some Rooms So You Can Sleep Off Your Hangovers — This is the image from the Times internal newsletter. The filename on the photo is “recoverycouch.jpg.” — An amused Timesian just sent us this note from an internal newsletter sent to staffers today:

Discussion: The Wire and New York Observer

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Roll Camera! Jason Calacanis Makes a Video Push at Mahalo, and Wants You to Know About It — Jason Calacanis has overhauled his Mahalo start-up yet again. Just ask him. — Actually, no need to: The not-at-all bashful entrepreneur has been working hard to make sure we're all aware of what he's calling …

Discussion: VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Peter Lauria / The Daily Beast:

Rupert Murdoch's Family Reunion — The mogul is working to bring daughter Elisabeth back to News Corp. with a deal to purchase her production company, Shine Group. Peter Lauria looks at Rupert's “master plan” for keeping the media empire in the family. — Rupert Murdoch may soon be reunited …

Discussion: Mixed Media, On Media's Blog, The Corsair and Company Town

Mike Fleming / Deadline.com:

Sundance: Participant Media, Magnolia Team For New York Times Docu ‘Page One’ — Participant Media and Magnolia are partnering on the U.S. distribution rights to Andrew Rossi's Page One. Deal was mid-six figures and a commitment for a strong theatrical release.

Discussion: Fimoculous

Nicole LaPorte / The Daily Beast:
EARTHQUAKE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES

Discussion: Guardian, Poynter, /Film, New York Observer, Hitfix, The Wrap, Carpetbagger, MinnPost, @eug and @hirschorn

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

The iPad newsstand that works — Zinio's digital revenues have grown 350% since last April. Will Apple put a stop to that? — When we wrote a few weeks ago about the signal failure of Apple's iPad to halt the magazine industry's downward spiral (See Why digital newsstands stink), we had forgotten about Zinio.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Poynter, TeleRead and Monday Note

Caroline McCarthy / The Social:

Why so much fuss about Demand Media's IPO? — When Demand Media holds its initial public offering tomorrow, it'll be the first venture-backed IPO of 2011 and, though relatively small by Wall Street's standards, the most talked-about technology IPO in quite some time.

Discussion: rbr.com and Editors Weblog

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Meredith Rides Ad Recovery Wave, As It Relies More On Integrated Marketing — Women's magazine publisher Meredith Corp. (NYSE: MDP) posted strong results last quarter, signaling that the magazines and local broadcast were continuing to reap the benefits of the wider advertising recovery.

Discussion: rbr.com, MediaPost, Folio and Broadcasting & Cable

Ben Parr / Mashable!:

Facebook Turns Friend Activity Into New Ad Format — Facebook is rolling out Sponsored Stories, a new ad format that turns your friends' actions into promoted content. — Sponsored Stories is “a way for marketers to sponsor activities that happen throughout the News Feed,” Facebook Product Marketing Lead Jim Squires told Mashable.

Discussion: AdAge, MarketingVOX, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Inside Facebook, Electricpig.co.uk, ReadWriteWeb, SAI and All Facebook, more at Techmeme »

Wendy Davis / MediaPost:

Justin.tv Sued For Copyright Infringement — In a move reminiscent of Viacom's attempt to sue YouTube for copyright infringement, Zuffa's Ultimate Fighting Championship has sued Justin.tv for allegedly not taking enough proactive steps to prevent users from uploading pirated streams.

Andrea Spiegel / de.tech.ting:

Launch Day at Forbes: What (and how) we're building — I sometimes think of our effort to reshape Forbes as Extreme Makeover: Media Edition. It's daunting to take on a media entity with a 93-year legacy and a huge sitemap. It's not like tearing down a vacant building and re-imagining from scratch.

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:UK:

Orange Bets Big On Video, Buys 49Pct Of ‘French YouTube’ Dailymotion — Orange, the French telecoms operator, has entered into exclusive negotiations to take a 49 percent stake in the online video company Dailymotion, for €58.8 million ($80 million), giving the company a full valuation of $160 million.

Discussion: France Telecom Groups …, SAI, Guardian, TechCrunch Europe, Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires, TechEye, GigaOM, Online Video News and TelecomTV

Mike Orren:

A modest proposal for paywall purveyors — This morning, I was helping a friend whose company got featured in the Dallas Morning News. The story is behind the registration (soon-to-be-pay) wall. It's the sort of story that a company wants to show off to prospects and investors as a sign of traction and credibility.

Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:

Jeff Zucker Praises Keith Olbermann; Reveals His Own Plans … Miami - Jeff Zucker dropped a strong hint at the end of his one on one session at NATPE on Monday about what he wants to do when he leaves NBC this Friday. — The former executive producer of The Today Show said the thing …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Upscale Nerd Newsletter GeekChicDaily Raises $2 Million — Yep, you can still raise money for e-mail newsletters in 2011. GeekChicDaily, aimed at the fanboy contingent that spends heavily on movies, action figures and the like, has raised $2 million in a round led by Hollywood producer Joe Roth and Microsoft veteran Mike Slade.

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, NetworkEffect and Mobilized

Michael Zimbalist / AdAge:

Out of Digital Chaos, a New Stability for Media — An Ecosystem With Many Different Species of Devices, All Competing for the Scarcest Resource: Our Attention — Somewhere over the Rockies during my flight home from CES, I took a stroll through the cabin to help alleviate the misfortune of having been assigned a middle seat.