Mediagazer: Ad optimizer aims to outperform Google AdSense (Ellie Behling/eMedia Vitals)

3:05 PM ET, January 26, 2011

Top News:

Julianne Pepitone / CNNMoney.com:

Demand Media shares soar 34% in IPO — NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Shares of online content creator Demand Media rose 34% in early trading Wednesday, raising $66.5 million for the company in an IPO that valued Demand at more than $1 billion. — The offering included 8.9 million shares …

Discussion: Poynter, Future of Journalism, New York Magazine, @rafat, Epicenter and Exile On Wall Street, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Wall Street Welcomes the Content Farm: Demand Media Supersizes Its IPO — Demand Media has given skeptics plenty to chew on over the last six months: Accounting issues to hash out with the Feds; weird noises from Google, which it depends on; and debates about what “profitable” means.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Money & Company, The Wire, Mixed Media, SAI, Deal Journal, AdAge and CJR

Lynn Cowan / Dow Jones Newswires:
Demand Media 8.9M-Share IPO Prices At $17 Each, Above Range

Discussion: paidContent, Wall Street Journal, @pkedrosky, Black Web 2.0, VatorNews and The Wire

Tom Junod / Esquire:

Roger Ailes on Roger Ailes: The Interview Transcripts, Part 1 — TALENT SCOUT /// “I thought Glenn at Headline News was not doing what he could do. I thought Bill O'Reilly at Inside Edition was not doing what he could do. I thought Sean Hannity on radio — good-looking guy, why not put him on television?

Discussion: Mediaite, FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic Wire, Yahoo! News, Ben Smith's Blog and New York Magazine

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Dear commenters, Steve Doocy is reading

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Mediaite, @tolles and Swampland

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
News Corp. Showdown: Roger Ailes vs. Rupert Murdoch's Kids

Discussion: The Wire, VentureBeat, Gawker, MediaPost and The Wire

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Bill Keller's Clash with Assange — As The New York Times publishes its first e-book, editor Bill Keller tells Howard Kurtz how exasperating it was to deal with the WikiLeaks founder—and why he's launching his own column. — Bill Keller, who led The New York Times through its rocky dealings …

Discussion: New York Times and Yahoo! News

Raphael G. Satter / Associated Press:

AP Interview:WikiLeaks seeking more media partners — LONDON - WikiLeaks hopes to enlist as many as 60 news organizations from around the world in a bid to help speed the publication of its massive trove of secret U.S. diplomatic memos, the site's founder said Tuesday.

Discussion: Big News Network.com, Noted, The Nation and Jon Slattery

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
New York Times, Al-Jazeera Do An End-Run Around WikiLeaks

Discussion: Lost Remote, News: News blog, The Wire, Runnin' Scared, FishbowlNY, Poynter and The Atlantic Wire

Erik Sass / MediaPost:

Newspaper Web Sites Reach 62% of Online Population — Newspapers are not dying — at least online. An average of 105.3 million people pre month visited a newspaper Web site during the fourth quarter of 2010, according to comScore data cited by the Newspaper Association of America …

Discussion: newsplexer and eMedia Vitals

NetNewsCheck Latest:

Newspaper Site Generate Big Traffic In Q4 — Newspaper sites generated an average monthly audience of over 105 million unique visitors — 62% of all adult Internet users — during the fourth quarter of 2010, according to a study from comScore and the Newspaper Association of America.

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

Analysis: The Internet Stole Obama's State of the Union From Cable News — A reliable producer of big ratings for cable news networks for decades, the President's annual State of the Union address on Tuesday seemed to mark a turning point in which media delivery of the event …

Discussion: Mediaite, New York Observer, TVNewser, Media Matters for America, The New Yorker Blog, CNN, Tuned In and LA Observed

Tommy Christopher / Mediaite:
National Journal Skirts Embargo, Posts Full Text Of Obama's State …

Discussion: Embargo Watch, The Wrap, Gawker and On Media's Blog

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:
The Most Tech-Enhanced SOTU Yet

Discussion: NationalJournal.com, Esquire, Sunlight Foundation Blog and On Media's Blog

Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:

Twitter Tests Self-Serve Ad Platform — Twitter has begun testing a self-serve ad platform with advertisers and agencies it plans to roll out in the first half of this year, and MediaPost got a glimpse. — Clix Marketing Founder David Szetela began supporting a handful of clients this week.

Discussion: MediaMemo, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Land, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and SAI

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

Content, context and code: verifying information online — When the telephone first entered the newsroom journalists were sceptical. “How can we be sure that the person at the other end is who they say they are?” The question seems odd now, because we have become so used to phone technology …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

After 25 Years, Village Voice Publisher Cohen Steps Down — Village Voice Publisher Michael Cohen is preparing to exit the free alt-weekly after nearly 25 years. He'll be replaced by Village Voice Media veteran Josh Fromson, who is currently publisher of the SF Weekly.

Discussion: Market Wire, Poynter, New York Observer, FishbowlNY and @edmundlee

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Journalism's Subterranean Saviors — The iPhone will become available for Verizon customers in a few days, and New York City should steel itself for a pedestrian population more app-enabled and more dangerously distracted than ever. But the subway is another thing entirely.

Discussion: mediabistro.com

New York Post:

Talent raid? — Eyes at MSNBC have shifted to CNN's Roland Martin to fill a hole in their evening news lineup since the exit of 8 p.m. gasbag Keith Olbermann. We hear Martin's name has been brought up to take over the 6 p.m. time slot that was anchored by Ed Schultz.

Discussion: TVWeek.com and Chickaboomer

Eric Pfanner / DealBook:

In a Wikileaks Era, Balancing Public and Private — DAVOS, Switzerland — At a meeting of the World Economic Forum in China last year, Adrian Monck, the group's chief spokesman, moderated a panel on social networking. Because the Internet can be a sensitive topic in China …

Discussion: Sunlight Foundation Blog

Ellie Behling / eMedia Vitals:

Ad optimizer aims to outperform Google AdSense — Advertising optimization tools continue to roll out as a way for publishers to get more revenue out of display advertising, rather than surrendering to the low CPMs of ad networks. The latest comes from ignitAd, which today announced a simple …