Mediagazer: Apps Alter Reading on the Web (Jenna Wortham/New York Times)

7:45 PM ET, February 1, 2011

Top News:

Nicholas Carlson / SAI:

LEAKED: AOL's Master Plan — Two years into his tenure as AOL CEO, Tim Armstrong is stepping on the gas. — By April, he wants AOL editorial to increase its stories per month from 33,000 to 55,000. — He wants pageviews per story to jump from 1,500 to 7,000.

Discussion: Gawker, VentureBeat, Yahoo! News, Poynter, The Awl, Chris Nerney's blog, @carr2n, CNET News, @womenaredreamer, @kouroshk, @romenesko and The Wire

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

I Worked on the AOL Content Farm & It Changed My Life — Five years ago this week I began writing for AOL's blog network Weblogs Inc. I wrote 5 technology news stories each day and was paid a mere $5 per article. It was grueling, that was just one of 3 jobs I had at the time - and it was great.

more at Techmeme »

Tram Whitehurst / rjionline.org: The Patch Effect: What AOL's new venture could mean for hyperlocal news

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Rupert Murdoch Gives Guests a Sneak Peek of Tomorrow's “Daily” Tonight. Here's What They'll See. — The Daily makes its official debut tomorrow morning, at a press event at New York's Guggenheim Museum. — But a select crowd will get to see the iPad newspaper tonight …

Discussion: The Wrap, Yahoo! News, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Atlantic Online, App Advice, MacStories, Faster Forward, VentureBeat, New York Observer, NYConvergence.com, Fox News and TeleRead

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

The Daily staffers we identified came from NY Post, AP, The Atlantic, AOL News, national media companies — The staff of The Daily — Rupert Murdoch's new iPad newspaper that launches tomorrow — bring a wide range of print, online and broadcast experience, mostly at national media outlets …

Discussion: Fortune, MediaPost, @pkafka and @romenesko

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine: The Daily Columnists Will Include Dan Wolken, Soo Yoon, and Jessica Valenti

Dan Duray / New York Observer:

The End of Blogging … “I don't really see a blog business,” said Nick Denton over gchat. He still wasn't sold on the idea of an interview regarding his sites' redesign, scheduled to debut tomorrow, and seemed to be attempting an escape. “I should find you that old post …

Discussion: Poynter, @mathewi, @fredwilson, @anildash, @chanders, @editorialiste and @mathewi

Ben Popper / New York Observer:

Nick Denton on Gawker Redesign: Only Facebook Matters — Gawker went live with its redesign on two of its web sites this morning, io9 and Jalopnik. — Interestingly, the Gawker redesign has stripped out Twitter and Stumble Upon—which used to sit next to each article …

Discussion: The Next Web, The Wire, The Social and Runnin' Scared

Ray Wert / Jalopnik:
Welcome to the new Jalopnik 5.0! — You'll notice Jalopnik's …

Discussion: Boing Boing, @raywert, Gawker.TV and @antderosa

New York Times:

Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store — SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is further tightening its control of the App Store. — The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access …

Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales

Discussion: eBookNewser, Computerworld and TeleRead, more at Techmeme »

Ingrid Lunden / mocoNews:
Bad News For The Digital Newsstand: Apple Rejects Sony Reader App

Discussion: paidContent, GigaOM, Technologizer and TechCrunch

Matea Gold / Los Angeles Times:

Through Egypt, Al Jazeera English has an American moment — The English-language channel, dogged by its Arabic counterpart's image, has had little luck in securing U.S. cable contracts in its four years on the air, but the crisis in Egypt has brought American viewers flocking to its online live stream.

Discussion: New York Times, ArtsBeat, On Media's Blog, The Atlantic Online, Hot Air, War in Context, Political Punch, NPR and Free Press

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:
Al Jazeera Finds New Paths In U.S.

Discussion: Poynter, Market Wire, Tom Watson, Yahoo! News and Tuned In

Vadim Lavrusik / Mashable!:
How Journalists Are Using Social Media to Report on the Egyptian Demonstrations

Discussion: Boston Globe, CNET News, Lost Remote, The Maynard Institute, Techland, New York Times, Editors Weblog, AOL News, New York Post, The News About The News, The Daily Dish, PC Magazine and Media Decoder

Steve Safran / Lost Remote:
Al Jazeera now streaming on TV in U.S. via Roku

Discussion: Technologizer, Journalism.co.uk and newsfeed.time.com

Amy Gahran / Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed:
How Al Jazeera is putting audio updates from Egypt online fast

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and contentious.com

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
YouTube Steps Up to Shine Light on Egypt

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, YouTube Blog and The Official Google Blog

Julie Moos / Poynter:
How Obama, Clinton legitimized Twitter & Facebook as tools of democracy in Egypt

Discussion: Yahoo! News, paidContent:UK, SpringBoardMedia, Committee to Protect …, MediaFile and Aljazeera

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Spotify wouldn't offer as much free music here — Spotify has struck its first licensing agreement with one of the four largest record companies and is closing in on a second deal, but what is it costing the European music service to open up shop in the United States? — The answer is plenty.

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:
Hey iTunes, here comes Google Music, Spotify

Discussion: Guardian, SAI, Techland, Search Engine Land, hypebot, Engadget and Electronista

Jenna Wortham / New York Times:

Apps Alter Reading on the Web — The DVR rocked the world of television by letting viewers skip commercials and build their own home viewing schedules. Now a handful of Web services and applications are starting to do much the same thing to online publishers.

Discussion: Marco.org, Editors Weblog, GigaOM, NewsGrange, Anil Dash, The Next Web and paidContent

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Industry Moves: News Corp. Adds John McKinley As CTO — On the eve of The Daily's launch, News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) is emphasizing the importance of news products and technology across the company by appointing John McKinley chief technology officer. McKinley, the product and tech lead …

Discussion: The Wrap, @pkafka and Company Town

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

AOL Sells Content Recommender Surphace to Content Recommender Outbrain — Tim Armstrong has disposed of another asset that AOL bought before he showed up: The company has sold Surphace, its content recommendation engine, to Outbrain, which does the same thing.

Discussion: paidContent

IT News Online> Finance:

Newsweek and The Daily Beast Merge — Copyright 2011 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved — Newsweek magazine and The Daily Beast, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), announced today they have completed their merger which was previously announced on November 12, 2010.

Discussion: Gawker, AFL-CIO NOW BLOG, Editors Weblog, mediabistro.com, FishbowlNY and Media Decoder

Zeke Turner / WWD Media Headlines:
Memo Pad: Trailing Tina Brown... Speaking of the Web...

Discussion: Poynter, Yahoo! News, FishbowlNY and The Daily Beast

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Author, Amazon.com Elbow Aside Middleman — Delivering on his promise to try a new publishing model, popular business-book author Seth Godin is releasing his first new title since leaving his long-time publishing house last summer. — While he's doing it without a publisher, he's not exactly going it alone.

Discussion: Gawker

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Could BiblioBouts, an online sourcing game for academia, offer lessons for media literacy? — Karen Markey had a fairly straightforward idea: Teach students to steer clear of unreliable sources of information through the use of a game. — What the University of Michigan professor wants …

Discussion: KnightBlog and TeleRead

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Comcast, Time Warner Expand TV Everywhere — It's been approximately 18 months since Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) first talked up TV Everywhere, but their authentication strategy has finally come to pass: a multi-year commitment to put hundreds of hours …

Discussion: Company Town and Multichannel, more at Techmeme »

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Exclusive: An Early Look At News.me, The New York Times' Answer To The Daily — Tomorrow, all eyes will be on the launch of News Corp's iPad newspaper The Daily, but huddled away in a downtown loft in New York City's meatpacking district a team from betaworks and the New York Times …

Andrew Kippen / Boxee Blog:

Netflix Update — We're in a bit of an awkward spot at the moment. — The Netflix app is up and running on Boxee (we watched the intro to Full Metal Jacket earlier today), but we have not yet satisfied Netflix's security requirements. We anticipate availability soon.