Mediagazer: The Power Booker: Katie Thomson Is Piers Morgan's New Fixer (Kat Stoeffel/New York Observer)

1:10 AM ET, February 2, 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: Yahoo! News, Poynter, AdExchanger.com, Technologizer, CNET News, The Wire, Gawker, VentureBeat, Chris Nerney's blog, The Awl, @womenaredreamer, @carr2n, @kouroshk and @romenesko, more at Techmeme »

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.

Discussion: Beet.TV and SAI

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

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, Fimoculous, @fredwilson, @chanders, @editorialiste, @anildash, @mathewi 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 Social, The Next Web, New York Observer and Runnin' Scared

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

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

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, @pkafka, MediaPost and @romenesko

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

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

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Al Jazeera Finds New Paths In U.S. — New ways to watch Al Jazeera English in the United States keep popping up — but not on cable or satellite systems. — On Monday, YouTube started promoting a live stream of the channel, supplementing the channel's own Web stream.

Discussion: Poynter, Stop Big Media News, ReadWriteWeb, Technologizer, LA Observed, Tuned In and Tom Watson

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

Discussion: Technologizer, Yahoo! News and newsfeed.time.com

Matea Gold / Los Angeles Times:
Through Egypt, Al Jazeera English has an American moment

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, ArtsBeat, Political Punch, Hot Air, On Media's Blog, The Atlantic Online, New York Times, New York Post, War in Context, NPR, Journalism.co.uk, Mashable!, Media Decoder, ReadWriteWeb and Soup

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 …

Discussion: MacStories, IntoMobile, 9 to 5 Mac, Electronista, The Atlantic Online and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

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: Kindle Review, eBookNewser, TeleRead and Technologizer

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

Discussion: paidContent, Computerworld, GigaOM and MacStories

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

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

The Power Booker: Katie Thomson Is Piers Morgan's New Fixer — When The Observer met Katie Thomson at Landmarc restaurant in Columbus Circle, we wanted to congratulate her. We were beaten to it. — “Monica Lewinsky sent a note saying congratulations,” she said.

Robinsloan / Twitter Media:

The Game wins at Twitter — Behold, the stirring saga of The Game, as chronicled by the Hollywood Reporter: — This is a show that struggled on the CW for three seasons before being cancelled. It spent more than a year in limbo, its fans clamoring for a comeback.

Discussion: GigaOM

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, more at Techmeme »

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

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, GigaOM, Editors Weblog, The Next Web, NewsGrange, Anil Dash 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: Media News International, The Wrap, Company Town and @pkafka

New York Times:

A Hacking Case Becomes a War of the Tabloids — LONDON — It was a classic tabloid scoop: a young woman's account of a two-year affair with the actor Ralph Fiennes, spiced up with racy details of what he liked to do and how he liked to do it. Three newspapers — The Sunday Mirror …