Mediagazer: The Nikki Enigma (The Daily)

3:55 PM ET, February 10, 2011

Top News:

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

The Politics of the New Huffington Post at AOL — Is ideological innovation possible in online journalism? I think it is. My suggestion: Drop the View from Nowhere and go with transparency throughout the reborn AOL. — These are the top five questions journalists have been asking …

Discussion: San Francisco Chronicle, Nieman Journalism Lab, Yahoo! News, Poynter, CJR, Etaoin Shrdlu, The Daily Dish, Joho the Blog, The Wrap, The Wire, Opinion L.A., The Huffington Post, MediaPost, The New Republic, About.com Journalism and Mediaite

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

AOL-HuffPo: Arianna And The Free Blog Economy — Some of Huffington Post's 9,000+ bloggers have already announced that they won't be following Arianna to AOL (NYSE: AOL) - either unhappy about the switch from ideological startup or, as Douglas Rushkoff wrote, disinterested in writing for the big corporation for free.

Discussion: Mixed Media, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine, GalleyCat, Techdirt, Media Nation and Techland

Emily Steel / Wall Street Journal:
Advertisers Weigh AOL, Politics

Discussion: The Wire and Fast Company

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Huffpo Isn't Huffpo Without the People. Does AOL Know That?

Discussion: New York Observer, The Evolving Newsroom and New York Post

Matt Welch / Hit & Run:
Arianna Huffington, Slavemaster?

Discussion: Opinion L.A., AlterNet.org, The Daily Caller, Hot Air and blogs.journalism.co.uk

Wall Street Journal:

Twitter as Tech Bubble Barometer — As Internet valuations climb and bankers and would-be buyers circle Silicon Valley in an increasingly frothy tech market, many eyes are on one particularly desirable, if still enigmatic, target: Twitter. — Executives at both Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Yahoo Unveils ‘Livestand’ Tablet Newsstand And ‘Personalized News’ Focus — Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) revealed details of its mobile “personalization” initiative that were hinted at earlier this week. In a conference call led by Blake Irving, the company's chief product officer, Yahoo's The platform …

Discussion: Yodel Anecdotal, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, SAI, Shoutpedia, GigaOM, MacStories, CNET News, The Next Web, Digital Daily and @caro, more at Techmeme »

Fortune:

Conan 2.0 — How a late-night Luddite accidentally fought his way back into bedrooms (and computers, smartphones, and tablets) across America. — By Douglas Alden Warshaw, contributor — Conan O'Brien is in his bedroom. It's a little bit past 11 p.m., and he's shyly, hesitantly, nervously attempting to do his first webcast.

Discussion: The Wire, The Huffington Post, @iwantmedia, @romenesko, Mediaite and Moraes on TV

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Gawker's Scoop Draws Eyes to a New Format — Representative Christopher Lee's sudden resignation on Wednesday was triggered by an article on Gawker, the Manhattan-based gossip Web site. — The story of the married “Craigslist Congressman” who evidently sought out a woman via …

Discussion: CJR, New York Post, Gawker, News Desk, TheLoop21.com, Poynter, City Room, New York Times, Mediaite, Gawker, The Empire, The Stir By CafeMom, AOL News, NYConvergence.com, Piers Morgan, @jyarow and Swampland

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:
On the ‘Craigslist Congressman’: Gawker licks many toads, but Chris Lee's a prince

Discussion: Politics Daily and Runnin' Scared

Tim Molloy / The Wrap:

Mubarak News Fills Airwaves With Uncertainty — Except About One Thing — News that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation could be imminent filled the airwaves with questions, and the major cable news networks, understandably, did a better job of framing than answering them.

Discussion: Al Jazeera Blogs and @mlcalderone

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:
With Mubarak's apparent ouster, U.S. news outlets intensify Egypt coverage

Discussion: Aljazeera, Committee to Protect …, Bikya Masr, and breaking, Danger Room, Poynter, Press Gazette and Journalism.co.uk

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

More Subscriptions For Time Inc: Sports Illustrated/Google Deal Coming — Yesterday Time Inc. announced a deal to offer digital magazine subscriptions on Hewlett-Packard's new tablet. Tomorrow it will have a deal to announce with Google. — This one will be more limited than yesterday's announcement …

Discussion: Editors Weblog, FishbowlNY, mediabistro.com, Folio, eMedia Vitals and paidContent

Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:

Can cable block the Google TV revolution? — Behind the scenes at the Federal Communications Commission, a quiet war is being waged over the future of television. It isn't getting as many headlines as net neutrality or the Comcast/NBCU merger, but the debate is nearly as important.

The Daily:

The Nikki Enigma — Is this Nikki Finke, the most powerful - and elusive - woman in Hollywood?

Discussion: The Wrap, New York Observer, Mediaite, Gawker, Yahoo! News, Runnin' Scared, LA Observed, New York Observer, Runnin' Scared, The Wire and Gawker

Michael Bush / AdAge:

Virgin America on Why Twitter, Facebook Are More Important to Airline Than TV — Carrier's Top Marketer Porter Gale: ‘Other Airlines Should Recognize That Social Media Is Not Going Away’ — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — While discussing the rewards that Twitter and Facebook have delivered …

Byrne / majordojo:

How did WordPress win? — When we are passionate about something, it is sometimes hard for us to wrap our heads around why someone else might not be passionate about the same thing. You see this in the WordPress community often - fans and users of WordPress are often flabbergasted that someone might choose something else.

Discussion: One Man & His Blog, PlagiarismToday, Gadgetopia and @mathowie, more at Techmeme »

Scott Rosenberg / MediaShift Idea Lab:

See an Error at the Washington Post? Now You Can Easily Report It — Beginning Monday, every new staff-written article on the Washington Post's website came with a prominent link labeled “YOUR FEEDBACK: Corrections, suggestions?” One click takes the reader to a form for reporting errors or providing other feedback to the newsroom.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Adam Westbrook:

10 free and totally legal programs every multimedia journalist should have — Image credit: BinaryApe on Flickr — The multimedia journalist's toolbox is ever growing - and getting ever cheaper. — While some of the top flight bits of kit: Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Studio …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and The News About The News

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Despite Pushback From Pubs, Apple Will Make iTunes Subscription Billing Mandatory — When Rupert Murdoch's The Daily launched last week, Apple's VP Eddy Cue got on stage to announce one-click subscriptions for iPad publications through iTunes. The Daily already has the one-click billing option …

Discussion: Voices on All Things Digital, Techland, Mixed Media and Tech Trader Daily

Kim Mai Cutler / The Quora Review:

On Quora, Journalism and Disintermediation — When I turned down my parents' Tiger Mom-like ambitions in favor of journalism years ago, the technology and media industries were worlds apart. — The best-known tech companies of my parents' generation were plodding giants.

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Mobile Insiders Say Apple's iAds Are “Hurting” — Apple's iAds are hitting a rough spot. Across the board, several developers I've spoken to confirm that “fill rates” for iAds dropped drastically after the New Year and have yet to recover. The fill rate—what percentage of the ad inventory …

Discussion: MacRumors and MacStories