Mediagazer: Top Programming Exec Mitch Metcalf Leaving NBC (Tim Molloy/The Wrap)

1:55 AM ET, March 5, 2011

Top News:

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Hyperlocal Heartbreak: Why Haven't Neighborhood News Technologies Worked Out? — Neighborhood news aggregator Outside.in has been acquired by AOL, according to multiple reports this morning. Apparently it's being bought for less than the big pile of money that high-profile investors put into it, back when hopes were high.

Discussion: Lost Remote and Local Media Watch

Chris Ariens / FishbowlNY:

Outside.in's Josephson ‘Thrilled’ to Join AOL; Patch Produces a Piece of Content Every 15 Seconds — Fresh off the news this morning that AOL had acquired hyperlocal aggregator Outside.in for $10 million, representatives from both companies appeared this morning on a panel …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

AOL Buys Outside.In, Less Than $10 Million — AOL will announce today that it has acquired “hyper-local” blog aggregator startup Outside.In, an industry source tells us. — We don't know if AOL will announce how much it is paying for the company — probably not — but we're told that it is less than $10 million.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Mashable!, paidContent, GigaOM, MarketingVOX, Pulse2, NYConvergence.com, WebProNews, Digital Trends, MediaMemo, Noted and The Wire, more at Techmeme »

PR Newswire:

Jim Lanzone Named President of CBS Interactive … CBS Interactive to Acquire Clicker.com — Jim Lanzone, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Clicker Media Inc., has been named President of CBS Interactive, it was announced today by Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBS Corporation.

Discussion: CNET News, TechCrunch, New York Magazine, Pulse2, @hunterwalk, WebProNews, SocialTimes.com, @jlanzone, @brianstelter, Lost Remote, MediaPost, Search Engine Land and Beet.TV, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:

CBSi Buys Clicker; Lanzone Replaces Ashe As President — CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS) is acquiring Clicker, the self-styled “TV Guide” for online video, and is installing Jim Lanzone, Clicker's co-founder and CEO as its new president, succeeding Neil Ashe. As CEO of CNET Networks …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, The Wrap, Media Decoder, Mediaweek, WebNewser, Media Buyer Planner, Company Town, MediaPost, Multichannel, Broadcasting & Cable and AdAge

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Arianna Huffington: We Won't “Mess with” TechCrunch or Engadget: Tim Armstrong Has Big Plans for Video — As the Huffington Post merges with AOL, the company will leave its successful brands to operate as independent entities. Arianna Huffington, who will be editorial chief of the new company …

Discussion: paidContent, WebNewser, NYConvergence.com and WebProNews

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM: Newspapers Need to Be Of the Web, Not Just On the Web

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

New York Times online pay model details coming in ‘matter of weeks’ — If you were the executive editor of one of the world's most prestigious and widely read newspapers, how would you justify billing a reader for a print version that he's no longer reading?

Discussion: The Wire, LA Observed, Best of the Wire, TVNewser, Gawker, FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post and UnBeige

MediaPost: NYT: All The News That's Fit To Mint

Piers Morgan:

More than just winning: Why Charlie Sheen is news, like it or not — In the tiger blood-fueled media blitz of the last week, which has seen Charlie Sheen show up everywhere from TMZ to Howard Stern, from sports radio to network news, in only one appearance did he directly admit to violence against a woman (video above).

Discussion: New York Times, The Wire and Mediaite

James Wolcott / Vanity Fair:

It's Morgan In America — Where did Piers Morgan come from? And is there any way to send him back? Reviewing the debut “gets”—Oprah! Rudy! Condoleezza!—of Larry King's blustery British heir, the author examines the failures behind Morgan's success. — If you're going to go in, go in big.

Discussion: The Wrap, TVNewser, New York Magazine, Adweek, Mediaite and Yahoo! News

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

No More Digital Discount: Conde Nast Raises Prices For Two iPad Magazines — iPad magazines haven't been huge hits. At least in part because readers say they're too expensive. — So this one's a bit of a head-scratcher: Conde Nast is going to raise the prices of two of its tablet titles.

Discussion: The Next Web, MediaPost, Poynter, FishbowlNY, Canadian Magazines and mediabistro.com, more at Techmeme »

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Mother Jones web traffic up 400+ percent, partly thanks to explainers — February was a record-breaking traffic month for Mother Jones. Three million unique users visited the site — a 420 percent increase from February 2010's numbers. And MotherJones.com posted 6.6 million pageviews overall — a 275 percent increase.

Discussion: digiday:DAILY, Runnin' Scared, FishbowlDC, Mother Jones and Future of Journalism

Jack Shafer / Slate:

Credit Score What's with the New York Times Magazine adding editor credits to the end of features? — The March 6 issue of the redesigned New York Times Magazine will contain—among many other changes—this new wrinkle: credits at the end of features that name the piece's editor.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, Scocca, The Book Bench and Editors Weblog

blogs.journalism.co.uk:

From alpha users to a man in Angola: Adventures in crowdsourcing and journalism — Yesterday's Media Standards Trust data and news sourcing event presented a difficult decision early on: Whether to attend “Crowdsourcing and other innovations in news sourcing” or “Open government data, data mining, and the semantic web”.

Discussion: Media Standards Trust

Tim Molloy / The Wrap:

Top Programming Exec Mitch Metcalf Leaving NBC — Mitch Metcalf, NBC's top programming executive, is leaving the network. — The decision is mutual, a network insider tells TheWrap. It comes as new NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt looks to assemble his own team and reinvigorate the network.

Discussion: Company Town and Broadcasting & Cable

Thomas Catan / Wall Street Journal:

Web Video Rivalry Sparks U.S. Probe — The Justice Department is investigating whether a group representing some top technology firms is unfairly trying to smother a free rival technology for delivering online video that is backed by Google Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.