Mediagazer: A 5-minute framework for fostering better conversations in comments sections (Matt Thompson/Poynter)

7:55 PM ET, March 7, 2011

Top News:

Henry Blodget / The Wire:

BUSINESS INSIDER SECRETS REVEALED: An Inside Look At Our Readership And Financial Performance — Most private companies zealously protect details about financial and operating performance, refusing to release so much as a revenue number. — The logic for this secrecy varies.

Discussion: Poynter, VatorNews, TechCrunch, @mathewi and mediabistro.com

Felix Salmon: The economics of Business Insider

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

AOL-HuffPo Deal Officially Closes Today-More Big Media Hires Signal New Content Direction Under Arianna — AOL will officially close its $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post today, according to several sources close to the situation. — The culmination of the deal-which has already …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Poynter, Poynter, BW: GUEST HOME, paidContent, The Wire, Softpedia News, VatorNews, CNET News, GMSV, DealBook, New York Post, Mixed Media, MediaPost, Black Web 2.0 and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Sam Gustin / Epicenter:
Does Arianna Huffington Have Enough Magic Touch Left to Save AOL?

Discussion: Mixed Media and WebProNews

Newsweek:

My Favorite Mistake: Harvey Weinstein — Harvey Weinstein on smoking with Kate Moss—and his failed social network. — There are two things that come very easily to me: rooting for New York sports teams and making mistakes. One of my all-time classics happened when I took a plane …

Discussion: The Awl and Guardian

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:
Familiar Bylines Grace Tina Brown's Newsweek

Discussion: Yahoo! News, The Wire and CJR

John Koblin / WWD Media Headlines:
Memo Pad: Joanne Lipman's Newsweek Debut

Discussion: Grids, The Wrap, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Adweek, Editors Weblog, Poynter, ABCNEWS, Talking Biz News, mediabistro.com, ABCNEWS, Yahoo! News and The Daily Dish

Alex Pham / Company Town:

Google's YouTube buys Next New Networks — Hoping to “supercharge” the next generation of online video stars, Google Inc.'s online video site YouTube on Monday announced it has purchased Next New Networks for an undisclosed sum. — As reported in Company Town in December …

Discussion: TechCrunch, MediaMemo, Beet.TV and @pkafka

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

YouTube Makes Acquisition to Move Beyond Home Videos — SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube, the video site owned by Google, formally announced on Monday that it had acquired Next New Networks, a Web video production company, in its biggest effort yet to move beyond short, quirky home videos to professionally produced content.

Discussion: YouTube Blog, Online Video News, SAI, Mashable! and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Sheen On Ustream: A Wasted Opportunity — “The future of television is happening right now,” tweeted someone sitting pretty in the medium's present, Survivor host Jeff Probst. But from the looks of the video to which he linked, a live stream of the ubiquitous Charlie Sheen, the future is going to have to wait.

Discussion: VatorNews

New York Times:
Sheen Is Surrounded by a Coterie of Enablers

Discussion: Media Decoder, TMZ.com, TMZ.com, Wall Street Journal, Politics Daily, @weareyourfek, Company Town and Deadspin, more at Techmeme »

Tim MacMahon / ESPN:
Mark Cuban, Charlie Sheen in talks

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, Company Town, USA Today, GigaOM, AOL News, The First Post, Gawker, PopEater, @thefamousjay and @espn

Jim Rendon / Mother Jones:

Dan Rather: Inside Mark Cuban's Gilded Cage — At 79, the former CBS anchorman is still kicking ass and winning Emmys. But with his exposés sandwiched between pro wrestling and Girls Gone Wild, is anybody watching? — Post Comment — DAN RATHER IS EBULLIENT, more so than usual …

Discussion: The Big Picture, Poynter, TVNewser and The Wire

Mike Orren:

Paywall, ho! — It's official- the Dallas Morning News paywall goes live tomorrow. We've had about a month to preview the new site and to get used to more rigorous registration requirements. Now, it's game on. After the jump, Jim Moroney's email to the troops and my thoughts: #

Discussion: WebNewser and @jayrosen_nyu

Matt Thompson / Poynter:

A 5-minute framework for fostering better conversations in comments sections — Last week, my news organization announced we were evolving our online commenting practices a bit to improve the quality of discourse on NPR.org. — Our comment threads drew some attention recently when a comment thread …

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, Ars Technica and @amichel

Atlantic Wire:

Eric Schmidt: What I Read — How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? Do they have some secret? Perhaps. We are asking various people who seem well-informed to describe their media diets. This is from a conversation with Google CEO Eric Schmidt …

Discussion: @erickschonfeld, Editors Weblog and The Atlantic Online

Martin Langeveld / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Who owns newspaper companies? The banks, funds, and investors and their (big) slices of the industry — Who owns America's newspapers? — In January, I detailed how a hedge fund named Alden Global Capital, which played a role in the shakeup at MediaNews Group, also had significant holdings …

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:

TV's Next Wave: Tuning In to You — The television is channeling you. — Data-gathering firms and technology companies are aggressively matching people's TV-viewing behavior with other personal data—in some cases, prescription-drug records obtained from insurers—and using …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, New York Magazine, The Atlantic Online, Digits, Technology Liberation Front and @iwantmedia, more at Techmeme »

Jonathan S. Paul / tenones.tumblr.com:

To the Reader, Thank you for reading 111-111-1111 — To the Reader, Thank you for reading 111-111-1111 — Ten Ones — my real-time edit of NYTimes.com visual matter. At the urging of The New York Times legal department, I have suspended postings and removed the archive.

Discussion: Felix Salmon and Techdirt

Verne G. Kopytoff / New York Times:

Sites Like Twitter Absent From Free Speech Pact — SAN FRANCISCO — When Google, Yahoo and Microsoft signed a code of conduct intended to protect online free speech and privacy in restrictive countries, the debate over censorship by China was raging, and Internet companies operating …

Discussion: GMSV, Switched and Free Press

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

YouTube Grabs Another Hollywood Guy: Paramount's Alex Carloss — YouTube is still trying to figure out how to link up with Hollywood. Maybe Alex Carloss will help. — Until last week, Carloss was head of digital distribution at Viacom's Paramount. Now he's a Google employee, working on YouTube's content acquisition team.

Discussion: paidContent, Between the Lines Blog and WebProNews

Jeremy Peters / Media Decoder:

Glamour's iPad Series to Let Viewers Buy Clothes From Gap — The ability to buy products strategically placed on television programs — a handbag clutched by the actress Blake Lively on “Gossip Girl” or a suit worn by the actor Jon Hamm on “Mad Men” — with the click of a button has always …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, NYConvergence.com and MediaPost

Robert Hernandez / Online Journalism Review:

Q & A with Al Jazeera Online Producer Bilal Randeree — By Robert Hernandez: Without a doubt, the leading news organization covering the historic Middle East unrest is Al Jazeera. Available in limited markets here, their website has been the home for its impressive coverage.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Future of Journalism

Dylan Tweney / Epicenter:
Al Jazeera English Plans Show Centered on Social Networking

Discussion: Lost Remote, Fast Company, Guardian, The Wire, Examiner and The Atlantic Online

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Will Fox News and Glenn Beck split up? — Can Fox News live without Glenn Beck when his contract's up in December? — Yes. At least that's what Fox News “officials” are anonymously telling the New York Times. Fox News dominates the cable news ratings and executives can point …

David Carr / New York Times:
The Fading Power of Beck's Alarms

Chris O'Shea / mediabistro.com:

The Best/Worst Selling Magazine Covers of 2010 — In the latest issue of min, the best and worst selling magazines of 2010 are listed. This New York cover from April of last year was the magazine's best seller, while its worst was actually a pretty interesting one: The Curse of Spider-Man from November.

Discussion: Adweek

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

MSNBC's Newest Pit Bull — Lawrence O'Donnell seems indifferent about his new career as a cable anchor. Howard Kurtz talks to him about his unlikely rise, why people hate him—and why O'Reilly can't get under his skin. — Lawrence O'Donnell doesn't sound like he wants to be talking about himself or his prime-time cable show.

Discussion: TVNewser, Mediaite and The Huffington Post