Mediagazer: At Thrillist, Mingling Commerce and Content (Claire Cain Miller/New York Times)

11:55 AM ET, March 21, 2011

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Times's Online Pay Model Was Years in the Making — The discussions played out over most of 2009 amid the hum of the third floor newsroom and in the executive suites high above Times Square, consuming what seemed like countless meetings and consultants' recommendations.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, The Wire, TheAustralian, Monday Note, Technologizer, @stevebuttry, Business Week, Poynter and @dangillmor

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Paying for The Times at SXSW — On Thursday, I had lunch with a pal at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, that annual crush of media and technology people that descends on the lovely town of Austin. When he offered to pay, I said, “You don't need to do that.” — “That's all right,” he said.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Soup and Guardian

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

The Biggest Flaw in NYT Pay Plan: It's Backward-Looking — I didn't get a chance to write about the launch of the New York Times subscription plan last week for a number of reasons (okay, I was on a beach) but I've since read most of what others have written about it, and the general consensus seems …

Discussion: Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check, Thanks:mathewi

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

NYTimes' “Fair” Prices — Today, both Jean-Louis and I struggle with the same topic: last week's announcement of the New York Time's strange paywall structure. — For a digital newspaper, there is no such thing as a fair price. Too many questionable assumptions, too many variables, too many ways to play with data.

Discussion: Techdirt

Subtraction.com:
What the NYT Pay Wall Really Costs

Discussion: @tummler10

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent: How The NYT's Paywall Compares To Those Of Other Big Papers

New York Times:

Libya Releases 4 Times Journalists — TRIPOLI, Libya — The Libyan government released four detained New York Times journalists Monday, six days after they were captured while covering the conflict between government and rebel forces in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. They were released into the custody of Turkish diplomats.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Online NewsHour, The Wire, @nytkeller, @nytkeller, Journalism.co.uk, Poynter., Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Note, Vanity Fair and New York Magazine

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Rush of Events Gives Foreign News a Top Priority — Propelled by revolution in the Middle East and radiation in Japan, television news coverage of foreign events this year is at the highest level since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks 10 years ago, news executives in the United States say.

Discussion: TVNewser, Inside Cable News, Poynter and The Wire

New York Observer:

Foster Kamer Named Senior Editor of ‘The New York Observer’ — Foster Kamer, currently the online news and features editor for Esquire, will join the staff of The New York Observer as a senior editor and Wall Street reporter. — Prior to Esquire, Mr. Kamer reported on media, culture …

Discussion: http://www.fosterkamer.com/ and FishbowlNY

David Carr / New York Times:

The Evolving Mission of Google — Today's quiz: What company derives 96 percent of its revenue from advertising, has a video platform that is currently negotiating with the National Basketball Association, a movie studio and various celebrities, and is developing a subscription service …

Discussion: Noted

Rupal Parekh / AdAge:

Groupon CEO: We Placed Too Much Trust in Agency for Super Bowl Ads — Andrew Mason Says Group-Buying Site ‘Turned Off Part of Its Brain’ When Working With CP&B in Aim to Be ‘Edgy’ — Talk about adding insult to injury. — As if CP&B's breakup last week with one of its biggest clients …

Discussion: AdFreak, Marketing Pilgrim, SAI and NetNewsCheck Latest, more at Techmeme »

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

At Thrillist, Mingling Commerce and Content — The Web site Thrillist publishes daily e-mails aimed at a young, male audience, with tips about activities in various cities. But along with that content, it offers separate e-mails selling clothes and deals at local businesses …

Discussion: SAI, Noted, Betabeat and eMedia Vitals

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Slip and slide: Newspaper industry increases production of scary charts — You may have come across the chart-making work of blogger Michael DeGusta last month, when he recrunched some numbers on the music business that illustrated that industry's financial decline.

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Web Shows Get Ambitious — Tech, Media Companies Race to Create Video Hits That Look, Feel More Like TV — Technology and media companies are racing to create Internet-video hits closer to the scale of traditional TV, as consumers start to watch more video on Internet-connected televisions and tablet computers.

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Rebecca Black Means The (Internet) Fame Game Has Changed … The video for Rebecca Black's “Friday” now has more YouTube views than Lady Gaga's “Born This Way” at around 26 million versus 22 million for Gaga. For those of you that haven't been playing along with the meme …

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Time Warner, Other Cable Cos. Stake Out Turf in Digital Frontier — IPad App Sets Off Tussle Over Content and Distribution — There's an epic tussle going on over the future of TV, and fusty old cable served notice last week — it won't be left behind.