Mediagazer: AOL Realigns Ad Sales Along Specific Categories; Five New ‘Practice Heads’ (David Kaplan/paidContent)

11:30 AM ET, April 14, 2011

Top News:

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:

About That Lawsuit... The lawsuit filed Tuesday by Jonathan Tasini is so utterly without merit, and has been so thoroughly eviscerated in the media — including being ridiculed as the “dumbest lawsuit ever” — I am hesitant to take any time away from aggregating adorable kitten videos to respond.

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:
Does HuffPo even need its unpaid bloggers anymore?

Discussion: Mixed Media, B2B Memes and Poynter

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:
AOL's Huffington to Add News Staff in Local Site Revamp

Discussion: Street Fight, Digital Trends, Poynter, VatorNews, paidContent, FishbowlNY, NetNewsCheck Latest, Future of Journalism and Noted

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Harman Family to Keep Its Stake in Newsweek — In the weeks before his death, Sidney Harman acted every bit the proud new business owner he was. He took part in meetings. When he could not be there in person, he dialed in by video conference. He answered his own phone when colleagues called.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Wall Street Journal, Deal Journal and Poynter

Media Decoder:
For Newsweek's Future, More Questions

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Publishing Executive News, USA Today, Media & Entertainment, The Daily Beast, Mixed Media, Folio, MediaPost, The Wrap, The Informer, The Huffington Post, The Daily Dish, MinOnline and The Daily Beast

Samantha Henig / The New Yorker Blog:
Postscript: Sidney Harman

Discussion: The Daily Beast, American Journalism Review, Bloomberg and Runnin' Scared

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:

Web Advertising Eclipsed Newspapers in 2010 — Web advertising in the U.S. resumed double-digit growth in 2010, outpacing traditional media and surpassing newspaper ad revenue for the first time, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. — In an annual report prepared …

Discussion: Noted and Street Fight

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:
Online Ad Revenue Continues to Rise

Discussion: TechCrunch, Media & Entertainment, Folio, Media News, GigaOM, FishbowlNY and NetNewsCheck Latest

Amelia Hill / Guardian:

Third senior News of the World journalist arrested — James Weatherup in custody as further searches of News of the World offices are expected — Profile: who is James Weatherup? — The police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World has taken a dramatic turn …

Discussion: Press Gazette, The Wire and New York Observer

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Spotify mulls plan to limit free music — Spotify is considering a plan to further cut back the amount of free music it offers to users and is expected to impose new limits perhaps as soon as this week, sources with knowledge of the plans told CNET. — Spotify, the online music service …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Six Lessons for News Publishers from Seth Godin — Seth Godin is the marketer's marketer, somewhere beyond guru. — He's now poking the edges of publishing. After 13 bestsellers, manufactured and sold through the traditional industry, he's causing quite a stir in the book world …

Mark Colvin / ABC News:

Journalism's new wave: the world in a tweet — One steamy night in February 1974, I went with friends to hear the great blues guitarist B B King in concert at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion. — All went well until, an hour or so in, King collapsed on stage and had to be carried off.

Discussion: Washington Post

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL Realigns Ad Sales Along Specific Categories; Five New ‘Practice Heads’ — As AOL's dismal display revenues appears to have put the worst behind it, the company is refining its ad sales approach in the hopes of developing stronger focus on specific ad categories, including CPG/Health, Travel, Automotive, Finance and Entertainment.

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Love me, love my NPR: Public radio listeners can show off their loyalty — NPR executives have been known to brag that theirs is just about the only news organization to show up in people's personal ads. For example: “I am in need of some intelligent male company...I am an avid reader …

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Should TV get on Tumblr? KABC gives it a try — Tumblr is a relatively unexplored world for media organizations — especially in television — but today there's a new TV station giving Tumblr a try. KABC in Los Angeles just debuted this Tumblr a few days ago with the goal to provide …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Anthony DeRosa:

Traditional media's refusal to enter the link economy — Blogger ethics tend to be better than traditional journalism ethics when it comes to linking to sources. It's actually far more likely you won't find a single link in any articles in most mainstream news publications online.

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

Local Is Focal: Street Fight Gives The Local Industry A Source For News And Analysis — I'm beginning to think that the old phrase “think globally, act locally” has become an appropriate slogan for Web 2.0. (Or perhaps an alternative might be “think global, try to monetize the sh*t out of local”.)

Discussion: Street Fight and FishbowlNY

Glynnis MacNicol / The Wire:

Glenn Beck Set To Hire 50 People By Year's End — In the midst of a segment about why it's a bad idea to overtax the rich — they create jobs — Glenn Beck dropped this little nugget: He plans to hire an additional 50 people by the end of the year. — Since the recession hit I've hired an additional 40 people.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Yahoo! News, New York Observer and Poynter

Forbes Blogs / Forbes.com:

Zynga Says No To Ads, Yes To In-Game Promotions — Zynga does not run any advertisements in its games, but it is running large customized in-game campaigns for advertisers to reach Zynga's 250 million users. — “We don't sell advertising,” said Manny Anekal, global director of brand advertising …

Kevin / Strange Attractor:

Rethinking the jobs newspapers do — UPDATE: Thanks for the great response on Twitter and elsewhere. Welcome visitors from Nieman Lab and Media Gazer. Please feel free to add your ideas below in the comments. I do think that print has a purpose. We just need to rethink what that is.

Discussion: Strange Attractor

Associated Press:

AP Mistakenly Reports on Fake GE Press Release — AP mistakenly publishes story about General Electric that was based on a fake press release — The Associated Press mistakenly published a story Wednesday about General Electric Co. that was based on a fake press release.