Mediagazer: Tim Armstrong Finally Gets To Boast: AOL Ad Sales Moving Up (Peter Kafka/MediaMemo)

4:30 PM ET, May 4, 2011

Top News:

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

NY Daily News Got Tip of Bin Laden Death Hours Early Tabloid heard from FDNY source, editor says — Most of the world learned about Osama bin Laden's death when President Obama announced it late Sunday evening. But the New York Daily News says it was leaked the biggest story of the year …

Discussion: NPR, FishbowlNY, The AfPak Channel, The Politico and Sunshine State Sarah

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:
Operation Geronimo, Part 2: Targeting the Media

Discussion: Poynter, The AfPak Channel, News Desk, ABCNEWS and The Politico

New York Observer:
Hot Damn! Behind the Young Rummy Aide Who Broke Bin Laden's Bust

Discussion: Mediaite, Broadcasting & Cable, The Daily Beast, Media Decoder and Poynter

Chris Lehmann / Yahoo! News:
Bin Laden news finds pundits forsaking usual comfort zones

Discussion: Gothamist and Mediaite

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Why Rush for an iPad App? Fortune's New Web App Starts With Your Browser — Web Apps Are on the Rise, but Will Consumers Adopt Them? — Instead of limiting its next app to one device like the iPad, Fortune magazine has built a new app to run inside web browsers on a variety of platforms.

Discussion: Bloggasm, Talking Biz News and FishbowlNY

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:

Al Jazeera English to be honored with Columbia Journalism Award — Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism will bestow its highest honor, the Columbia Journalism Award, to Al Jazeera English. The award is given annually during the school's commencement ceremony to recognize …

Discussion: Poynter and @niemanlab

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

New York Times scouts for Arango's replacement as media desk doc generates buzz — The just-released trailer for Andrew Rossi's forthcoming documentary about New York Times media reporters has been a hot topic among media gossips this week. — In the footage (see above) …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and The Huffington Post

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Howcast Co-Founder Jumps to Daily Beast — Daniel Blackman, a Google vet who co-founded how-to video startup Howcast four years ago, has left the company and is now chief digital officer at Newsweek/Daily Beast Co., the print/Web mashup now run by Tina Brown.

Discussion: BoomTown

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

News Corp. Revenue, Earnings Miss — A first look at News Corp.'s March earnings: Revenues of $8.26 billion and adjusted earnings of $0.26 per share. Analysts were looking for revenue of $8.42 billion and earnings of $0.27 per share. More shortly.

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

MIT management professor Tom Malone on collective intelligence and the “genetic” structure of groups — Do groups have genetic structures? If so, can they be modified? — Those are two central questions for Thomas Malone, a professor of management and an expert in organizational structure …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Tim Armstrong Finally Gets To Boast: AOL Ad Sales Moving Up — It's taken Tim Armstrong a couple years, but he finally has some good news to share about AOL's ad business: It actually grew last quarter. — Or at least part of it did: Display ads were up four percent for the first quarter …

Discussion: paidContent, CNET News, FishbowlNY, VentureBeat and mediabistro.com, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:
Hearst Adopts AOL ‘Large Format’ Ads

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Epicenter and FishbowlNY

Oliver Reichenstein / Information Architects:

Business Class: Freemium for News? — I had a perspective changing talk on the subject of pay walls with the chief executive of a big publishing company (no, I can't tell you who). He asked me what I think about pay walls. I told him what I always say: The main currency of news sites …

Discussion: GigaOM

David Kaplan / paidContent:

WSJ Creates Web-Based Subscription Service For CFOs — The Wall Street Journal is drilling down on niche audiences and is now selling subscriptions to a web-based news service aimed at chief financial officers and similar executives. CFO Journal is the latest in a series …

Discussion: MediaPost and Talking Biz News

Ina Fried / Mobilized:

Google TV Aims to Turn the Channel With New Release Later This Year — Google TV may not have won over many critics or fans with its first season, but Google still thinks it could be a long-term hit. — Before renewing the product for another season, though, Google is making a number of changes to the script.

Discussion: SlashGear and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

NYT's Nisenholtz Calls Reported 300,000 Digital Sub Goal ‘Inaccurate’ — Courtesy of my colleague Robert Andrews, I tuned into a replay of a BBC interview with New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) digital head Martin Nisenholtz—only to hear a jaw dropper when interviewer Steve Hewlett mentioned …

Discussion: Poynter

John Hudson / The Atlantic Wire:

Adam Moss: 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. Adam Moss, editor-in-chief of New York magazine …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Sam Gustin / Epicenter:

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: No Armageddon Battle With Cable Giants — NEW YORK — In many ways, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was the perfect choice to close out this year's Wired Business Conference. — After all, perhaps no company better represents disruption than the DVD-rental …

Discussion: The Tech Trade, AdAge, paidContent, Company Town, DSLreports, Hacking NetFlix, Home Media Magazine, FierceCable, Mobile Marketing Watch, Technology Review, GigaOM, TechCrunch and SAI

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Meet the first network TV journalist on Twitter — His name is @newmediajim. Or to be precise, Jim Long, a photojournalist for NBC News who joined Twitter on October 24, 2006. Today, he has over 42,000 followers — more than many on-air correspondents. — “I would wager that I was the …

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Reuters Bringing Live Video News to Publishers Big and Small — Reuters, a leading provider of live news video to television broadcasters around the globe, is now making a rich offering of live video feeds available to digital publishers, says Chris Ahearn, president of media for Thomson Reuters, in this interview with Beet.TV

Discussion: paidContent and Talking Biz News

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

Google Takes to TV to Promote Browser — SAN FRANCISCO — Google is once again taking up arms in the browser wars, in the belief that people who use its Chrome Web browser will be more likely to keep using Google search. — The company is taking the battle to mainstream America …

Discussion: paidContent, MediaMemo, Digital Trends, CNET News, Gawker, The Next Web and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

MSNBC.com Prez: Sunday Was “Very Interesting for Online Video Viewing” — The announcement late Sunday evening by President Obama that Osama Bin Laden had been killed created extraordinary traffic for MSNBC.com and pointed the emerging role of online video viewing in cable-connected homes.

Discussion: TVNewser