Mediagazer: Amazon to Publish New Line of Romances (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg/Wall Street …)

5:15 PM ET, May 5, 2011

Top News:

Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:

Service launched for publishers to evade Apple cut — (Reuters) - Digital technology company Yudu launched a service on Thursday to help magazine publishers evade the 30 percent commission that Apple charges to deliver content to iPhones and iPads through its App Store.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Media Week, Mobile Marketing Watch, YUDU Blog, ReadWriteWeb, App Advice and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

Telegraph Goes With Apple Subs For Newspaper-Like iPad Edition — The Telegraph, with its long-awaited version-two iPad app, out today, is the latest news publisher to try reasserting a paid news economy for its newspaper in digital tablet form. — The publisher's upgraded app …

Discussion: Media Week, Telegraph, Mobile Entertainment, MacStories, App Advice, The Next Web, One Man & His Blog, Electronista, Press Gazette and Garcia Media

Nat Ives / AdAge:
Hearst Makes Deal to Sell Subscriptions on iPad, But Will Conde Nast Deliver First?

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Why the man who tweeted Osama bin Laden raid is a citizen journalist — When I wrote earlier this week about how quickly people around the world learned that Sohaib Athar had “live tweeted” the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, I thought carefully before calling him a citizen journalist.

Discussion: Journalism.org, WebProNews, The Atlantic Wire, AndyDickinson.net, CNET News, The Lede, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, The 6th Floor and MediaMemo

Rem Rieder / American Journalism Review:
Passing on Rumors — Why it's a bad idea to glorify …

Discussion: Poynter, Storyful, The Atlantic Wire and Mediaite

MG Siegler / parislemon:
On Bin Laden Killing Tech Blogging

Discussion: WebProNews, @fredericl, @sg, broadstuff, Adweek and New York Magazine

TMZ.com:

Katie Couric On the Verge of $20 Million ABC Deal — Katie Couric and ABC television are on the verge of signing a $20 million deal, which would give Katie her own talk show, as well as significant involvement in ABC News — and the big casualty could be “General Hospital.”

Discussion: Chickaboomer, The Wire, New York Magazine, TVNewser, TVbytheNumbers, rbr.com, Hollywood Life, Gothamist, PopEater, TVGuide.com and Deadline.com

New York Post:
NBC exec out over ‘Couric link’

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Company Town, Mogulite and TVWeek.com

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Can Patch Become the Huffington Post of Local News? — Updated: AOL continues to pour millions of dollars into its Patch.com “hyperlocal” news project, the company confirmed on Wednesday as it released its latest financial statements. But it's also rolling out an expansion of that project aimed …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Street Fight, Reuters, SAI and Mixed Media, Thanks:morisy

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Hot Damn, AOL Is Making One Big, Expensive Bet on Patch — No wonder AOL is so eager to get folks writing for free for Patch. The internet giant pumped $40 million into its network of hyperlocal news sites in the first quarter of 2011, and it will almost certainly lose well in excess of $100 million on the venture this year.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, SAI and NYConvergence.com, more at Techmeme »

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post: Local Voices: Hyperlocal Blogging Comes to Patch

Amy Tennery / Mogulite:

Did CEO McGrath Hate “Electric Barbarellas” so Much She Left MTV? — She was the leader behind MTV's reality show boom, championing programs like “Jersey Shore” and “Teen Mom” — but, in an ironic turn of events, we suspect network veteran Judy McGrath is now ditching her CEO spot over true-life T.V.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire and New York Magazine

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Judy McGrath Leaving MTV Networks; The Memo — Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and Judy McGrath said this morning that the longtime head of MTV Networks has resigned. Company sources stress the decision is McGrath's—and, after making it through some very tough sledding, she leaves MTVN at the top of its game.

Discussion: The Wrap, Adweek, PR Newswire, AdAge, MediaPost, rbr.com, Media Decoder, Company Town, @kenli729 and Broadcasting & Cable

The Atlantic Online:

The Wall Street Journal Launches a WikiLeaks Competitor, SafeHouse — The respected Washington, D.C.-based newspaper has built a site for securely uploading documents to its own internal servers — Once upon a time, WikiLeaks was just a place where a would-be whistleblower could submit documents …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Tom Foremski, WebProNews and FishbowlNY, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal / @wsj:
Introducing WSJ SafeHouse, a secure way to share confidential documents with us. Check it out: https://www.wsjsafehouse.com/

Discussion: Guardian, Poynter, Mixed Media, Journalism.co.uk, @wikileaks, @jason and NewsGrange

Bill Keller / New York Times:

The Inner Lives of Wartime Photographers — This has been a grievous season for the tight-knit tribe of combat photographers. For The Times, the sorrow began last October, when a land mine exploded under Joao Silva while he was shooting pictures of an American patrol near Kandahar …

Discussion: Lens, Forbes.com and The 6th Floor

Twitter Blog:

Watching Together: Twitter and TV — TV and Twitter have a special connection. Broadcasters are eager to provide new ways to drive viewer engagement. Twitter provides a forum for real-time context and commentary that turns watchers into participants. — Over the past few years …

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, Softpedia News, WebProNews and On The Air

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon to Publish New Line of Romances — Amazon.com Inc. is expanding its fast-growing publishing business with a new line of romance books, its latest quest for original content to distinguish its print and digital bookselling services. — The imprint, Montlake Romance, will publish digital …

Discussion: O'Reilly Radar, Guardian, Digital Trends and GeekWire

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

Demand Media Reports A Better-Than-Expected Jump In Sales — Traffic to some of Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) sites may have fallen because of updates Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has made to its search algorithm, but that does not seem to have impacted the company's earnings results very much—if at all.

Discussion: TechCrunch and The Wire, more at Techmeme »

One Reporter's Notebook:

Reporting from analytics: Example — I've written before on writing from analytics, but what happened today was just such a good example, I think it's worth sharing. Briefly: checking out my site analytics, and taking clues from them led me to an unreported homicide. — Here's the step-by-step.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

The Steve Rubel Stream:

As Curators Proliferate, Media Brands Face Loyalty Crisis — Summary: — Suddenly media brands are facing increased competition from an array of upstart curators that are growing in popularity — There are three underlying trends that are driving their rapid rise: mobile devices, remixing technologies and, arguably, paywalls

Discussion: Folio, Thanks:steverubel