Mediagazer: Four Months After Approving Merger, FCC Commissioner Joins NBCUniversal (The Wrap)

11:25 AM ET, May 12, 2011

Top News:

Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google — THE DAILY BEAST ON: — The social network secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about the search giant, The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons reveals—a caper that is blowing up in their face, and escalating their war.

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

Smear Story Source Speaks: Facebook Wanted to Stab Google in the Back — Privacy advocate Christopher Soghoian broke open the story of how Facebook tried to use global PR giant Burson-Marsteller to smear Google in the press. He was pitched to ghost-write the op-ed, but posted the email exchange online instead.

Discussion: Guardian, Fortune and broadstuff, more at Techmeme »

Edward Wyatt / Media Decoder:

F.C.C. Commissioner Leaving to Join Comcast — 8:02 p.m. | Updated WASHINGTON — Four months after the Federal Communications Commission approved a hotly contested merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the commissioners who voted for the deal said on Wednesday that she would soon join Comcast's Washington lobbying office.

The Wrap:
Four Months After Approving Merger, FCC Commissioner Joins NBCUniversal

Discussion: Free Press, Gawker, Ars Technica, Hot Air, ThinkProgress, Washington Wire and Broadcasting & Cable, more at Techmeme »

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

InsideDeal! WebMediaBrands Acquires Inside Network For $14 Million — When it comes to in-depth news about Facebook, there has been no better site than Inside Facebook. In fact, the flagship site of Inside Network became so successful alongside the meteoric rise of Facebook …

Discussion: paidContent, NetworkEffect, MinOnline, VentureBeat, @megan and eBookNewser

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

The Surprising Reason Publishers Are Finally Saying Yes to Apple — Earlier this week, I asked what had changed in the standoff between Apple and magazine publishers, who want to sell subscriptions to iPad editions in the iTunes store but, until last week, weren't prepared to accept Apple's rules.

Discussion: GigaOM, Fortune, TUAW, App Advice, MacStories, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Future of Journalism and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Yahoo grew unique visitors in April while New York Times, others declined — Yahoo!, USA Today, ABC News and Advance saw unique visitors to their websites grow in April compared to March, while all other sites saw declines, data from comScore shows. — To determine the most viewed news websites …

Nat Ives / AdAge:
New York Times' Share of Newspaper Sites' Traffic Hits 12-Month Low

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily, Fast Company, Poynter, Media & Entertainment, MediaPost, Future of Journalism, paidContent, Runnin' Scared and FishbowlNY

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

The New York Times to Debut “UGC” Wedding Announcements This Weekend — The New York Times, which features a short article and photo of a couple of dozen newly-weds every Sunday in the Style section, will be adding short videos created by the couples. The first user-generated video will be published this weekend.

Discussion: New York Times and Poynter

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Gawker sites see page views begin to return as Jezebel's April traffic bests last year's — Since Gawker Media relaunched its network of websites in February, there has been much talk about the immediate drop in unique visitors and page views. But three months later, the numbers look a little different.

Discussion: Bloggasm

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How The New York Times Will Shake Up Its Weekly Section — NEW YORK — New York Times staffers in the editorial and news departments have been working for several months to reinvent the paper's “Week in Review” section, a Sunday staple for more than 75 years.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org and coverawards.com

The Atlantic Online:

'Google Doesn't Laugh': Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO — If online searches are literal, what happens to headlines that involve word play? Copy editors fear they're going the way of the classified ad. — To Matthew Crowley, funny headlines are serious business.

Discussion: Poynter, The Awl and @ivantohelpyou

The Atlantic Wire:

Lizzie O'Leary: 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. Lizzie O'Leary, a Washington D.C.-based correspondent …

John Hazard / Street Fight:

Hyperlocal Video Isn't Ready for “Take-Out” — If you want to know where broadcast content is headed on location-aware devices, Scott Lindenbaum, co-founder and president of Broadcastr, suggests you look no further than your car dashboard. — “There's a reason car televisions never replaced car radios,” he said.

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

CBSNews.com to debut social show 'What's Trending' — Next week, CBSNews.com will debut a new show called “What's Trending” that bridges a live, weekly webcast with social media interaction. “What's Trending fills the gap as a broadcast show for the internet generation,” explains host and executive producer Shira Lazar.

Discussion: What's Trending, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Michael Moore, Ken Burns Tapped as Contributors for Keith Olbermann's Current TV Show — “Countdown” will return to TV on Current June 20, and host Keith Olbermann is lining up a stable of contributors to appear regularly on the program. — TVNewser has learned that filmmaker Michael Moore …

Discussion: The Wire, Broadcasting & Cable and On Media's Blog