Mediagazer: News Trends Tilt Toward Niche Sites (David Carr/New York Times)

1:00 PM ET, September 12, 2011

Top News:

“Deciding” To Move On — AOL has issued the following statement: “The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future. Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund.

Discussion: Fortune, Gawker, New York Magazine, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, TechCrunch, Betabeat, Business Insider, Business Insider, GeekWire, @silviogulizia and @antderosa

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

It's Official: Arrington Out at AOL; Schonfeld New TechCrunch Editor (Plus Armstrong Internal Memo Too!) — AOL and TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington have officially parted ways, almost exactly one year from the New York Internet portal's acquisition of the popular tech news blog.

Discussion: paidContent and @benpopper

Wall Street Journal:

A Business Model Based on Conflict of Interest — On TechCrunch it's hard to tell where news ends and investing begins. — New technology provides an endless supply of information online, but as even Silicon Valley found out this month, it comes at a price: Readers have to work harder …

Discussion: NBC Bay Area, Guardian and Talking Biz News

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:
The Blogosphere's Soft Corruption

Discussion: AllThingsD

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon in Talks to Launch Digital-Book Library — Amazon.com Inc. is talking with book publishers about launching a Netflix Inc.-like service for digital books, in which customers would pay an annual fee to access a library of content, according to people familiar with the matter.

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

BostonGlobe.Com Launches Today; Shifts To Paying Subscribers Only Oct. 1 — One of the most unusual efforts to make money from a newspaper web site launches today in Boston, slightly less than a year after plans were announced. For the rest of September, BostonGlobe.com, which went live overnight …

Discussion: Poynter, Boston Globe, FishbowlNY, Nieman Journalism Lab, The New York Observer, Media Nation, The Huffington Post, WBUR and eMedia Vitals

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Four observations (and lots of questions) on The Boston Globe's lovely new paywalled site — This morning, The Boston Globe took the cloak off its brand new website, BostonGlobe.com. And I really do mean “brand new” — this is no redesign. Years ago, rather than building …

Discussion: Boston Globe, Poynter and Editors Weblog

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Report Details Rise of Social Media — As social media like blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube grow increasingly popular among consumers, marketers are seeking more data about the changing behavior of their customers. — The Nielsen Company, which has long provided such information …

Discussion: Poynter, iMediaConnection Blog, Forbes, NetNewsCheck Latest, eMedia Vitals, Adweek, digiday:DAILY, Nielsen Wire, The New Yorker Blog and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Lauren A. E. Schuker / Wall Street Journal:

Glenn Beck Faces Big Test as New Show Bows — Conservative firebrand Glenn Beck faces his first big test since leaving Fox News when his new two-hour show begins Monday. — The first episode of Mr. Beck's program “Glenn Beck,” which will air on his new Internet-only network GBTV …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TVNewser, Speakeasy, Business Insider, Mediaite, On Media's Blog, Mashable! and The New York Observer

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Glenn Beck Is About to Become a $100 Million Man — What do pundits crave more, broad influence or money in the bank? — If it's influence Glenn Beck values most, maybe he should have stayed at Fox News, where, even on a bad night, he drew more than 1 million viewers …

David Carr / New York Times:

News Trends Tilt Toward Niche Sites — It was a rough week for the big guys on the Web. Yahoo unceremoniously dumped its chief executive, Carol Bartz, and AOL faced a mutiny from TechCrunch, the Silicon Valley news site it bought last year. — Apart from the specific business issues feeding …

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Ad Spending Grows Again, Albeit More Slowly — Advertising spending is still increasing, according to a report to be released Monday morning, but the rate of growth has slowed again. — The report, by Kantar Media, part of WPP, found that ad spending in major media in the United States …

Discussion: MediaPost, paidContent, NetNewsCheck Latest and Business Insider

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Another 2008 Flashback: Ad Spending Already Contracting

Discussion: AdAge and Wall Street Journal

Financial Times:

Turning the page: newspapers face the future — The digitalisation of the media is no longer just about the migration towards online news. — Tablets, apps and mobile sites are all part of the package that must be provided by modern news organisations whose century-old business models …

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Condé Nast Makes Deal With Beauty Chain — With circulation growth getting harder to come by, Condé Nast is going to the beauty aisle in search of new customers. — The fashion/beauty magazine publisher has struck a deal to sell subscriptions in Ulta, a 415-store beauty products chain …

Discussion: mediabistro.com and Business Insider

Dexter Filkins / New Yorker:

Syed Saleem Shahzad's murder, Pakistan, and the ISI. — On May 30th, as the sun beat down on the plains of eastern Pakistan, a laborer named Muhammad Shafiq walked along the top of a dam on the Upper Jhelum Canal to begin his morning routine of clearing grass and trash that had drifted into the intake grates overnight.

Discussion: Mother Jones, Ask the Author and Felix Salmon

Barbara Chai / Wall Street Journal:

CBS Show Is Watching With Interactive Billboards — To promote its new fall drama “Person of Interest,” CBS Corp. is turning its eye on viewers. — To highlight the show's theme of citizen-surveillance, CBS is tapping into the trend of interactive billboards, installing one each in New York City and Los Angeles.