Mediagazer: Americans spend just a fraction of online time with news compared to social media (Steve Myers/Poynter)

8:30 AM ET, September 13, 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.

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:

The Wall Street Journal's Shoddy Journalism on TechCrunch: It's Not About the Personalities, It's About the Principle — Now that the TechCrunch editorial dispute has been resolved, let me turn my attention to the Wall Street Journal's coverage of it. — In the most egregious case …

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, Medacity, Guardian, On Media's Blog, Boing Boing, Adweek, Forbes and Talking Biz News

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 site.

Discussion: Adweek, Guardian, Forbes, VentureBeat, MediaFile, @benpopper, NBC Bay Area, NetNewsCheck Latest, NYConvergence.com, paidContent, PC Magazine and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Ben Popper / Betabeat:
Mike Arrington Goes Nuclear: Says NY Times Is Conflicted Tech Investor via True Ventures

Discussion: Medacity, Future of Journalism and Business Insider

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Americans spend just a fraction of online time with news compared to social media — In a report on social media published Monday, Nielsen breaks down how Americans spend their time on the Internet. The results are sobering for the online news industry. Americans spend 22.5 percent …

Discussion: MediaPost, Softpedia News, ZDNet, FishbowlNY, iMediaConnection Blog, Forbes, Noted, Adweek, NetNewsCheck Latest, Media Decoder, digiday:DAILY and eMedia Vitals, more at Techmeme »

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Pierce leaves Boston Globe for Esquire — Romenesko+ Misc. — Charles P. Pierce, who has been an Esquire contributing editor since 1997, will be the full-time lead writer on Esquire.com's “The Politics Blog.” He's stepped down from the Boston Globe after nine years as a reporter …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Media Nation and The New York Observer

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon Seeks Tablet Content — As its tablet launch draws near, Amazon.com Inc. is in the market for content. According to people familiar with the matter, the Seattle retailing giant is starting talks with magazine and newspaper publishers on new terms for subscriptions and single copies of periodicals for the device.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, paidContent, ReadWriteWeb, PC Magazine, Electronista, The Next Web, Adweek and Digits

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

From the Ashes of Righthaven, the Promising Future of Digital Media — Copyright troll Righthaven's flawed business model—suing hundreds of bloggers and small websites for dubious cases of alleged copyright infringement of newspaper articles—appears to be grinding to an inexorable finish.

Discussion: Threat Level, Adweek and WebProNews

Adweek:

New Details on Philly Papers' Bold Tablet Plan Android tablets to spur digital content adoption By Lucia Moses — Making a big bet on the tablet market, the Philadelphia Inquirer and sibling paper Philadelphia Daily News in July announced a plan to sell deeply discounted tablets containing subscriptions to its digital editions.

Discussion: PC Magazine

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Why do newspapers use different figures for fatalities of Sept. 11 attacks? — An astute viewer of our front page collection from Sunday's best 10th anniversary coverage of 9/11 noted that at least three of the newspapers used different figures for the number of people who died as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Discussion: Charles Apple

Judy Muller / Los Angeles Times:

Where newspapers thrive — At a time when doomsayers are predicting the death of traditional journalism, thousands of small-town weeklies are doing just fine, thank you. — We've been hearing a lot of depressing news in recent years about the dire financial prospects for big daily newspapers, including the one you're now holding.

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

Authors Sue to Remove Books From Digital Archive — Three major authors' groups and eight individual authors filed suit against a partnership of research libraries and five universities on Monday, arguing that their initiative to digitize millions of books constituted copyright infringement.

Aaron Wall / SEO Book.com:

Algorithmic Journalism & The Rise of Corporate Content Farms — The “Best” of Big Media — Large publishers who lobbied Google hard for a ranking boost got it when Panda launched: … At the same time, said “premium publishers” were backfilling their websites padding …

Discussion: Bits

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: Garcia Media, CBS Boston, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, AdPulp, NetNewsCheck Latest, Boston Globe, Editors Weblog, Daring Fireball and Poynter

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
BostonGlobe.Com Launches Today; Shifts To Paying Subscribers Only Oct. 1

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why the idea of a Netflix for e-books makes sense — According to several reports, including one from the Wall Street Journal quoting several unnamed people “familiar with the matter,” Amazon is considering launching a Netflix-style subscription service in which users would pay a monthly fee for access to a virtual library of e-books.

Discussion: Guardian, Top Digital Journal News and Wired.com, Thanks:mathewi

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Last Night's Amazing 9/11 Memorial Photo Is a Year Old — John de Guzman's photo of New York's “Tribute in Light” memorial, which commemorates the September 11 attacks, is astonishing, ghostly and majestic. And it is resonating widely online: Some 500,000 people have viewed it in the last 12 hours.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared

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 …