Mediagazer: Shrunken Heads — The niche future of the TV mega-personality. (Gabriel Sherman/New York Magazine)

9:30 AM ET, September 19, 2011

Top News:

Facebook Is Expected to Unveil Media-Sharing Service — For cloud-based digital music services like Spotify and Rhapsody, which stream millions of songs but have struggled to sign up large numbers of paying users, being friended by Facebook could prove to be a mixed blessing.

Discussion: Fast Company and CNET News, more at Techmeme »

Alan Feuer / New York Times:

As an MSNBC Host, Sharpton Is a Hybrid Like No Other — At 50 minutes to airtime, the Rev. Al Sharpton, in pinstripes and cufflinks, was sitting in his office at Rockefeller Center, tinkering with Tuesday's introduction to “PoliticsNation,” his new nightly show on MSNBC.

Monica Hesse / Washington Post:

Many media types live in the land of Twitter, but most regular people don't — When the East Coast earthquake struck in late August, it appeared to hit particularly hard a place called “Twitter.” — “U.S. East Coast earthquake generated more Tweets than Osama bin Laden death,” the United Kingdom's Telegraph reported.

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Shrunken Heads — The niche future of the TV mega-personality. — The new Glenn Beck show that launched last week on Beck's GBTV.com start-up is pretty much the old Glenn Beck show: same 5 p.m. time slot, same crying, same chalkboard, same dire prophecies.

Washington Times:

Sex, lies, and journalism — Being interviewed by a journalist and having sex are very similar acts. Both should take place only between consenting adults who understand the ground rules for what's about to happen, or someone's feelings bound to get hurt. Or worse.

David Lieberman / Deadline.com:

Can News Corp Escape Scandals Unscathed? — If you look at News Corp's stock price since July 4 you might wonder whether you're peering into a parallel universe. This is a period durng which the company's been battered by damaging revelations from the News Of The World phone hacking and police bribery scandals.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Latakoo Moves HD Video Fast, Works Great For Newsrooms — Austin-based video startup latakoo has a funny name (it's some kind of lark), but a great idea: make it easier to transfer HD video. Built by a group of journalists and technologists to solve the real-world problem of video-sharing …

Discussion: latakoo Flight Report, Thanks:beet_tv

Andrew Hampp / AdAge:

Social Media Status Key to Endorsements for Today's Celeb — Publicity Shop Measures FanDNA for Stars From Ashton Kutcher to Charlie Sheen — It used to be that a favorable “Q” score, a high rating on the Davie Brown Index or good old-fashioned ubiquity was enough for a celebrity to secure a high-profile endorsement deal.

Discussion: Softpedia News

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

10 Startups to Watch: Percolate — A Twitter and RSS-filtering Formula Serves up an Automatic Content Brew That's Customized to Consumer Needs — Does the world really need another content-curation tool? Another blogging platform? Another content-discovery site? And all of this rolled into one product?

Emily Steel / Wall Street Journal:

AP to Launch Mobile Version of Ad Circulars — As many newspaper companies grapple with plummeting circulation and advertising dollars, they have so far been able to hold onto a notable revenue source: weekly advertising circulars. — In an effort to defend that turf and recoup other declines …

Discussion: paidContent

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Are Porn Sites Hijacking Your Ad Dollars? — False Impressions From Adult Sites Get Sold to Publishers and Then to Advertisers. Here's How — Porn generates a huge amount of online traffic. But did you know it also generates quite a bit of ad revenue?

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

The (Overly Personal) Litmus Test — Over the past three weeks, I've been followed. By advertising. Like many, week after week, I land on dozens of sites. Some visits originate from my set of bookmarks, others from the usual click hopping that defines internet serendipity.

Discussion: Guardian

Haroon Siddique / Guardian:

Lebedev in Russian TV punch-up — Independent and Evening Standard owner ‘neutralises’ fellow TV debate guest in reaction to the latter's ‘threatening manner’ — The Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev may pride himself on not interfering with the editorial policy of his UK newspapers …

Discussion: Press Gazette, The Daily What, Runnin' Scared and Future of Journalism

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:

How do you ‘convert’ curmudgeon journalists to using Twitter? — Brian Moritz asks a question you face in almost every newsroom addressing the challenges of digital journalism: How do you “convert” the curmudgeons? — In a comment on my recent blog post providing social media resources for journalists …