Mediagazer: Hyperlocal site RiverheadLocal looks for lessons in sustainability at Block by Block summit (Barbara Selvin/Poynter)

10:10 AM ET, September 30, 2011

Top News:

Clean Slate: How the online mag's tech director Dan Check fine-tuned a 15-year-old machine — As the web's oldest living magazine, Slate has acquired a certain reputation of, well, old-fashionedness. The New York Observer called Slate “tech-backward” last November.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and The New York Observer

David Plotz / Slate:
Meet the New Slate — The same great stories, but a better home page …

Discussion: Future Journalism Project, The Awl, ShortFormBlog and CyberJournalist.net

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

The Yes Men Raise Money to Publish the Occupy Wall Street Journal — Media activists The Yes Men are raising money on Kickstarter to publish a four-page broadsheet about the 99% represented at Liberty Plaza called The Occupy Wall Street Journal, Animal NY noticed.

Discussion: New York Magazine, ANIMAL, Forbes and Globe and Mail

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

More Michael Wolff, Adweek Rumors — The New York Post has some more gossip regarding Michael Wolff and Adweek. Apparently one of the magazine's investors, Jimmy Finkelstein, is leading the charge to get rid of Wolff, so much so that even Wolff is expecting to be fired soon.

Discussion: New York Post, Guardian and Gawker

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

Sean Parker Is Launching a Blog — The Sean Parkington Post? Seanster? Blogify? It's not clear what former Facebook president Sean Parker will call his forthcoming blog, but it's clear the famed tech hustler is serious about the endeavor: He's hired a firm to build buzz, and is already running ads and planning to hire writers.

Steve Fishman / New York Magazine:

Floored by News Corp.: Who Hacked a Rival's Computer System? — News Corp. was at war with Floorgraphics, a small in-store advertising company, and veteran salesman Gary Henderson was leading the attack. He appeared to have a valuable advantage: access to inside information …

Discussion: On Media's Blog

Frederic Lardinois / SiliconFilter:

Google Analytics Goes Real-Time & Gets a Premium Version — Google launches two new features for Google Analytics: Real-time stats and premium accounts for large enterprises. — Google just announced that it is launching a premium version of its Google Analytics website stats product.

Discussion: Softpedia News, eMedia Vitals, Google Analytics Blog, TechCrunch, Google Analytics Blog, SEO News PageTraffic Buzz, Search Engine Land and Marketing Pilgrim, more at Techmeme »

eMarketer:

Twitter Ad Revenues to Near $400 Million by 2013 — Ad dollars expected to triple this year — Twitter will earn $139.5 million in global ad revenues this year, up 210% from $45 million in 2010, according to a new forecast from eMarketer. By 2013, eMarketer estimates worldwide ad revenues at Twitter will reach nearly $400 million.

Discussion: Softpedia News, MediaPost, Marketing Pilgrim, Mashable!, VatorNews and Search Engine Journal

Barbara Selvin / Poynter:

Hyperlocal site RiverheadLocal looks for lessons in sustainability at Block by Block summit — The theme for the homecoming parade was board games, and Denise Civiletti, the publisher of RiverheadLocal.com, moved into the street to get a shot of the senior class' Candyland float as it rumbled along Osborn Avenue in Riverhead, N.Y.

Discussion: Street Fight

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Said to Add Comcast, Verizon Pay TV to Xbox Live — Microsoft Corp. plans to offer online pay television service from Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) through Xbox Live, in an bid to channel more entertainment to its video-game console, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Discussion: Deadline.com, PC Magazine, Medacity, Multichannel, CNET News, @pkafka, Engadget, GigaOM, Between the Lines Blog, Electronista and MarketBeat

Adam Penenberg / Fast Company:

Game Changer — Do games have any place in the training of future journalists? This reporter stages a challenge to students to find out. — This fall, I began layering in game mechanics into a graduate journalism course I teach at New York University. In it, students vote for the best stories …

Kunur Patel / AdAge:

Amazon's Kindle Fire Could Ignite Tablet Media Consumption — At Less than Half the Price of iPad, New Device Pulls Down Barriers to Entry — By pricing its new Kindle Fire tablet at less than half the cost of an Apple iPad, Amazon is setting up tablet consumption of media to spread …

Discussion: Bits, Betabeat, paidContent, MediaPost, One Man & His Blog, MediaFile, MediaPost, Poynter, Forbes, Epicenter and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:
Magazines Join With New Tablet Challenger

Discussion: Deal Journal and Digits

Stephen Comney / Digital Times:

DoneDeal sells majority stake to Norwegian firm — DoneDeal always enjoyed impressive figures — DoneDeal has sold “just over 50 per cent” of its company to Norway's Schibsted Media Group. No price was revealed, however, Schibsted now has a majority shareholding in an Irish firm …

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

Betabeat's Jerry Guo Story Gets Taiwanese Animated! (Sniffle...So Proud. ) — Normally we don't toot our own horn, and this video never actually mentions Betabeat by name, but we're pretty sure that the zany folks over at Next Media have given our tale of Newsweek's most notorious fellow the Taiwanese animation treatment.

MediaShift Idea Lab:

Hyper-Local Heaven at UC Berkeley's Journalism School — I've said this many times before: The driving force behind my career has been to increase the level of transparency and participation in the process of journalism. — That driving force has taken my career in all kinds of fun …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Street Fight

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

With ‘frictionless sharing,’ Facebook and news orgs push boundaries of online privacy — Facebook again may have gone too far in its quest to make privacy obsolete, and this time some news organizations could get burned by going along with it. — Facebook spent years making it easier …

Discussion: Inside Facebook, Hillicon Valley, Betabeat, Journalism.co.uk and The Atlantic Online, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Is it Google's job to somehow improve the media? — As most media watchers know by now, the industry is going through an unprecedented upheaval, with newspapers in particular being disrupted by the shift to digital and what Om has called the “democracy of distribution” created by real …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Should Google Tweak the News We Consume?

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Medacity, Editors Weblog, NetNewsCheck Latest, Stark Insider, @penenberg, @mathewi, @thomnagy and @j_fuller

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

Dear Marco Arment! Sorry About Last Week. We Finally Figured Out What Happened... Last week, an entrepreneur and writer named Marco Arment trashed us in a blog post, which was then picked up and forwarded around the Twitter-sphere. — Marco accused us of lots of horrible things …