Mediagazer: Kathleen Kennedy to succeed George Lucas atop Lucasfilm (Los Angeles Times)

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

GOOD magazine lays off most of its editorial staffers — Thursday night Good Magazine had a launch party for its newest issue. On Friday it laid off most of its editorial staff, according to multiple sources. At least some of the layoffs occurred at the magazine's Los Angeles headquarters.

Discussion: FishbowlLA, @bydanielvictor, @joepompeo, @thegarance and The Informer

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

The Return of Oprah's Book Club — Oprah Winfrey, the publishing industry's unrivaled tastemaker, will revive her popular book club next week after a two-year hiatus, promising the book business some of the sales and publicity it thought had vanished along with her weekday talk show.

Discussion: Engadget, TVbytheNumbers, paidContent, GalleyCat and The Huffington Post

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

New York Times turns readers into beta testers with Test Drive — Congratulations, New York Times readers: You can now think of yourself as beta testers. — The Times has released a new browser tool that will let readers test experimental features on NYTimes.com in real time.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and beta620

Bloomberg:

Twitter Said To Expect $1 Billion In Sales In 2014 On Ad Growth — Twitter Inc. expects to generate at least $1 billion in sales in 2014, two people with knowledge of the matter said, indicating that the blogging service will grow about twice as fast as some analysts now predict.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Mashable!, GigaOM, Marketing Land, The Next Web and CNET

Jim Romenesko:

More NYT journalists ask for a fair contract — Here's the New York Newspaper Guild's fourth video featuring Times journalists appealing for a fair contract. In this one, Dan Wakin, Ralph Blumenthal, Clyde Haberman and John Schwartz “describe their devotion to The Times …

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

FT's Grimshaw: Digital subs will soon beat print circulation — FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw talked to me about the end of print, HTML5, Windows 8 and social sharing in this short video on the fringes of last week's paidContent 2012 conference: — Watch this video for free on paidContent

Los Angeles Times:

Kathleen Kennedy to succeed George Lucas atop Lucasfilm — Kathleen Kennedy has been named co-chair of Lucasfilm. — Kathleen Kennedy has been named co-chair of Lucasfilm, positioning her to take over the legendary San Francisco studio, home of the “Star Wars” movies, as its founder George Lucas prepares to retire.

Discussion: Variety, Associated Press and Media Decoder

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Warren Buffett responds to Times-Picayune pleas for help — New Orleans musician Evan Christopher wrote an open letter to Warren Buffett last week, and the billionaire newspaper owner has responded: … Optimists will note that Buffett did not say he wouldn't buy the paper.

Discussion: The Best Degrees, The Atlantic Wire, @justinnxt, JIMROMENESKO.COM and NolaVie

Discussion: Blog of New Orleans

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

Rielle Hunter to Publish a Memoir This Month — Only one day after former Senator John Edwards escaped conviction in federal court on six corruption charges, Rielle Hunter announced some news of her own: she has written a memoir. — BenBella Books, a boutique publisher …

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Journalism: The best of times, and the worst of times — There are plenty of people ready to give their opinions about where the traditional media business is going, and how the disruption caused by digital and social media should be handled — but not all of them have a grasp of what is involved …

Discussion: @mathewi

Rachel King / ZDNet:

Netflix toppled Apple as top U.S. online movie biz in 2011 — Summary: Netflix grew to account for nearly 50 percent of the domestic online movie market in 2011, while Apple lost nearly half of its own slice of the pie. — Despite a roller coaster year with a lot of missteps …

Discussion: Market Intelligence, Fast Company, VentureBeat, WebProNews, 9to5Mac and Home Media Magazine

Reuters:

Cisco sues TiVo over DVRs — (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc has filed a lawsuit to void four TiVo Inc patents related to digital video recorders, escalating a battle over who has the right to profit from sales of the popular machines. — In a complaint filed on Wednesday …

Discussion: Business Insider, PC Magazine, Multichannel, ZDNet, Light Reading and Engadget

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

Responding to Shirky on the Washington Post — Transformation is required, and transformation takes investment — Thanks to Clay Shirky for responding to my piece on the financialization of the Washington Post Company, which during the financial crisis has handed more than a billion dollars …

Discussion: (Re)Structuring Journalism