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With Google becoming more of a destination site than a portal, companies like Hearst need to compete online by offering a robust destination site of their own. Hearst is poised to do just that with the addition of Answerology, which allows users to post questions anonymously and select specific demographics in which to seek answers from.

"Service journalism is all about helping people find answers to their questions, from trusted experts. That's what we do in our magazines and on our magazine-branded web sites every day. Answerology offers us a new type of service journalism, using a 'wisdom of the masses' model built on the expertise of users who are like you," said Chris Johnson, VP, content and business development, Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

All the layoffs - about 4.4 percent of CNet's work force - will involve employees in the U.S., according to a document CNet filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

CNet's suite of popular websites commands a huge worldwide audience, but its investors have long complained the company's profits haven't kept pace with the growth of Internet advertising.

The company indicated in the filing that the layoffs would be effective immediately and cost at least $3.8-million in severance pay, outplacement and other expenses.

Glenn Nelson, founder of the site, and Chris Hansen, national director of scouting for women's basketball, will both continue to manage and write the site.

"ESPN's acquisition of HoopGurlz represents our continued commitment to providing our core fans with compelling high-school-sports content," said James Brown, senior vice president of new program development, in a statement announcing the acquisition. "The site showcases the kind of student-athletes we strive to serve and will help us continue to grow our 12- to 17-year-old audience."

Hoopgurlz.com's founders hope the acquisition will lead to more coverage of girls' and women's basketball on the ESPN networks.

"ESPN is built upon a foundation of the highest journalistic standards, the same that HoopGurlz has used in covering girls' basketball," Nelson said in a statement. "HoopGurlz is excited to expand and improve ESPN’s coverage of one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, as well as to complement the site's coverage of women's basketball."

As a high-quality magazine it will target people with personal assets of more than £1 million on top of the value of their property and will cover asset allocation, new and exotic investment products, real estate, emerging markets and investment alternatives including art and wine.

Advertising director EMEA and global display Dominic Good said FT Wealth is "designed for a unique audience, making it the ideal advertising proposition for our wealth management banking clients. FT Wealth will be read by the top 1% of the population in terms of wealth, an audience which no other publication can claim to reach."

FT Wealth will also include issues such philanthropy, succession and family planning, education, matrimonial, security and social issues.

• New reviews of Jazz albums.
• The Jazz.com Jazz Blog.
• Interviews with leading figures in the jazz world, including Billy Taylor, Manfred Eicher, Ron Carter, Maria Schneider, Stefon Harris and others.
• Visual Jazz galleries featuring the work of the greatest jazz photographers and artists, including Ray Avery, Herb Snitzer, Michael Symonds, Jos Knaepen and Suzanne Cerny.
• Lewis Porter's Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians with more than 1,400 entries on currently active jazz performers.
• The Song of the Day and A Jazz Classic Re-visited .

TV Networks, Paramount Digital Entertainment and Dickhouse Productions have launched Jackassworld.com as a global destination for all Jackass content.

The international roll out follows the success of the US site and will now be available in more than 30 languages and launches in UK, Italy and Spain from today, with Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands and the Nordic territories to follow.

Wouldn't it be more green to go digital-only?

We've always had a digital version of the Green Guide. So for the magazine, we partnered with Texterity to create an online edition, which gives all the text and ads in the print version, but in some ways is better because everything is hyperlinked. It's a very dynamic, paper-free version of the magazine. And it will be available February 28, a week before the print issue! See www.thegreenguide-magazine.com for details.

As for print, there's a debate about the paper that should go into magazines. Ours is Forest Stewardship Council-certified, which means the wood pulp comes from well-managed forests and is tracked at every step on the way from harvesting through processing until it reaches the printer. Ten percent of our paper content comes from post-consumer-waste recycled content-there is paper with higher recycled content, but we value FSC's commitment to forest conservation. The ink, which contains no heavy metals, was created by Quad graphics and derives from renewable sources including soy, corn and linseed.

Why did National Geographic launch such a different magazine?

National Geographic's mission is to inspire people to care about the planet. It's the mission of the Green Guide to provide people with the tools to do this. We are a research-based service invested in our reporting and we set high standards for ourselves that are consistent with National Geographic's approach. They, like us, take the tough science and make it available for lay people. We're a natural addition to the National Geographic team; you see the Green Guide is just a part of an NG-wide initiative to provide more green content in books, on television or in magazines, all working together to inspire and engage people in positive ways to protect the planet.

We sold plenty of subscriptions to both magazines, but I found that I was continually explaining to new subscribers some real genealogy basics - steering them to Cyndi's List and other places that listed beginner's courses. These people were smart enough; they just needed something more basic than what we were selling. It was sobering to realize that there might be a big market for a genealogy magazine that dealt with the basics.

Nick plans to use those acquisitions to establish a parents-centric ad network anchored by ParentsConnect.com, a community site the company launched in 2006. As part of the venture, the company will sell ads on a handful of smaller, non-Nick-owned sites, including ParentPreviews.com and Smartmomma.com, mirroring a recent trend wherein traditional media players aim to sell ads across the Web's long tail.

At the heart of Nick's parent trap is a revamped ParentsConnect.com, a site MTVN created as a Facebook-like environment for moms and dads. The new version of the site retains community elements but now offers more portal-esque navigation and editorial with a distinct Nick voice. The site's tagline is "We're not perfect, we're parents."

Steve Youngwood, executive vp, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids & Family Group, said that since ParentsConnect.com went live, the company found that facilitating community was not enough to keep parents engaged: "We learned that content is the spark to build community." The site features polls designed to start a dialogue between parents, with questions ranging from "Were you raised to respect different races?" to "What would you do if your partner got you a blender for Valentine's Day?"

The company, which owns the LexisNexis information service and the medical journal, The Lancet, is understood to be preparing to cut the jobs over the next couple of years as it centralises functions such as procurement, human resources and IT across the group. Analysts expect the job cuts - the majority of which will take place outside Britain - to contribute to a restructuring that will shed as much as £100m from Reed's annual costs bill. It is unclear whether the cuts will be acknowledged formally in its annual results announcement on Wednesday.

Reed, which is listed in London and Amsterdam, employs nearly 37,000 people around the world. The proposed job reductions are thought to be focused on functions that have previously operated separately across the disparate parts of Reed's empire, which includes units specialising in science and medical, legal, and business publishing, the last of which includes a large exhibitions division.

Sir Crispin Davis, Reed's chief executive, told analysts last July that the cost cuts would be "fairly spread" across the group and that the efficiency programme, dubbed "One Company", would continue for the next two to three years. He said at the time: "We've taken the low and mid-hanging fruit. It's why we put in [train] this programme and I think it's been very effective in identifying new areas. Over the last six months we've taken that a step further... with the objective of continuing to deliver meaningful cost reductions across the business."

The cuts will be achieved by "by not filling jobs that go vacant, by offering buyouts, and if necessary by layoffs," said the executive editor, Bill Keller. The more people who accept buyouts, he said, "the smaller the prospect of layoffs, but we should brace ourselves for the likelihood that there will be some layoffs."

The Times has 1,332 newsroom employees, the largest number in its history; no other American newspaper has more than about 900. There were scattered buyouts and job eliminations in The Times' newsroom in recent years, but the overall number continued to rise, largely because of the growth of its Internet operations.

Shares in The New York Times Company rose almost 5 percent Thursday after the newsroom staff reductions were reported, closing at $18.84, up 86 cents.

The Times Company has made significant cuts in the newsrooms of some of its other properties, including The Boston Globe, as well as in non-news operations. Company executives say the overall head count is 3.8 percent lower than it was a year ago.

Tribune Chief Executive Sam Zell broke the news in one of his frequent "Talk to Sam" e-mails to all employees. The job cuts are focused on the corporate staff and the company's nine newspapers. Besides The Times, they include the Chicago Tribune, Newsday in New York, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, the Baltimore Sun and the Hartford (Conn.) Courant.

The decision was reached in meetings of senior executives Monday and Tuesday at Tribune's Chicago headquarters, said Hiller, who was among them.

For now, Tribune's broadcast division, consisting of nearly two dozen stations around the country, including KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles, will be spared. Fox TV veteran Ed Wilson, hired last week to run the broadcast operation, will be given time to evaluate his business and make his own personnel decisions later, according to a Tribune executive familiar with the situation.

The job cuts will come swiftly. Hiller said all the people affected would be out of the company by the end of March. The Times has 3,544 employees, 887 of them in the newsroom.

That's all about to change. Time Warner's CNN this week will enter YouTube territory with the launch of iReport.com, a new Web site built entirely on user-produced news. And unlike CNN's own properties-where only iReport submissions that have been handpicked by editors and checked for accuracy ever make it online or on air-the new site will be wide open, allowing users to post whatever content they choose, CNN said.

The new site looks and feels much like YouTube and other video-centric destinations. Wannabe Anderson Coopers can upload videos, photos and audio files through an easy-to-use interface. Visitors to the site can search for specific clips or sift through various news categories, such as politics or weather. Users also can rate and share clips, and even embed them on personal Web sites.

CNN executives acknowledge that iReport.com's openness is something of a departure for a news organization that prides itself on accuracy and editorial judgment. But iReports have become increasingly popular, and in many cases have even proved beneficial in the reporting of breaking news. Some of the most compelling footage from last April's shootings on the Virginia Tech campus came from the 420 user-gen video clips CNN received, while last year's California wildfires yielded more than 11,000 submissions.

Features in the preview edition of The New West include "From Rubble to Riches," an in-depth look at how Western communities are turning old industrial sites into vibrant neighborhoods, and "The LEED Shade of Green," which examines the mounting controversy over sustainable building standards. Regular departments of the publication include Project Watch, which spotlights notable new developments; Design Showcase, which features innovative design solutions; and Metrics, a fascinating compendium of development-related data.

"Ever since we launched NewWest.Net back in 2005, our community has been asking us for a print magazine," said Jonathan Weber, founder and CEO of New West Publishing. "The New West, with its tight focus on the big story of growth and development in the region, is a logical complement to both NewWest.Net and our growing conference series."

New West produces the annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference, which takes places in the fall in Missoula. The company recently announced its second major conference, Designing the New West, which is scheduled for April 25 in Bozeman, MT.

NewWest.Net, a local and regional online publication, covers the culture, economy, politics and lifestyle of the Rocky Mountain West. With a wide range of writers from around the region and an active community of commenters and contributors, NewWest.Net was the winner of the 2006 Online News Association award for general excellence. “Wild Bill” Schneider, NewWest.Net‘s outdoors columnist, was honored with the 2007 Online Journalism Award for best commentary.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday said it plans to fine the Walt Disney Co's ABC network $1.4 million for airing an episode of "NYPD Blue" in 2003 that showed a woman's nude buttocks.

The company said it opposes the fine and plans to appeal.

In a notice filed on Friday, the agency said 52 television ABC stations in the Central and Mountain time zones had aired the scene at 9 p.m. in violation of federal restrictions against broadcasting "obscene material" between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

The agency said it received "numerous complaints" about the scene, in which a young boy walks in on a nude woman about to take a shower.

Stations in the Eastern and Pacific time zones were exempt because they broadcast the February 25, 2003, episode at 10 p.m. local time.

ABC - which unsuccessfully argued against the FCC's contention that buttocks are a "sexual organ" - has responded to the ruling by noting that NYPD Blue came with parental warnings, was V-chip-enabled, and because it had been on the air for a decade at the time, "the realistic nature of its storylines was well-known to the viewing public."

"ABC feels strongly that the FCC's finding is inconsistent with prior precedent," says the network in a statement, "and we intend to oppose the proposed fine."

Mansueto Ventures-Inc. and Fast Company parent company-seems to think so. It is working on a new magazine, aptly titled Upstart, aimed at entrepreneurs, sources there confirmed. Publisher of the new title is Adam Platzner, who has held sales positions at music Web site SpiralFrog.com and the defunct Cargo, published by Conde Nast. Heading up the editorial side is Scott Medintz, product development editor, who was formerly a senior editor at Time Inc.'s Money.

Once scheduled for a May newsstand debut, the title's launch date is undetermined. Mansueto, which bought Inc. and Fast Company in 2005 from G+J USA, has also been spending money to build up its digital offerings. It announced plans for FastCompany.tv, an online video network, to go live in March.