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Industry Blogs Read our weblogs covering entertainment, lifestyle and media. Media Cynic Politics, entertainment and current events: if it's in the media, she's probably got an opinion about it.
Tribune Media Services Launches Magazine For Amazon's Kindle Tribune Media Services (TMS) has announced the launch of a new political commentary magazine called Opinionated: Voices and Viewpoints on America and the World. The weekly magazine will be distributed exclusively on the Amazon Kindle eBook, the wireless reading device recently launched by online retailer Amazon.com. The first issue is currently available on a free trial and subscription basis on Amazon.
"Opinionated was created to give readers some of the best political and social commentary from the right, middle and left of the political spectrum in one place, with no other distractions," said Steve Tippie, TMS vice president of marketing and licensing and the magazine's publisher and editor. "Amazon's Kindle platform is the perfect vehicle for publishing a magazine like Opinionated -- fast, easy and very efficient. TMS provides the weekly content and Amazon formats, posts and distributes it electronically." Opinionated draws its material from columnists syndicated by TMS. Their commentary covers domestic and international politics, economics, world affairs, social issues, pop culture and other topics. The lineup includes Ian Bremmer, Nathan Gardels, Jonah Goldberg, Carl Hiaasen, Arianna Huffington, Jesse Jackson, Garrison Keillor, Paul Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Clarence Page, William Pfaff, Leonard Pitts, Cal Thomas, and Jules Witcover. Opinionated will be published weekly on Mondays and will cost $.49 an issue and $1.49 for a monthly subscription. TMS said they are planning to develop several other magazines for the Kindle on topics including personal finance, travel, food and popular culture. Posted on April 10, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Search Engine Watch reports that Hearst is entering the answer fray with the aquisition of Answerology.
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.Search Engine Watch also reports that the traffic to answer websites soared last year. Yahoo Answers currently dominates the U.S. answer market with 74.5% of the marketshare. WikiAnswers is second and Answerbag is third. Posted on April 4, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati CNET Cuts 120 Jobs
The Associated Press reports that tech publisher CNET is cutting 120 positions - all in the U.S.
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.The AP says CNET employs 2,700 people. (via Adotas) Posted on March 28, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati EPSN has acquired Hoopgurlz, a girl's college and high school basketball website. Broadcasting & Cable reports that the site's founder Glenn Nelson will continue writing for the website.
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.Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Posted on March 27, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Financial Times Relaunching FT Wealth The Press Gazette reports that the Financial Times is relaunching its FT Wealth supplement as a quarterly tabloid targeting at the wealthiest 1% of the population.
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.FT Wealth can also be read online here. Posted on March 24, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Mr. Magazine Picks Most Notable Magazines of 2007 Mr. Magazine Samir Husni has announced his picks for the Most Notable magazine launches of 2007. Included in the list of 30 magazines are Portfolio, Organic Spa, Hot Wheels Magazine, Hooah, 0-60, Urban Ink, Our Iowa, Antenna, American Drive, Aromatherapy Times, Bond, Eldr, Everywhere, Garden and Gun, Home Gym, The Journal of Life Sciences, Medical Tourism, Men's Health Living, Mob Candy, Outside Go, Russia, Science Illustrated, Scientific American Body, Se7en, Sew Stylish, Artful Blogging, Thoroughbred Style, Victoria, Wag and Heal. There is quite a variety of magazines represented in that list. Mr. Magazine says there was a total of 715 new titles launched in 2007. Husni also notes that only only two of every 10 magazines will make it to a tenth anniversary issue. Posted on March 21, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Jazz.com Web Portal Debuts Jazz.com has launched an online jazz portal which contains thousands of pages of reviews, interviews, features, discographies and photos. A team of more than thirty writers, photographers and artists has been working for almost two years in preparation for the website's launch. Ted Gioia, author of The History of Jazz and West Coast Jazz, had led the team in creating content which includes over 1,000 new reviews and a jazz encyclopedia. Here are some features of the website:
Posted on March 18, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati The world really didn't need the Jackass movies: Jackass, Jackass Number Two and Jackass 2.5. That was plenty. But now NMA.co.uk reports that there is an entire world centered around Jackass called Jackassworld.
TV Networks, Paramount Digital Entertainment and Dickhouse Productions have launched Jackassworld.com as a global destination for all Jackass content.One of the stars of Jackass recently found himself in trouble. Starts getting into trouble may not be the kind of thing that hurts this brand. The goal of jackassworld.com is to build a community and social network around the content from the films. Gideon Bierer, senior vice-president at MTV Networks International, said, "The Jackassworld community engages and connects these audiences worldwide with a deeper experience, allowing fans to relive favourite moments, explore behind-the-scenes footage and unprecedented access to the cast." Posted on March 13, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati National Geographic Launches Green Guide Print Magazine National Geographic is launching a new quarterly magazine called The Green Guide. The Green Guide website has been around since 2002. They answer a few questions here on the website about the decision to launch a print publication instead of a digital one.
Wouldn't it be more green to go digital-only?As the Q&A explains they also have a digital version of the magazine which can be read here. Some of the stories in the premiere issue include Lose 142 pounds (of Carbon) in a Week, Save $60 a Week-and the Planet, Green Your Car, Greener Is Cleaner and Quiz: Is Your Salad Safe? A subscription to the Green Guide will cost $15. Posted on March 11, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Moorshead Magazines Launches Discovering Family History Moorshead Magazines has launced a new print magazine called Discovering Family History. They also publish two other genealogy magazines: Family Chronicle and Internet Genealogy. Moorshead also publishes History Magazine. Discovering Family History is a bimonthly magazine targeted at people who are starting their genealogy, need a refresher course or are tackling a new aspect of genealogy.
Moorshead publisher Halvor Moorshead says in the debut issue's editorial that he realized there was a need for a genealogy basics magazine when he was sending people to websites like Cyndi's List for beginner's resources. 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.Discovering Family History's editor is Ed Zapletal. You can see a website for Discovering Family History here. They have made a free preview of the publication's first issue available on the website. Posted on March 7, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati MTV Networks recently acquired Babunga, a network of baby and family websites including BabyNamesWorld and 3DPregnancy. Babunga claims to have 1.9 millionm monthly visitors. Mediaweek.com reports that MTV's Nick division will use the network to establish a family ad network using a community they acquired in 2006 called ParentsConnect.com.
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.With advertising continuing to move to the Internet media companies are trying to acquire properties and establish niche advertising networks. MTV Networks is trying to set-up a niche to capture lucrative baby and parenting ad revenues. Posted on March 4, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Reed Elsevier to Cut 1,000 Jobs. Sell RBI Unit The Telegraph is reporting that Reed Elsevier plans to cut 1,000 jobs. Reed Elsevier publishes scientific, health and legal information - they own LexisNexis. They also publish a number of business-to-business titles under Reed Business Information including Variety, Broadcasting & Cable and Publisher Weekly. Reed Elsevier plans to sell this business unit leaving employees at the publications somewhat uncertain about their future. The Telegraph article says the job cuts will take place over the next couple of years.
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.This news follows the company's recent $4.1 billion purchase of ChoicePoint, a U.S. risk-management information business. It seems they just want to get out of the b2b print magazine business. Some other articles on the story can be found here, here, here, here and here. Posted on February 25, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati New York Times To Cut 100 Jobs The New York Times plans to eliminate about 100 newsroom jobs this year. Executive Editor Bill Keller said the publisher plans to offer buyouts but layoffs will occur if needed. 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."This new follows closely on news that the L.A. Times is also going to be reducing jobs. It also comes shortly after news that the media work force has hit a 15-year low. If cuts like these continue it will shrink even more in 2008. Posted on February 19, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati L.A. Times to Cut 100 to 150 Positions The L.A. Times reports on job cuts of 100-150 positions at its newspaper in a recent article. The article follows the discovery of an email that broke the news of job cuts to L.A. Times employees. 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.40 to 50 of the cuts will be from the Times newsroom. The cuts are part of larger job cuts at the Tribune Company of 400 to 500 positions. Posted on February 18, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati CNN to Launch iReport.com CNN is going to expand its citizen journalism website onto a new web property called iReport.com. The website is not yet live but Mediaweek previewed the website. They say that the website will be wide-open for "Wannabe Anderson Coopers" to upload anything they want.
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.This does create some new competition for YouTube which is home to millions of user-generated videos. YouTube also has lots of California wildfire videos as well as citizen coverage of other newsworthy events. CNN may be hoping that some of these people might decide to upload their video reports to both YouTube and iReport.com - or just drop YouTube in favor of CNN's citizen journalism brand. CNN started the iReport service back in 2006. Posted on February 12, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati New West Publishing Launches Quarterly Print Magazine New West Publishing LLC is launching a quarterly print publication called The New West. The magazine will focus on the big story of growth and change in the mountain landscapes and high plains of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon. New West Publishing is also the publishing team behind the successful online website at NewWest.net, which has been online since 2005 and has won awards for its online journalism.
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.The editor of The New West is Robert Struckman, an award-winning reporter and editor with more than a decade of experience covering Western issues for national and local media. Marshall Hibbard is the Design Director. Contributors for the Preview Edition include well-known Western journalists such as Richard Martin, Dan Whipple, and Bill Vaughn, and photographers Anne Medley and Chris Lombardi. New West Publishing was founded in 2005 by Jonathan Weber, who was the co-founder and editor in chief of The Industry Standard, and before that a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times. Courtney Lowery, a former writer and editor with the Associated Press and Lee Newspapers, co-founded the company. New West Publishing is backed by a group of angel investors, including Boulder-based venture capitalist Brad Feld, former Microsoft CFO John Conners, and television personality Maury Povich. Posted on February 2, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati FCC Fines ABC Over NYPD Blue Nude Scene Reuters reports that the FCC has fined ABC for an NYPD Blue scene that repeatedly showed a woman's nude buttocks. The actress was Charlotte Ross and the scene was from five years ago.
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.TV Guide reports that part of the ruling include the FCC stating that "buttocks are a sexual organ." 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 is going to oppose the fine and we will see where this goes. Meanwhile, people are searching YouTube for the NYPD Blue scene which is from five years ago. There are several versions currently on YouTube if you search for Charlotte Ross. Posted on January 28, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Mansueto Ventures Plans to Launch New Business Publication Mansueto Ventures, the publisher of Inc and Fast Company is planning a new publicatio nfor entrepreneus called Upstart. MediaWeek reports that Adam Platzner will be the magazine's publisher. 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.With two business-oriented titles already it seems like Mansueto will be competing with its own publications by launching Upstart. The Mediaweek article said a launch date for Upstart has not been set. Posted on January 23, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati DEC Launches Conservationist for Kids Magazine New York State has launched a new nature magazine for kids called Conservationist for Kids Magazine. The magazine includes photos, articles and tips on activities designed to encourage children to reconnect with the outdoors and the natural world.
Conservationist for Kids will be published three times annually. It is written for students at or around fourth-grade level, an ideal time for children to develop an interest in the outdoors and experience it first hand. The magazine will be sent to fourth-grade classes in public schools statewide. Conservationist subscribers also received copies of the first edition. Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis said, "In a world full of iPods, Xboxes and 500-channel digital cable, our youngsters are spending more and more time indoors on the couch, disconnected from the natural world. Conservationist for Kids gives children across the state a reason to venture outside, offering fun and informative activities that we hope will spark a connection and concern for nature that lasts a lifetime." The magazines's website at www.cforkids.org includes additional resources for teachers. Newsday has an article about the publication that says the spring issue of the magazine will tackle climate change. Posted on January 18, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Oprah and Discovery to Launch OWN Oprah Winfrey is getting her own television network in a partnership with Discovery Communications. Oprah Winfrey and Discovery Communications have announced plans to create the OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN will debut in 2009 in more than 70 million homes, on what is currently the Discovery Health Channel. The press statement says Oprah Winfrey will have full editorial control over the joint venture and will be responsible for OWN's programming, branding and creative vision. Winfrey will serve as Chairman of The Oprah Winfrey Network, LLC and the venture will be 50/50 owned by Discovery and Harpo.
Discovery Communications will contribute to the venture the Discovery Health Channel as well as handle distribution, origination and other operational requirements for the proposed venture. Both organizations will contribute advertising sales services to the venture. The companies said the search for OWN's Chief Executive Officer to oversee day-to-day venture operations will begin immediately. Photo: Discovery Communications President and CEO David Zaslav and Oprah Winfrey Posted on January 16, 2008 Permalink | Digg this | Blogs linking to this post: Google | Technorati Note: Earlier stories can be in the archives section. |
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