The NYTCo’s local content efforts are getting a quick boost from hyperlocal newswire Fwix. In a sense, the deal with Fwix can buttress the NYTimes.com’s New York metro area blogs program, The Local, which it began last year. The deal enables the distribution of Fwix’s technology and hyperlocal content across…

Scripps Networks (NYSE: SNI) is promoting Lisa Choi Owens to SVP of digital media, which will give her oversight of the cable net’s websites and chart the further development of its mobile and social media programs. Owens has been with Scripps for nearly two years and has been handling online…

What direction is the book industry heading? Penguin Group subsidiary Dorling Kindersley Books prepared this video on the “end of publishing” for a sales conference and it was reportedly such a hit that the company decided to share it with all. Naive? Wise? Somewhere in between? (via Mashable and the…

More details on the The Sporting News switch from free to paid for its digital daily Sporting News Today, which was first announced by Publisher Jeff Price at our paidContent2010 conference last month. The Sporting News is partnering with its current digital publisher Zinio for the April 1 launch. A…

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) has hinted for several months that it would be buying more companies and it’s finally made an acquisition—buying up social sports startup Citizen Sports, which it says will compliment Yahoo Sports, the top sports site in the U.S. And, indeed, the move immediately gives Yahoo clout in…

AOL (NYSE: AOL) practically added two new sites a month last year as part of its goal to reach 100 sites under its MediaGlow content group. While the content strategy has lately rested on building up its freelance content site Seed.com, AOL still plans to roll out more verticals. The…

In contrast to recent Nielsen figures that showed flat spending for display last year, Kantar Media—fka “TNS Media” before being acquired by WPP Group and folded into its KMR Group—says that the segment actually gained a healthy 7.3 percent versus 2008. Kantar says that increased activity by the telecom, factory…

Several cable operators and movie studios are teaming together to launch a $30 million marketing and promotion campaign touting the virtues of movies on demand. The three month, multi-media campaign titled “The Video Store Just Moved In” will shine a spotlight on the burgeoning movie on demand category, according to…

The end could be near for bankrupt satellite radio firm WorldSpace. The company put out a terse statement this afternoon saying that its “strategic transaction negotiations” with creditor Liberty Media (NSDQ: LINTA) had been terminated by that company. Ominously, WorldSpace—which had raised $150 million in an IPO in July 2005…

Public relations news monitor Meltwater, which is still refusing to pay UK newspapers for crawling their websites, has now been blocked from indexing Times Online, the most serious of Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspapers. The news site, which is due to go behind a paywall this spring and which had already…

With pre-orders for the iPad off to a fast start in preparation for the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) product’s release next month, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has modified its guidelines for counting sales of a digital magazine in the U.S. and Canada. The old standards have always required that in…

We’ve been hearing about it for months; now Spring Design is taking orders for the Alex e-reader, the one that’s the basis of its lawsuit against Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS). Spring claims B&N lifted some of the Alex’s elements after meetings between the two. Whether it gets anywhere with…

As luck would have it, I was on my way to meet with Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt and key members of his team at the company’s Austin offices when the rumors surfaced about Joanne Bradford leaving Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) for the start-up. Yahoo confirmed it for us, and during…

RMG Networks, which is trying to build a national digital out-of-home network that can serve as an alternative to TV advertising, is buying Pharmacy TV, which has a network of screens near pharmacy counters at grocery stores and drug stores. RMG, which has about 60,000 screens in total, which span…

Financial news site TheStreet.com may have finished the year with a loss of $45.5 million—compared with 2008’s $2.4 million profit—the company finally got a glimmer of hope of on the ad front. After six consecutive quarterly ad rev declines, Q4 sales were essentially flat with a meager 0.7 percent gain.…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q408	Net Inc. vs Q408
TheStreet	Release	N/A	5%	94%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

At the Abu Dhabi Media Summit last week, I ran into Edward M Prince Jr., COO of National Geographic Ventures, the commercial arm of NatGeo, who professed to be a big fan of ours. So lo behold, considering the opportune moment, I did a short interview with him there, on…

The WSJ’s New York metro edition is debuting in about two weeks and with it, a stepped up effort to challenge the NYT’s tight hold on area readers and lucrative luxury ads. As the date approaches, the NYT isn’t taking the threat lying down; the paper has just launched an…

The latest report on online news economics from Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is one of those studies that will bolster just about any view people have about paying for news online. Want to show that news consumers are unwilling to pay?  Results from a national phone survey conducted…

Heavily-funded mobile broadcast software firm Roundbox is buying the technology and IP of Jacked, a startup which provides web-based dashboards that aggregate info related to live TV broadcasts. Roundbox says it will integrate Jacked’s technology into its ‘mobile broadcast suite’—which is used by broadcasters to deliver content, like video and…