Finke moved Deadline Hollywood Daily, her one-woman operation, from LA Weekly to Penske’s burgeoning Web empire in June. At the time, she promised to hire a “senior” journalist, based in New York City, within three months.

Now Penske tells me that the new hire, whom he describes as a “well-known figure from established media,” has been locked up, is finishing paperwork, and will be on board within two weeks. Finke also promises to have hires in “London, Paris, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Sydney” within the next year.

Not that long ago, it would have been inconceivable to see a big-name media macher go to work for a one-woman blog owned by a white-label email services provider. But now that Web publishing has lost most (but not all) of its reputation as a backwater for second-raters, wannabes and has-beens, and now that traditional publishing is on life support, it’s a whole lot more believable.

So. Who’s making the leap and jumping into the digital pool with the rest of us? (It’s great fun! You’ll love it! Unless you hate it!) A few of us have been guessing at names for a bit, but there’s no reason to keep our parlor game to ourselves.

Feel free to speculate in comments below, though you’ll have to use your real name if you do. If you’re feeling shy, you can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com. And if you want to be completely anonymous, which is understandable but less useful to me (I won’t have any way of reaching you for follow-up) you can use the blind tip box here.

The deal puts Skype’s overall value at $2.75 billion, a bit more than the $2.6 billion eBay paid for the company in 2005. That current value is about five times the unit’s 2008 revenue of $550 million.

Skype’s new owners: Silver Lake, the Silicon Valley-based private equity group; Index ventures, the London-based VC firm; Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen’s new Andreessen Horowitz fund; and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Here’s the press release.

The service is laying off the majority of its employees, and CEO Mike Volpi (pictured right) is out, replaced by Matt Zelesko, who had been SVP of engineering. The Joost.com portal site will stay open, but best to think of it as an ad for the company’s hosting and distribution services, which it will try to sell to cable companies and the like.

A Joost spokesperson declined to say how deep the layoffs will be; but I’m told that the company, which had more than 100 employees last fall, will be down to a couple dozen after the cuts are done. In a post on Joost’s Web site, Volpi said the company “will say goodbye to many of our colleagues and friends.”

This isn’t a shock: Joost’s fate has been the subject of whisper and rumors for the last year or more. The service made an initial splash in 2007 by raising $45 million from the founders of Skype and an array of high-profile investors and media companies, including Sequoia Capital and Viacom (VIA), and was initially supposed to deliver copyrighted content via a peer-to-peer distribution system and a player that users downloaded to their desktops.

But YouTube, and later Hulu, conditioned users to watch video via their browsers, and Joost’s software never caught on. By last fall, the company had retooled and began offering video via the browser like everyone else, but it has never been able to generate a significant audience. In November, a month after the company launched its Web browser, it said it was attracting 2.1 million unique users world-wide, a fraction of YouTube’s audience, and well behind rivals like Hulu, MetaCafe, Veoh and DailyMotion.

Here’s the service’s unique visitor count, per Comscore (SCOR); Joost’s unique viewer count, which is the more relevant metric for video sites, is considerably smaller (click to enlarge):

Joost has been a frequent candidate for buyout rumors, and the company hasn’t gone out of its way to deny them. The supposed buyers would be cable companies like Comcast (CMCSA) Time Warner Cable (TWC) or telcos like AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ), which would presumably use Joost’s technical team to help build out their own Web video plays.

But some of the cable guys and telcos insist that they’re fine with the people they have. And if they do want to buy a video player, they have plenty of options: Just about all of Joost’s peers have been on the block, formally or informally, for the past few months.

JOOST TO PROVIDE WHITE LABEL ONLINE VIDEO PLATFORM

NEW YORK AND LONDON – June 30, 2009 – Joost, the online video startup, announced today that, along with Joost.com, it will focus on providing white label online video platforms for media companies, including cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators. This technology and service offering will support content owners’ efforts to build comprehensive branded environments online.

Media companies around the world are embracing internet-based video portals as a key path to distribute their premium video, but building a world-class video portal is increasingly difficult and expensive. Joost will focus on this issue and provide the market with a cost-effective, end-to-end solution for media companies to publish video under their own brands.

As a part of this new direction, Joost will reorganize and restructure its business. A core team in New York and London will work on providing these solutions, as well as operating and supporting Joost.com and its associated video applications. Joost also will wind down operations in its Leiden development center.

Matt Zelesko, currently SVP of Engineering at Joost, will take over as CEO while continuing to lead the engineering organization. Stacey Seltzer, currently SVP of international business development and content acquisition at Joost, will run the business operations. Mike Volpi has stepped down as CEO of Joost but will remain actively involved as Chairman of the Board.

Joost plans to make its white label video platform commercially available to media companies around the world. This offering will provide a solution for companies looking to build a branded experience for their content on their own site as well as other sites and platforms in their distribution networks.

UPDATE: I’m told the trio will stick around for a few months to help out with the transition. But to what? First priority is finding a replacement for CEO Miller.

Miller announced the deal in a short blog post today.

Last.fm, which provides free, ad-supported music streamed over the Web, was the first major acquisition the broadcaster made after bringing on digital M&A pro Quincy Smith, who is making plans to set up shop on his own. CBS (CBS) sends out a steady flow of press releases touting the site’s growth–the most recent one I have, from last month, pegs its audience at 30 million monthly users, while Miller’s post says they’re up to 37.3 million–but turning online eyeballs and ears into dollars has been hard for every Web music start-up, and Last.fm is no exception.

The unit saw its headcount cut significantly during CBS’s reorg of its interactive group late last year, and last month the company combined Last.fm with the online stations from its CBS radio unit.

Here’s text of the post announcing the founders’ departure:

After two years running Last.fm within CBS we feel the time is right to begin the process of handing over the reins. This is the latest stage in a long journey for us founders, which began in a living room in East London in 2002, and took us to the headquarters of one of the biggest media companies in the world.

It’s been a privilege working with the incredible team here in our London office, and we’re extremely proud of what we’ve achieved together. Last.fm’s users have more than doubled in the last 12 months (we are now at an all-time high of 37.3M monthly unique visitors), and we’re confident the site will continue to go from strength to strength. Being a part of CBS, and the recently formed CBSi music group, continues to open up many opportunities for Last.fm. Recent product releases such as the new visual radio, and the Last.fm on XBox announcement, are an indication of how much more Last.fm will achieve.

A huge “Thank You!” has to be said to all of you in front of your computers. With your contribution, enthusiasm and scrobbles you have helped to make Last.fm into what it is today: the best place for music online. Big up yourself for that, as we say here in East London.

That’s all folks, we are going to miss you!

DST will not get a board seat or “special observer rights” in return for its money. The two companies are holding a press conference shortly, so we may be able to extract a few more details.

The $10 billion valuation is comedown from the $15 billion figure that accompanied Microsoft’s (MSFT) 2007 investment, but no one expected that figure to hold up–in large part that deal was driven by a bidding war with Google (GOOG) and not much else.

Facebook and its newest investors are conducting a conference call to discuss the deal; I’ll be covering the call live.

FACEBOOK RECEIVES INVESTMENT FROM DIGITAL SKY TECHNOLOGIES

Passive Investment Includes Stake in Preferred Stock, Common Stock and Support for Facebook’s Continued Global Growth

PALO ALTO, Calif. — May 26, 2009 — Facebook today announced that Digital Sky Technologies (DST), one of the leading internet investment groups globally with significant stakes in Eastern European and Russian internet businesses, has made a $200 million investment in Facebook in exchange for preferred stock, representing a 1.96 percent equity stake at a $10 billion valuation.

In addition, DST has indicated that it is planning to offer to purchase at least $100 million of Facebook common stock from existing common stockholders that would facilitate liquidity for current and former employees’ vested shares in the company. The details of the plan are expected to be announced to eligible participants during the summer. Consistent with Facebook’s practice with other recent investors, DST will not be represented on the Facebook board or hold special observer rights.

“This investment demonstrates Facebook’s ongoing success at creating a global network for people to share and connect,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “We’ve worked hard to bring more than 200 million people — 70 percent outside of the U.S. — onto Facebook to share with friends, family and co-workers. A number of firms approached us, but DST stood out because of the global perspective they bring — backed up by the impressive growth and financial achievements of their internet investments. We’re looking forward to working with the DST team.”

“Our investment experience in other regions reveals the tremendous value social networking companies create as they redefine how people communicate and interact,” said Yuri Milner, chief executive of DST.  “By every important metric — user growth and engagement, technological innovation and financial performance — Facebook is on a similar trajectory, though on a much more global scale. We’re delighted to invest in Facebook, Mark and his management team as they make the world more open and connected.”

Based in London and Moscow, DST is a well-respected investor in a number of successful internet companies, holding significant interests in Russia and Eastern Europe, such as Mail.ru, Forticom and vKontakte.  DST’s main assets account for over 70 percent of all page views in the Russian-speaking internet and its social networks are the market leaders in more than 13 countries, addressing a combined population of more than 350 million.

DST is run by its three partners who have complementary backgrounds in operations, investments and finance: Yuri Milner, previously CEO of Mail.ru, the #1 Russian language website; Gregory Finger, previously head of the Moscow office of NCH, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund; and Alexander Tamas, previously co-head of internet and software coverage in EMEA for the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. With its advanced understanding of opportunities in technology and social media, DST is a good fit for Facebook and an insightful partner that can help unlock additional growth opportunities.

At a Q&A at the cable industry’s annual show today, Murdoch waxed on about the Kindle’s qualities, then made a reference to investing in a machine that could be even more attractive–one that boasted a large, full-color screen. I was covering the event live [original story below], and these are my notes from the relevant part of his chat. Please bear in mind that this is a very rough paraphrase, from notes I was taking in real time:

We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there. [Did I just hear that correctly?]

After the event, I checked in with a News Corp. spokesperson, who confirmed that I hadn’t been hallucinating: News Corp. is indeed in “exploratory” talks about making an investment in a company working on e-reader technologies.

Who might that be? No guidance there. Plastic Logic, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been working on a reader with a 8.5 by 11-inch screen for several years. But that company has already raised $200 million from investors, including Intel (INTC) and Oak Investment Partners. And its device, scheduled to hit the market in 2010, will feature a black-and-white screen that uses the same E Ink technology that the Kindle and Sony’s (SNE) Reader use.

Another option: Rival publisher Hearst, which has plans for its own Kindle. But Hearst’s unnamed reader will initially be a black-and-white affair as well.

Anyone have any other possibilities? You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com. Or if you want to be completely anonymous, which is understandable but less useful to me (I won’t have any way of reaching you for follow-up) you can use the blind tip box here.

EARLIER:
This year’s cable show seems lightly attended, but folks are are buzzing here about Bob Iger’s comments this morning, where the Disney (DIS) CEO alternately tried to placate and challenge the industry with his online plans. I’ve got high hopes for this one, too, a keynote speech from News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch, who will then take a seat and chat with three fellow CEOs: Time Warner’s (TWX) Jeff Bewkes, Viacom’s (VIA) Philippe Dauman, and Liberty Global’s Michael Fries.

Moderating the discussion: Murdoch employee Neil Cavuto, who does anchor work at both Fox News and Fox Business (and since this Web site is owned by Dow Jones, I’m a Murdoch employee, too).

I’ll be covering the Q&A live, which means that any text you read below is an on-the-fly attempt to paraphrase the speakers on stage–unless it’s in quotes, which represent my best attempt to get the words verbatim.

Starts with Q&A with Murdoch.
NC: Are things getting better?
RM: I think the long-term situation is still extremely dangerous. I’m pessimistic because every family is poorer and they’re going to save more and spend less. Even more dangerous if the government throws too much money at the problem:

NC: What if you’re wrong?
RM: “I pray I am”

NC: Markets are up in reaction to G20 plan. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about (re too much spending from Congress, etc.)
RM: I’ve never seen any money from the World Bank that’s done much good. Maybe the IMF should be recapitalized. But it doesn’t matter, because none of the money will come back to the U.S. “I would say it’s a bear market still. We’re not going back to the old levels anytime soon. We’re two or three years away.”

NC: What about the economy?
RM: May get better in a year. “I walk around the streets of New York, and all I see is “to let” signs everywhere.” Space we rented for $80 a foot on Sixth Avenue is now $60 a square foot. On our business in general: Advertising is flowing out of the big networks, but our cable advertising is up. “They’re in good shape, and we’re very happy to have a number of them.”

NC: They are rioting in London against capitalism “they’re rioting against success…they don’t like rich people. Are you offended?”
RM: No. There’s only about 4,000 of them. “Makes good television, someone with blood on their face…but it’s greatly overstated.” I have had worse problems when I had strikes 20 years ago.

NC: So you don’t buy this sort of “new global class warfare.”
RM: It’s very dangerous. “We all know in the last two or three years there have been notable headline-grabbing excesses, in this country and in Europe, despite what the Europeans are saying, and we’re paying for that.” But I don’t think we’re going to have class warfare. “We do need an SEC that’s awake,” in part so we don’t have work with the French and their regulators.

NC: Everyone’s piling on the U.S. What does that mean for the U.S.?
RM: I don’t care what the French say. “But when the Chinese speak, I pay some notice.” The Chinese don’t want us in an inflationary situation, or they won’t lend us money.

NC: President Obama talked about working with the rest of the world. Is Washington saying that “we are this big global powerhouse together”?
RM: It’s very nice for the President to say that, but I don’t think Bush ever did that. He was talking to world leaders every day. He wasn’t as articulate about it as Obama. But “we’re the big boy on the block” so naturally people are jealous, but we better remain “damned sure” that we remain the big boy.

NC: But we owe everyone lots of money.
RM: That’s what worries me. I worry that we’re going to start printing lots of money, we’ll have runaway inflation.

NC: You just said Obama is brilliant. Your companies “have a reputation for being slightly more conservative than he is.”
RM: “We’re fair and balanced.”
NC: “Absolutely.”
RM: The monolithic liberal press complains when they don’t get a corner of the world; “if they want to smear you, or me, that’s fine.” Re Obama: “I’ve had a couple of very charming conversations with him.” He talks about how pragmatic he is. “We’ll see.” So far, a couple of little tests have been disappointing. With regard to Teamsters and school vouchers in Washington.

NC: So you’re saying he has a reputation for being pragmatic, but he isn’t. And he doesn’t seem to like Wall Street either.
RM: “That’s putting it too strongly” I think it offends him to see people making $200 million dollars a year, or whatever it is.

NC: Taxes are going up for the wealthy.
RM: Yes. So “we’ll go live in Texas.” It’s serious. a 60 percent tax rate is going up. Not just the federal taxes, but states, and counties. My Long Island house “is not very big at all” but what Nassau charges for taxes is enormous. The bill has gone up from $3,000 to $7,000 or $8,000. “I’m trying to sell my house.”

NC: You’re a newspaper guy. Newspapers as a physical product are dying. San Francisco may not have a paper at all soon. What do you think of that?
RM: “It’s sad. But let’s face it. San Francisco is a pretty small area. And there’s some pretty good papers in that area,” and they’re not folding. “People are getting used to getting everything on the net for nothing. That’s going to have to change.” Take the New York Times. No matter what you’re going to say about it, it has a very very good Web site. But it’s never going to make enough money to cover what it’s losing on the print side. The question is: “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights? Just take them? Not just Google but all the aggregators? Yahoo? And I feel that if you have a brand that’s strong enough, like the New York Times, they should be able to go to Google and say ‘no.’” So when you go to search on Google, it doesn’t show up. But there’s only 10 or 15 of those, probably.

We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there. [Did I just hear that correctly?]

[Time to bring on the other panelists]

PD: “If I may, I’d just like to say bon jour to Rupert.”

NC: Philippe Dauman, you said you’re seeing some positivity in your business. Where?

PD: Theater sales are healthy. Cable is OK. Saw some deterioration in ad sales, but in last few weeks, we’re seeing some plateauing. On the kids’ cable channel upfront, we’re starting to do well. “There are some advertisers that are increasing their spend. They’re healthy, and they see an opportunity to expand market share. Advertising works, even for banks.”

Jeff Bewkes: We’re pretty much seeing the same thing. Advertising for print is down, cable is very strong. AOL, “not so strong.” The problem is that outside the U.S., growth rates have come down, and financial problems are much worse. “But I think it’s short-term” so we’re still investing. Invested in Eastern Europe.

Michael Fries: We’re doing OK, too. Cable isn’t immune, but we’re selling products people need. Our Eastern European markets aren’t doing great, but fundamentally we’re still growing. We’re still growing through this. Since we’re not ad-supported, we’re not having down markets or down quarters. In some of our markets, there will be some consolidation, and we can get some of our competitors out of the way.

[Missed a section on broadband and infrastructure outside the U.S. Apologies]

NC: You have great content but on the Web, but many people don’t pay for it. What can you do about that? Do you have to do deals with the likes of Hulu, and get pennies on the dollar instead of giving it away?

PD: There’s a middle ground we’re trying to follow. Consumer behavior changes, revenue models have to change, too. We put a lot of content on line, we also do a lot “windowing.” Some content like news goes online right away, and the “Daily Show.” That’s on Hulu. But you do get incremental monetization “if you do it right.” “Daily Show” ratings are up since we went on Hulu. We have to experiment and see what we can do to enhance the experience.

MF: Content doesn’t follow eyeballs. Content follows money. Content providers want first and foremost to get paid. Consumers want random access to content. They want high-quality content. I like the idea [i.e., to put all their stuff online] that Time Warner and Comcast is promoting “is a no-brainer.” Online now has a negligible impact on TV, so right now it’s something we can get a hold off.

RM: It varies from show to show. A good show can get improved ratings over time, via the DVR. Like “24.” A lot of stuff that’s DVR’d is played that evening. “There’s no loyalty to audiences at all. There’s loyalty to certain shows.”

NC: Journalists are moving to the Web, but they’re not going to get paid as much on the Web [yup]. Point being: Aren’t authors and artists who produce work for the Web, or the Kindle, going to get screwed?

PD: No. You can charge lower prices but you have lower costs. If you have a secure download-to-own business, you can protect revenues for everyone.

NC: But generally, don’t all content creators have to realize that their content is worth less?

JB: This is the cable convention. Rupert’s right about not having loyalty to broadcast networks. But there is, or at least different identities, on cable. The broadcast business has its challenges, as we know. But the cable channels have the most value and the most future….This industry can now deliver all our great stuff on broadband, and over mobile. [Rambling here but basically Bewkes is repitching his "TV everywhere" idea] “We’re not trying to make the Internet not free. We’re just saying that if you use it for free, you ought to get what you have in your home….Look how slow we’re being. We’re all being too slow to put all these channels and put them broadband….We ought to do it, and we ought to do it now….Put it on the Hulus and YouTubes if you need too, but only if people are subscribing to the cable plans. You can’t just blow up the financial structure….We ought to be taking the advertising model from cable networks and moving it over to broadband.”

NC: That isn’t what I was asking about. What about us content creators?

PD: “We treat creators of content really well.”

JB: “Yeah.”

PD: Back to Bewkes’s plan. People get the advertising model.

RM: People are used to the free content being free, and “the fact is that nobody’s making money with the free content on the Web, except for search.” We’ve got to find a way to charge.

MF: This notion that we’ll figure out how to pay for something, someday, is wrong. There’s value in aggregators and editors, and people go to Fox News because they know what they’re getting. “We have a generation below this lost generation that we can capture and retain, if this industry does it right.”

JB: Hey, want to see what that looks like? [Now it's time for Bewkes to run a promo, literally for HBO. "HBO GO." The "coolest way to watch HBO on your computer....If you have the key, it's free." I am assuming that this is a mock ad for a product that Bewkes would like to exist--HBO OnDemand, online.

JB: I apologize for running a commercial.

PD: That works well for pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime and our new channel. Not sure about other channels.

NC: Let's say our recession/depression lingers for a while "a real protracted type of a deal." What then for entertainment?

JB: It will hold up.

NC: What about advertising?

JB: Less.

PD: It will be slow, but we'll get through it. We have to plan for the possibility that it will be bad for a long time. You spend less, you have to be careful about not spending on things that aren't you core brands, and acquisitions, and that can be self-defeating. We're dependent on Washington in some ways, but what we really need are the credit markets to work again.

MF: Bingo.

NC: How has recession affected you personally? Do you change the way you display your wealth, or your own personal behavior?

JB: [Sitting next to Murdoch] “I tend to sit next to people who are richer than me.”

PD: Hotel managers are beside themselves because no one has business meetings, and then they have to fire working class people. But I think this “populist surge” about abuses will pass. “We’re going through an extreme period, and this is a country that still values entrepreneurial behavior.”

[Panel is over.]

CBS paid $1.8 billion for CNET last summer, and today it is dealing with the consequences: A re-org and layoffs.

CBS execs won’t release specifics on the firings and won’t say how many people were let go altogether. So news will be coming out in piecemeal fashion for some time.

The best that I can tell, though, the cuts came throughout the company’s interactive group, from its London-based last.fm radio service through CBS (CBS) headquarters in New York to CNET’s homebase in San Francisco.

Based on the fact that CBS Interactive boss Quincy Smith flew to the west coast to quarterback the re-org this morning–and the fact that CNET was much, much bigger than the CBS Interactive group–I’m assuming that more CNET employees were let go than anyone else.

Quincy, if I’m wrong, please let me know. And CBS Interactive/CNET employees can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com.

In the meantime, here’s the new structure of Smith’s group, via an internal memo that comes from him and Neil Ashe, his CNET counterpart:

Team,

As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.

Progress

CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.

Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.

Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1,500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.

Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.

Organizational Promotions and Changes

As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.

Sports, Games and Music

We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.

Entertainment & Lifestyle

We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.

Technology & News

Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.

CBS Interactive Marketing

We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.

CBS Interactive Business Development

We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.

Market Conditions

As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.

CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.

Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.

Best,
-q, NA

Kelly’s number for today “may be on the high side,” a person familiar with the matter counsels me. In any event, I expect to have more details later in the day. As always, I value your input, and I keep all correspondence anonymous: peter@allthingsd.com.

In the meantime, an update on this week’s cuts: I’m told Time Europe editor William Green and senior editor James Graff were laid off via phone yesterday, and that more cuts in the London office are expected today. And four-year-old Cottage Living magazine has been shut down, which means that 38 out of 47 people who worked on that title are out of work; the remainder will be placed elsewhere in the group. Announced along with the job cuts today were the departures of executives from Cooking Light and Southern Progress. Chris Allen, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Cooking Light is resigning his position, as are Southern Progress execs Bruce Akin, Karla Hardy and Dick Gardner. Here are the memos:

November 18, 2008

To:Time Inc. Employees
From:Sylvia Auton
Re: Cottage Living Magazine

I regret to inform you that we will no longer be producing Cottage Living magazine. The November/December 2008 issue, on newsstands now, will be the magazine’s last. Cottageliving.com will also shutdown. However, the company will keep the brand alive in one of its other leading shelter titles and these plans will be finalized over the next few weeks.

Since its inception, Cottage Living attracted significant advertiser support and fostered a loyal following among readers. However, the economic downturn has particularly affected the shelter market and while the brand was genuinely loved by readers and advertisers alike, the economy inhibited its ability to grow and therefore, sadly, we had to make the decision to close it.

Cottage Living launched with a unique editorial mission. Its readership celebrated community and character over conformity, personality rather than perfection, and informality instead of pretension. The brand’s tagline: ‘life just right,’ showed how one could ‘live large,’ even luxuriously, in a lighter footprint.

Launched in September 2004 with a circulation of 500,000, the brand quickly grew to 650,000 in January/February 2005. One year later, Cottage Living increased its rate base to 900,000, and then to one million in January/February 2007. Cottage Living also produced many one-time special-interest publications including Cottage Christmas and Cottage Makeovers.

Cottage Living also received many industry accolades including AdWeek’s ‘2005 Startup of the Year’ and Advertising Age’s ‘2005 Launch Worth Watching.’ It was also named to AdWeek’s ‘Hot List’ 10 Under 50 list for two consecutive years: 2006 and 2007.

I want to thank the many dedicated and talented Cottage Living staffers. It was developed, edited and published by some of the best talent in the business and we can remain proud of its many achievements.

S.A.”

Subject: Staff Announcement
To:       Lifestyle Business Unit Employees
From:   Sylvia Auton and Steve Sachs
Re:       Staff Announcement  

With the departure of Bruce Akin, we’re pleased to announce that Bruce Larson will assume the role of Senior Vice President and the lead executive in charge of SPC operations for Time Inc. He will be responsible for the general management of all operations in the Birmingham office, Oxmoor House and Southern Living at HOME.

Bruce joined the company in 1991 as a manager of corporate reporting. Over the last 17 years he has been promoted numerous times and has held jobs in a variety of areas, from corporate accounting to IT to consumer marketing and production.

During his tenure with Southern Progress, Bruce has shown outstanding decision-making and leadership skills and has been a key player responsible for the strong financial growth the company has enjoyed over the years.

Please join us in congratulating Bruce on his new assignment.”

To:  Southern Progress Colleagues
From:  Bruce Larson

I regret to announce that two longtime, trusted Southern Progress colleagues, Karla Hardy and Dick Gardner, have decided to retire at the end of the year.

Karla has been a steady presence in our advertising production circles ever since she joined the company in 1977 as advertising traffic manager for Progressive Farmer. In 1985, she accepted a position as assistant to the editor and advertising/production coordinator for Southern Living Classics, which merged later that year with the newly acquired Southern Accents, where she eventually moved up to advertising production manager. When we launched Coastal Living, Karla began working on both titles, and in 2007 she began helping manage advertising production for Cottage Living as well. And let’s not forget her work on Entrée. With her incredible depth of knowledge of advertising production and her keen eye for detail, it’s no wonder that Karla is so highly regarded. She knows how to best position each ad for space efficiency and visibility, and she knows how to work with our sales staff and advertisers to ensure that everyone is happy with the outcome.

Dick began his Southern Progress career just nine months after Karla, back in 1978. He spent the first 13 years of his SPC career on the corporate side, managing building operations, office services, and purchasing, before moving to the magazine side of the business as financial manager for Southern Living and Southern Accents. In 1995, he was named general manager of Southern Accents. One short year later, he added responsibility for the soon-to-be-launched Coastal Living. In 2004, he was named vice president and general manager for Coastal Living alone, and in 2007 he took on the GM role for Cottage Living as well. Dick is well respected for his wisdom, leadership. and kindness, not to mention his astute business sense. He knows his titles—and his staff—inside and out and never fails to find the right solution to any challenge. Plus, he has a great sense of humor.

There have been several times over the years when both Dick and Karla have been counted on to work on more than one title—a sure sign of how highly they’re valued around here—and each did so while managing to maintain a positive, calm outlook. Please join me in thanking them for all they’ve done for us and letting them know how much they’ll be missed.”

Subject: Staff Announcement
To: Lifestyle Business Unit Employees
From:  Sylvia Auton
Re:  Staff Announcement

After careful consideration, Chris Allen, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Cooking Light, has decided to leave the company.

A 26-year veteran, Chris first joined Cooking Light in 1991 as eastern advertising sales director and quickly rose through the ranks. Chris’ leadership and expertise resulted in enormous successes for the Cooking Light brand: Under his direction, Cooking Light has grown to become the world’s largest epicurean and healthy lifestyle magazine.

During his tenure, Cooking Light was named to AdWeek’s Hot List four times, Advertising Age’s ‘A List,’ Capell’s Circulation Report’s prestigious ‘Triple Play Award’ three times, and ‘Most Notable Launch of the Past 20 Years’ awarded by Media Industry Newsletter and Samir Husni in 2005. Chris also presided over the launch of several groundbreaking marketing campaigns, including The Cooking Light Cruise, the Cooking Light Fit House, and Cooking Light Supper Clubs.

An avid cook and exercise enthusiast, Chris lived the Cooking Light brand. He’s also a rock star: The Cooking Light band, Way Past Close, has performed throughout New York City and Birmingham to clients and colleagues.

Earlier in his career, Chris spent eight years at PEOPLE rising from salesperson to New York divisional sales manager.

Please join me in thanking Chris for his many contributions to Southern Progress and Time Inc. and wishing him the very best.”