AOL formally acknowledged that it plans on a round of very large cuts: In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Time Warner unit said it plans on taking up to $200 million in restructuring charges through the first half of 2010. Earlier this week, Kara Swisher reported that AOL’s coming spinoff would be followed by layoffs of up to 1,000 employees.
Why did Google start labeling blogs as “blogs” in its search results? Eric Schmidt thinks it may have to do with your mother.
What’s one of the biggest names in magazine publishing worth? These days, maybe $5 million.
That’s the high end of the range Bloomberg will be paying for BusinessWeek, reports BusinessWeek. Next question: How many of the magazine’s employees stay on once the deal closes later this year? BusinessWeek publisher Keith Fox can’t make any assurances. But he does call the deal “exciting.”
Just in case anyone thought Time Warner had any lingering interest in NBC Universal, this ought to put it to rest: Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes just compared the proposed Comcast/NBCU deal with the disastrous one his company made with AOL nearly a decade ago.
Here are the long-awaited cuts that Condé Nast has been mulling: Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, Gourmet and Cookie are all closing. More details via an internal memo from CEO Chuck Townsend.
Time Inc. has spent the past few months convincing other publishers to join a new joint venture aimed at a market that doesn’t really exist yet–magazine-like publications to be delivered via e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s rumored tablet. Publishers like the idea. What will Apple and Amazon say?
Google marked down AOL’s value from $20 billion to $5.5 billion earlier this year. That’s still too high, argues a JP Morgan analyst.
Heavyweight media investor Gordy Crawford–who happens to own a big chunk of Time Warner–says the conglomerate plans to dump its magazine business. But I get the sense that Jeff Bewkes and company plan on keeping at least some of the unit’s iconic titles.
What do you do if you’ve got a grip on the Web/design software market? Expand into the Web measurement business, apparently. Adobe, whose Photoshop and Acrobat software offerings dominate the Web publishing business, will pay $1.8 billion to acquire Omniture, whose Web traffic measurement software is that industry’s standard.
Nikki Finke, the Hollywood power blogger who recently began working for Jay Penske’s Mail.com Media Corp., has a new Web site. And soon, she will have a new employee–a “well-known figure from established media.” But who is it?
Does the economic turmoil have you pinching pennies and clipping coupons? Then the newest product from the Financial Times isn’t for you: The daily’s new quarterly magazine is aimed at people worth more than $1.6 million.
Sony started selling e-book readers long before Amazon, but blew its lead. So how can it catch up with its new device, which looks and works much like the Kindle, but costs $100 more? Maybe Sony can do it with the help of free books from your local library.
After Sony unveiled its new line of readers this morning, I posed that question to Sony executive Steve Haber, who immediately pointed out that his “Daily Edition” machine has a slightly bigger screen than the Kindle 2 and boasts a touchscreen.
Here’s another company choosing a side in the coming e-book war: Irex Technologies, a Dutch company that plans on selling a Kindle-like reader in the U.S. this fall, has allied itself with Barnes & Noble’s online bookstore. Earlier this summer, would-be Kindle rival Plastic Logic announced a similar pact. And in other “e-book reader made by someone other than Amazon” news, Sony has a press conference scheduled for tomorrow.
Want a media job? Dust off your resume, highlight your experience covering entertainment and Hollywood, and then give Jay Penske a call. The owner of Mail.com Media Corp. continues to make high-profile hires for his burgeoning Web publishing business. The latest: Celebrity editrix Bonnie Fuller, who will take over this Hollywood Life site.
Vanity Fair’s prescient decision to put all of Todd Purdum’s Sarah Palin profile on the Web last week paid off big on Friday. But it would have done even better had the story featured a slideshow with photographs of attractive young women.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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