Digital

The Huffington Post Media Group has named Janet Balis its first Publisher. Balis was most recently Senior Vice President and Head of Sales Strategy, Marketing and Partnerships at AOL. She had held that position since October of 2011 and had previously worked for AOL from 2004 to 2007 as Senior Vice President, Sales Development. In her new role as Publisher, Balis will work to expand HuffPo’s partnerships and help shape marketing strategies.

In other news, HuffPo has named Moritz Loew, formerly Chief Agency Officer for NBC News Digital and General Manager of Sales for MSNBC Interactive, as its new Senior Vice President of Sales. At HuffPo, Loew will lead the sales team and be responsible for generating revenue for all of The Huffington Post Media Group’s sites.

“I’m delighted to welcome Janet Balis and Moritz Loew to HuffPost at a time of unprecedented growth, from the launch of the Huffington Post Streaming Network and the Huffington iPad magazine and GPS for the Soul apps to our international expansions,” said Arianna Huffington, President of HuffPo. “Both Mortiz and Janet, who is already deeply familiar with HuffPost from her time at AOL, have deep roots in digital media, with track records of innovative thinking and leadership that will make them invaluable members of the HuffPost team.”

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Our sister site FishbowlDC is reporting that BuzzFeed is opening an office in Washington, D.C. According to Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s Editor-in-Chief, the DC operation is looking for “a talented, heavyweight player-coach as bureau chief.”

All candidates are encouraged to submit a resume along with a “20 Reasons My Cat is Like a Dog” list to Smith for consideration. Please note that any “20 Reasons My Dog is Like a Cat” lists will be rejected.

For more details, head over to FishbowlDC.

Peter Daou and James Boyce, former advisers to John Kerry, have amended their lawsuit against Arianna Huffington that claims she stole the idea for The Huffington Post from them. Forbes reports that the original complaint was filed in 2010, but new emails allegedly show Huffington and her business partner Ken Lerer were asking others to work on the site, while leading Daou and Boyce on. A snippet from the new charge:

[A]t the same time as Huffington and Lerer were soliciting Boyce’s and Daou’s ideas and plans, telling them that they were building together what would become The Huffington Post, and shaking hands with Boyce and Daou in a manifestation of their business relationship, we now know that Huffington and Lerer were secretly sending Plaintiffs’ ideas to other individuals and developing their own business venture… while excluding them from ownership and control.

Read more

If you’re not busy this afternoon, The New York Times’ Nick Kristof is hosting a Google+ Hangout at 2:30. He’ll chat with UN Ambassador Susan Rice about social media’s impact on foreign policy.

You can join the Hangout via the Times’ Google+ page or the Times’ site. They’ll be fielding questions, so make sure you ask something smart.

Fairchild Fashion Media (FFM) has acquired Fashion Networks International (FNI), a media enterprise. FNI’s biggest brand is NowManifest.com, a site that curates posts from high profile fashion bloggers such as Anna Dello Russo, Bryan Grey Yambao, Rumi Neely and Elin Kling. NowManifest gets an average of 1.2 million unique visitors per month.

As part of the deal, NowManifest’s Co-founder, Christian Remröd, will join FFM as Managing Director, NowManifest and Fairchild Fashion Media Business Development.

“We are thrilled to welcome Christian and Fashion Networks International to Fairchild Fashion Media,” said FFM’s President and CEO Gina Sanders. “This acquisition furthers our mission to deliver an insider perspective to the global fashion community, while offering exciting new functionality and meaningful scale.”

This afternoon Nick Denton sent Gawker Media staffers a memo outlining some managerial and advertising changes. Nothing major was announced, but here are some highlights via Jim Romenesko, who obtained the memo.

• “We are creating a new content department within sales to be headed by Ray [Wert]. It will encompass the existing creative services team and several additional functions: primarily branded content, marketing communications and events. Ray is the first editor to move to sales.”
• “The days of the banner advertisement are numbered. In two years, our primary offering to marketers will be our discussion platform. Expanding on our existing sponsored post program, Ray’s team will recruit and identify a client’s spokespeople and advocates, advise them on web etiquette and language, and help make their most persuasive case.”
• “The second main growth area for Gawker Media is content-driven commerce, ranging from affiliate marketing to in-page transactions. A historical tidbit: the original business model for Gizmodo was affiliate fees from purchases of gadgets through Amazon. We didn’t have the scale then to make that work. We do now.”

For the full memo, click through to Romenesko’s site.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has refuted a rumor from earlier today that AOL is planning to sell Engadget and TechCrunch. He explained to AdertisingAge that the company has explored outside partnerships for investments opportunities. But a sale? Nope.

“We are planning to invest in those properties, not sell [them]” Armstrong told AdAge.

Now who/what do you believe? Armstrong or the rumor? Either way, there’s probably a lot more to this story.

According to PandoDaily — who cites two sources — AOL is putting its tech sites Engadget and TechCrunch up for sale. The sites would have to be purchased together, and the asking price is a ridiculous $70 to $100 million. For now there are no serious bidders, but Pando says there has been interest.

And because any story involving TechCrunch wouldn’t be complete without a quote from its founder, Michael Arrington, he told PandoDaily the following:

I don’t know anything. No one tells me anything. I am not in the least bit interested [in buying back TechCrunch]. I was Team Pando all the way until Sarah Lacy fired me. That does not change my position on TechCrunch.

Serious question: If Arrington didn’t have drama in his life, would he be able to function?

That new business vertical that the Atlantic Media Company has been hyping for the last several months finally has a name: Quartz. Why Quartz? According to a press release, Atlantic picked that name because it “embodies the new brand’s essential character: global, disruptive, and digital.” Also, apparently Q and Z are the two least used letters of the English language, making the site’s address — QZ.com — easy to remember for people who can’t grasp words with more than two letters.

“We’re making great progress in our efforts to build a new kind of business news venture,” said Kevin Delaney, the site’s Editor-in-Chief. “We named it Quartz after the mineral that’s a key component of tectonic shifts. We see the present world of business undergoing a seminal shift — and Quartz will be there, providing the leaders of this new global economy with the information they need.”

Quartz still has no launch date, so until we find that out, feel free to irrationally criticize or passionately praise the name.

Christopher Orr, a Senior Editor for The Atlantic, is expanding his role to include TheAtlantic.com. He has been named the site’s Principal Film Critic. Orr will now contribute weekly film reviews and other content to the site.

“Chris brings intelligence, curiosity, and humor to everything he does,” said Bob Cohn, Editor-in-Chief of Atlantic Digital. “That, combined with his love of movies and his deep experience as a film reviewer, makes him a great addition to the growing roster of talent on the Entertainment channel of TheAtlantic.com.”

Orr’s first column for the site, a review of “The Avengers,” can be found here.