New Media

Way back in the olden days of 2009, Time Inc.’s venerable sporting magazine Sports Illustrated released a video demoing a hypothetical version of the magazine on a tablet computer:

The demo was impressive, especially considering the Apple iPad would not be unveiled for another half a year. Unfortunately, not everyone was impressed. After Apple unveiled the iPad, Steve Jobs came to Time Inc.’s New York offices and met with the editors of some of their biggest magazines. He was asked what he thought of SI’s demo.

“I think it is really, really stupid,” Jobs said. That stung Terry McDonnell, the editor of SI and the Time Inc. sports group.

“I was sad, and we were all kind of stunned,” McDonnell said. “It was not stupid, in fact it anticipated everything he was doing.”

Speaking at the Mashable Media Summit in New York on Friday, McDonnell explained how he and his team transformed an iconic print brand into a brand across all platforms. The tablet demo, which was not far off from what the company released for the iPad, is a textbook example of how even at old media companies, there are opportunities to think outside the box.

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MyRecipes.com, The Time Inc. Lifestyle Group’s top-performing digital food and recipe portal, has created My Grocery Deals. The new tool allows consumers to find sales on recipe ingredients based on their location.  

Powered by Grocery Server, the leading grocery deal comparison search engine, My Grocery Deals automatically searches weekly ad circulars for more than 200 grocers across the country and matches sales to ingredients.

“The My Grocery Deals tool brings a new level of personalization to the user experience by allowing consumers to find ingredients on sale at their local grocery store,” said Tina Imm, General Manager, Lifestyle Digital Group, Time Inc.  “We’re excited to couple this unique technology with the more than 50,000 recipes we offer on MyRecipes.com to help users save money while making delicious meals for their families.”

Launched in 2007, Time Inc.’s MyRecipes.com gives consumers the tools they need to cook with confidence and eat with joy.

If you ever needed proof that a non-Kardashian can rule Twitter, look no further than Toure. Seriously. Go ahead — look at his timeline.

Whether it’s a line-by-line breakdown of the song “Otis,” his take on the final season of Entourage, or the truth behind that Michael Vick article, the noted journalist and cultural critic has amassed over 36,000 followers by posting more than just links.

“I seem to look at it as if I’m on a panel, and there’s thousands of people there. And it’s a Q&A-type situation, so I make a statement that would relate to many people,” the author of Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness explained in our Media Beat interview. “I do want it to be conversational in that you can have an opinion back or an answer back to me; I can respond back to that. And there is an impulse to be ADD-ish on Twitter, to say one thing and to move on. And I wanna have a conversation. I wanna spend 10 or 15 minutes or 10 or 20 tweets talking about one thing and drilling down on one idea. Look, I hate small talk.”

So, what’s the one topic that got the Twittersphere in a tizzy? Tipping. Watch the full video to find out why.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 2: Toure Tackles Watermelon, Fried Chicken and Post-Blackness in New Book

Part 3: Toure on Pitching, Getting Assignments, and That R. Kelly Interview

As WEMP begins its second full week as a 24-hour-a-day news station, listeners now have the option to hear 101.9 online.

WEMP began streaming on its website Friday.

But, before clicking the “Listen Live” for the news format geared to women loaded with lifestyle and entertainment features, visitors are encouraged to answer a few questions.

Merlin execs chose morning co-anchor (longtime, former WINS reporter) Alice Stockton-Rossini as the face for this experiment.

With a picture of Rossini on the page, she “asks” for input from new listeners. 

“I need your thoughts on the type of stories and information that would be most helpful to you all day,” Rossini writes.

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TIME Inc. veteran Jodi Kahn has been promoted to the newly created position of President of iVillage, the New York-based NBC Universal site devoted to women. In the new position, Kahn will continue to oversee iVillage UK, Astrology.com, GardenWeb, Lifegoesstrong.com, Petside.com and DinnerTool.com.

“Jodi has done an outstanding job relaunching iVillage and steering the network to dramatic year-over-year growth,” said Nicholas Lehman, President of Digital for NBCU Entertainment & Digital Networks.

Kahn joined iVillage in the fall of 2008 from Readers Digest Association (RDA), Inc. where she was President of Global Digital Media. Prior to that, Kahn spent 16 years at TIME Inc., where she ran Time for Kids and was a vice president at Time Interactive.

Beginning today, WNET New York Public Media, the parent company of Channel 13 and Channel 21/WLIW, goes live with local news website MetroFocus (www.thirteen.org/metrofocus). Billing itself as news, culture, and life in around New York, this marks the first phase of a mulitplatform initiative for MetroFocus.  

On the home page, visitors can examine top stories and a roundup of local news from other sources.  

In addition to timely news stories, the inaugural content on the MetroFocus website will feature reporting from the investigative journalism nonprofit City Limits about poverty in New York on the 15-year anniversary of welfare reform.

“If we want to stay relevant to the communities where we operate, we need to serve them better,” WNET president and CEO Neal Shapiro said. “That’s why we’re enhancing WNET’s legacy of top-quality national programming with our commitment to coverage of the local issues, tensions and challenges facing people in the tri-state region.”

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Here’s a look at what FishbowlNY stories made the most buzz this week.

1. White House Adds New Position to Deal with Unfavorable Online Media, May 23
2. People.com Editor Comes Out as Transgender, May 20
3. Did Someone Pay for the Leaked Sarah Palin Twitter Story? May 24
4. Women Like The Nook, Men, The iPad, May 23
5. USA Network Takes Over Entire New Yorker Issue, May 23
6. Fortune Magazine Honors the Most Powerful Women, May 25
7. Every Ebony Issue from 1959 to 2008 Now Online, May 20
8. Does Adweek Have a Problem with Female Editors? May 24
9. Disney to Withdraw ‘Seal Team 6′ Trademark Applications, May 25
10. 1050 ESPN’s Jared Max Opens Up on Being Gay, May 24

Keep up-to-date with the latest FishbowlNY news. Click here to sign-up for the FishbowlNY daily newsletter, bringing you our articles each afternoon directly to your inbox.

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller has written yet another piece decrying the swiftly changing media landscape. This time, it’s Twitter that is the latest hallmark of our downfall. Writes Keller:

Basically, we are outsourcing our brains to the cloud. The upside is that this frees a lot of gray matter for important pursuits like FarmVille and “Real Housewives.” But my inner worrywart wonders whether the new technologies overtaking us may be eroding characteristics that are essentially human: our ability to reflect, our pursuit of meaning, genuine empathy, a sense of community connected by something deeper than snark or political affinity … Twitter is not just an ambient presence. It demands attention and response. It is the enemy of contemplation.

Of course, that Keller finds Twitter a drain on our collective intelligence comes as a surprise to no one. But you know what else comes as a surprise to no one? New media’s reaction to what a Luddite the self-proclaimed non-Luddite Keller is.

Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, writes in a piece called “SURPRISE SURPRISE: New York Times Editor Thinks Twitter And Facebook Are Making Us Stupid”:

But it’s no surprise–and, in fact, it’s annoyingly predictable–that the editor of the New York Times sees mainly the negatives in the Twitter revolution. Because the New York Times, and the editor of the New York Times, would obviously be better off if everything just stayed the same.

Couldn’t the same argument be made, to an extent, for Business Insider’s defense of Twitter and the changing industry?

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Here’s a look at what FishbowlNY stories made the most buzz this week.

1. Former Newsweek President Explains Magazine’s “Disaster” First Quarter Ad Sales, April 18
2. Journalism Tops List of Most Useless College Degrees, April 28
3. Details Emerge on Bill Simmons’ Website, April 28
4. Rachel Maddow Hints That Anderson Cooper Should Come Out, April 25
5. Wonkette Pulls Post Mocking Trig Palin After Advertisers Boycott Site, April 22
6. Friendster to Erase All User Photos and Blogs by May 31, April 26
7. Anchor Ron Corning Joins WFAA in Dallas After Stint at News 12 Long Island, April 25

Keep up-to-date with the latest FishbowlNY news. Click here to sign-up for the FishbowlNY daily newsletter, bringing you our articles each afternoon directly to your inbox.

Several local TV veterans are collaborating on a new website–buzz60.com. The site features video reports and clips by Jay DeDapper, Tim Minton, Len Berman, and film critic Alison Bailes.

They are former WNBC employees, along with the site’s co-founder Philip O’Brien, who was executive producer of the 11 p.m. newscast from 2006 to 2009.

“Buzz60.com is where the viewers are: online and on mobile devices,” O’Brien tells FishbowlNY. “They find out what’s going on and have fun doing so. We give them the buzz, the take, the edge on news and hot trending subjects.”

Minton alluded to the new venture when FishbowlNY spoke to him in January.

“I want to produce different types of content… and I want to have a role in managing it,” Minton said at the time.

Berman, since leaving WNBC in 2009, started a daily Top 5 list that has thousands of subscribers. He also uses Twitter and Facebook to promote his Top 5. But, albeit online, this marks a welcome return for the popular sportscaster in getting some “face time.”

“I’m enjoying my new gig. No tie, no teleprompter,” Berman says. [It's] just fun sports updates. I think Buzz60 has some real potential.”

Mike Avila and Maureen Aladin are also featured on the site.