Scott Dadich

“Scott has been at the forefront of the company’s digital innovation for the past three years, developing the design for a digital magazine that has become an industry standard,” said Condé’s editorial director, Tom Wallace, in a statement. “His return to Wired, where he served as creative director and won three National Magazine Awards for Design, will ensure that it continues its pace-setting growth.”

“I’m excited to return to Wired, which has had such a tremendous impact on my life and my career,” Dadich said, in a statement. “I’m honored to have the chance to build on the legacy of innovation that Louis and Jane started some 20 years ago. And I am grateful to my friend and colleague Chris and the incredible Wired staff. I look forward to finding new opportunities to delight and surprise the Wired community, both with the stories we tell and in the ways in which we tell them.”

Dadich succeeds Chris Anderson, who left to dedicate more time to his robotics company.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

He also mentioned that the covers of Wired sometimes don’t tell the real story, and are merely meant to grab the attention of consumers. “We put things on the covers that sell, and sometimes its relationship to the interior is not 100 percent.” Not shocking news, of course.

The best part of the talk might have been when he boasted about parent Condé Nast, saying, “We had our best year in history last year.”

Hmmm… Something about that comment doesn’t seem 100 percent accurate.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Huffington Post: Tracy Morgan continues to battle Joaquin Phoenix for craziest talk show guest in history award.

• Editor & Publisher: McClatchy is expanding its Sunday Select program so more non-subscribers can read its newspapers for free.

• New York Observer: Condé Nast, MTV rebrands. A sign of the times?

• TVNewser: What should be Evan Bayh‘s next career move? Voe here.

• FishbowlLA: Sarah Silverman versus Wired‘s TED conference organizer Chris Anderson in a Twitter flame war? Lets all meet behind the school after math class and watch them fight!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

One year ago, Portfolio was on its last legs. After the market saw the biggest plummet in decades, the cover of the business magazine had American Apparel founder Dov Charney on the cover: A misstep for the magazines that some say it never recovered from. The waiting game of Portfolio‘s cut from the Conde Nast empire wasn’t long, and many blamed editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman for the bad turns the title had taken.

Six months later, Lipman is back, in a New York Times weekend editorial, talking about feminism and inequality in the workplace, which some groups have read as her bitter grapes towards Si Newhouse for killing off Portfolio. But her argument is more than just sarcasm towards a former boss: If you don’t think there are still issues of gender divided in the newsroom bullpen, then maybe you should go back and read some Nan Robertson.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Photo: (left to right) Chris Anderson, Gary Hoenig, John Sargent, Alan Murray

Last night’s discussion, Free AND Paid Content: Business Models That Work, hinged on whether consumers of news and books should and will pay for content online. But it became a tense intellectual slugging match between John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Publishing, and moderator Chris Anderson, most recently the author of “Free: The Future of a Radical Price.”

“We have not grown up in an atmosphere of free books” — Sargent

Anderson contended that free digital copies could bring books back into the “cultural conversation,” while Sargent held steady as the consistent voice of dissent, expressing a grim forecast for the publishing industry and noting that it’s “hard to imagine books as a growth business.” Not even “freemiums” will work, Sargent said, warning of the “danger of the experimental stage,” in which giving away free books may increase sales the first year and even the second, only to see them disappear completely long-term. “It’s early,” he said. “We need a device or two and we definitely need a new screen.”

Anderson and Sargent were joined by panelists Gary Hoenig, ESPN Publishing’s general manager and editorial director, and Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and executive online editor of the Wall Street Journal, each of whom provided moderate voices amid Anderson’s proselytizing and Sargent’s foreboding.

Anderson moderated the panel hosted in the Condé Nast building where he works as editor-in-chief of Wired. As the group’s ostensible mediator, he served more as an antagonist to the three panelists, especially Sargent, highlighting the fact that all are generals in a war that seeks to have readers pay for a product that, in many cases, they can get for free.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy‘s Matt Van Hoven were joined by James P. Othmer, author of “ADLAND: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet,” to discuss the day’s big media headlines.

Today’s podcast became a lengthy discussion about charging for media content versus giving it away for free, and the power of writing for free as a blogger.

“Barry Diller, Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell should be thrown into a cage match,” Othmer said. “And the winner can get to determine the economic model for all media content for the next 100 years.”

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

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TVNewser: CNN has warned staffers that it may become subject to lawsuits alleging unauthorized use of Michael Jackson footage over the past few days. Those responsible for the broadcast of the footage in question “may feel the financial effect in year-end bonuses,” the network told staffers in an email.

PRNewser: Meanwhile, the Jackson family has hired publicists to the stars Ken Sunshine and Shawn Sachs and announced that there will be no viewing — public or private — of the pop star at his former home Neverland. A public memorial is in the works.

Silicon Alley Insider: CBS has poached Gawker‘s star television recapper Richard Lawson to write for TV.com.

Gawker: There are rumors that Spin magazine has cut 20 percent of its staff. Not a good week for music magazines.

Daily Intel: A run-down of the week’s best Web feuds featuring Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi vs. Goldman Sachs, CNBC‘s Dennis Kneale taking on the blogosphere (will they ever learn?), Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell throwing down over “Free” and author Alice Hoffman and her critic Roberta Silman.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu, host Jason Boog of GalleyCat was joined by FishbowlNY editor Amanda Ernst and author and blogger Alex Irvine.

Amanda talked about the news that Wired editor Chris Anderson pulled passages from other sources like Wikipedia and included them, unattributed, in his new book “Free,” as well as the Virginia Quarterly Review blogger who discovered the plagiarism.

Also discussed: Michael Jackson‘s death and the subsequent media coverage, a Jackson-related scene from the upcoming Sascha Baron Cohen movie “Bruno” that is now of questionable taste, how book reviews are becoming less available to authors as a source of promotion for their books and Alex’s upcoming projects.

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We tracked down Jaquith — as he was en route to a vacation in Virginia Beach — and asked him how he made the connection between “Free” and Wikipedia.

For Jaquith, it all started with a parenthetical. During the passage from “Free” in which Anderson describes the saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Jaquith noticed that something was amiss. “It mentioned Crescent City and then, parenthetically, said New Orleans,” he said. “At first, I was thrown off. I thought that maybe that before it was called New Orleans it was called Crescent City and I was mad at myself for not knowing that.”

The reference needled at Jaquith so he did some research. His first stop: Wikipedia. To his surprise, the Wikipedia entry for New Orleans only mentioned Crescent City as a nickname. So he Googled the citation just as Anderson had written it in his book. That’s how he found an entry for explaining free lunch on Wikipedia.

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In addition to the allegations of plagiarism, it also seems like Anderson didn’t fact check some of the info pulled from the Web, as Jaquith explains: “Transcription errors are present in most of the quotes and citations within this Wikipedia entry, a result of contributors making mistakes while entering information from nineteenth-century newspaper articles. Those errors have been reproduced verbatim in ‘Free’.”

Anderson has refuted given an explanation for the plagiarism, saying that the publishing of the book was rushed and the mistakes came about because of the elimination of footnotes. But that doesn’t stop this whole situation from being incredibly ironic — especially because “Free” is a book about how companies can make money from giving away some products for free.

As our colleagues at BayNewser pointed out:

“It’s sort of like if Abbie Hoffman had claimed after the fact that he actually meant to suggest that people buy his book, but a last-minute publishing error led to some erroneous cover copy.”

Related: Wired‘s Anderson: “The Free Vs. Paid Debate Is Misunderstood.”

Also: Maureen Dowd Blames Plagiarism On A Friend

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast, host Jason Boog welcomes AgencySpy editor Matt Van Hoven and erotic writer Rachel Kramer Bussel to talk about media headlines and some new book industry news.

The trio discussed The Virginia Quarterly Review‘s story accusing Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson of plagiarism in his new book “Free,” Dick Cheney‘s memoir, the sale of Nikki Finke‘s blog DeadlineHollywoodDaily and Rachel’s work in the independent publishing and erotica industries.

When asked how she got into erotica, Rachel revealed she started writing it while in law school, inspired by reading other books in the genre. “I was reading [the short story collection] “Best American Erotica”…and I thought ‘Hey, I can try this,’” she said. “There was a book about celebrity sex, and it was 1999, so I said ‘I’m going to write this story about Monica Lewinsky.’ So I wrote a fantasy story about Monica Lewinsky and it got published…I’ve been writing ever since.”

Rachel recently won three Ippy Awards, distributed to independent book publishers, and discussed her creation of “book trailers,” or short video advertisements for her books, for her Web site. “Does it affect sales, that’s what a lot of people ask me,” she said of her trailers. “I don’t necessarily think a million people are watching that and then rushing out to buy the book…I think it’s about building your brand as an author.”

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

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Using new technology only made possible with Apple Inc.’s iPhone operating system upgrade this week, the magazine has launched an iPhone application that sells additional content through the app itself.

The “Men’s Health Workouts” app, which is available for $1.99, “comes with photos, instructions and the ability to track one’s progress for 18 workouts and more than 125 exercises,” explains AdAge.com‘s Nat Ives. However, users can purchase additional workouts and other info — for as little as 99 cents.

According to Apple, this approach to apps is revolutionary, but its probably not the last time we’ll see a magazine use this new technology to sell additional content to readers and iPhone users.

Earlier this week, we spoke exclusively with Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson about new ways magazines and newspapers can monetize content. Something tells us Anderson would be very intrigued by Men’s Health‘s new model.

“It’s not about charging more for the same products, but releasing different products,” Anderson told FBNY. “[Those products] are not for everybody, but for enough people that we can charge a higher price.”

Update: In a press release today, the magazine said the app “includes 18 exclusive workouts and 125+ exercises from the world’s top strength coaches, athletes, and fitness experts. Each workout features step-by-step instructions, high-quality photos, advanced logging functions, and is powered by a one-of-kind circuit training interface.” The additional content available for purchase will be workout “expansion packs” including additional groups of workouts directly within the application itself. Available expansion packs at launch include, “The Ultimate Abs Pack,” “Build a Beach Ready Body,” and “Huge Arms in a Hurry.”

“Men’s Health is leading the industry by adapting our print products to emerging digital platforms,” said David Zinczenko, the magazine’s editor-in-chief. “While other magazines have offered iPhone applications before, we are the first to embrace Apple’s In-App purchase function, and in doing so, we are the first to deviate from these traditional marketing methods. In essence, we are creating a distribution channel within the iPhone for our content.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Internet allows content to be published for little to no cost to the content provider, so the information can be provided for free. But what newspapers and magazines have failed to do so far is effectively monetize content provided online.

In his talk this morning, Anderson suggested that instead of looking at content as free versus paid, we should consider it as “freemium.” Following the model of The Wall Street Journal, newspapers can provide their exclusive stories and most popular content for free, while niche content can be placed behind a pay wall.

“People are more willing to pay for niche content because they realize how specialized it is,” Anderson said. Following this model, newspapers can hope to draw in readers who are not willing to pay for content and then convert some of them into paying consumers.

We caught up with Anderson to ask him if he saw his own magazine possibly taking on this model and what he sees as the future of newspapers and magazines.

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Last night was Gelf Magazine‘s inaugural Media Circus speaking series event, and we headed to Brooklyn’s JLA Studios to hear a trio of media reporters — Portfolio.com media blogger Jeff Bercovici, author and Vanity Fair contributing editor Seth Mnookin, and Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan — gab about the craft. Despite its rather, ahem, familiar name, the event did what it promised to, which was examine how the media industry “covers and consumes itself,” particularly in a down economy, according to organizer and Gelf staffer Michael Gluckstadt.

Bercovici was first to step up to the mic, discussing some of the reporting challenges specific to the media beat. The media world is a small one, he pointed out, populated by peers who know the full range of a reporter’s tricks. “The people you write about are other journalists,” Bercovici said. “They’re extremely media-savvy. They will actually give me quotes in the third person, like ‘he said.’” Finding another journalism job after holding one in which you cover media can be daunting, according to Bercovici. “You’re also often writing [about] people you could potentially write for, or you used to,” he said. “It raises the conflict of interest possibility to a whole new level.” The toughest part of Bercovici’s job, he opined, is that he covers a shrinking sector, which can be demoralizing. “With every passing week, there is less industry to cover,” he said. “It’s just getting depressing. Reading these stories and writing these stories — it just affects your view.” In these challenging times for the media business, Bercovici emphasized that the balance between sensitivity and objectivity is crucial. “You have to be careful to control your tone,” he said. “You have to restrain yourself from sounding gleeful. We have a tendency to do a dance because we got the scoop — especially for bloggers — but these are our friends and colleagues losing their jobs.”

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With Twitter’s ubiquity across the 10,000+ attendee conference, we found the spontaneous creation of session-, speech- and shindig-specific hashtags to be among SXSWi 09′s greatest takeaways. The sheer volume of Tweets coming out of the festival rendered the dedicated #SXSW tag all but useless, so attendees and panelists quickly created the DIY hack of hatching hashtags specific to individual talks at the start of many sessions. From #webfem and #hotttsex to #free, the tags helped those interested in specific sessions but who couldn’t attend — whether they were in a different panel across the Austin Convention Center, or across the country — stay abreast of sessions and topics that interested them.

She also recounts what sounds like a fiery panel between Alltop creator Guy Kawasaki and Wired‘s Chris Anderson. You can read the exchange and more of Rebecca’s takeaway here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.