Bridget Williams has been named the new president of Dan Abrams’ Abrams Media. Williams was most recently senior vice president of business and audience development at Business Insider. She had been with BI for the past three years.

Prior to her time at BI, Williams was the president of Split Rock New Media, from 2007 to 2011.

In a memo annoucing the hire, Abrams wrote, “The timing is perfect. Bridget comes to us as Mediaite just had its biggest month ever and she is uniquely suited to help transform this rapidly growing business into a significant media company. This is a really exciting development for the business and I am confident that you will all come to like and respect her as much as I do.”

[Image: Mediaite]

The Dan Abrams empire is about to expand once again. This time, according to The New York Times, the target is celebrity chefs. “The Braiser” will launch in mid-May and cover the world of popular chefs who “have gone from being food icons to becoming mainstream celebrities,” Abrams explained to the Times.

Abrams said that he was “stunned” that no one had thought of this idea before, but maybe others have, and decided against it. As Lockhart Steele, the founder of Eater, notes to the Times, there are only so many true “celebrity chefs.” Let’s see how many we can come up with, without doing any research. There’s Giada De Laurentiis, Anthony Bourdain, Wolfgang Puck, Tom Colicchio, Thomas Keller, Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, David Chang… That Jamie Oliver guy who everyone hates… Uh, that’s about it.

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Dan Abrams, founder of Mediaite and a slew of other sites, spoke to Ad Age today about what the future holds for him and his empire. He said that business has never been better — the company is “solidly profitable” and he expects record traffic numbers for SportsGrid and The Mary Sue this month — and that he can’t wait to become a father. He also said that something new is on the horizon:

We are going to launch a site in the food space in the next few months. While we haven’t yet settled on a name, we will be utilizing one of our in-house editors, and hiring a couple more. I expect to launch two or three new sites in 2012.

Prior to this revelation, Abrams was needled about the cheesy, pun-tastic tagline for The Jane Dough (“The Business News We Knead”) and he let on that he wasn’t the best at picking names or taglines, so we thought of a few for his new food site. Here are some that Abrams will probably like:

• Foodite: Cooking Up The Best in Food News
• Foodilator: Thoroughly Baked Food Analysis
• Foodie First: The First Stop for Foodies on the Fast Track

If any of those are used we better get royalties.

Slow moving holiday tourists and presidential motorcades be damned. Nothing could keep the faithful away from Michael’s today. With the place decked out in its holiday finery, the mood was like a swanky office party on steroids.  While the usual suspects and a cool visitor from California (producer/composer David Foster) huddled over their tables deep in conversation, there was a little lunch for 14 in the middle of the dining room. I snagged one of the guests, Melissa Gorga, my favorite ‘housewife’ on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, for a chat about the knock-down, drag-out cat fights on last month’s reunion show and to get the real story about her on- and off-camera relationship with her fellow cast mate and sister-in-law, the charming Teresa Guidice.

Melissa, who is an absolute knockout in person, told me that the RHONJ cast (minus Jacqueline Laurita) shot the reunion special the day after wrapping the yet-to-be-aired Season 4, and the women were all seething about battles and betrayals the viewers haven’t even seen. “We had just had a huge blow up the night before, and that was what was on everyone’s mind. It was so hard not to say anything. That’s why Jacqueline wasn’t there,” Melissa tells me. “It was very confusing for us, and we were constantly trying not to say things about things that hadn’t aired yet. Bravo is so sorry they shot them back to back. I don’t think they are ever going to do that again.” Teresa “tried to set me up” and is back to her old tricks, Melissa told me, without giving anything away. After all the kissing and making up seen at the end of last season, Melissa’s husband Joe Gorga is “disgusted” with his table tipping sibling once again. Big surprise.

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When FishbowlNY first heard about Mogulite — an addition to the Dan Abrams empire — we wondered if more ink dedicated to rich people and CEOs was necessary, since people tend to talk about them quite a bit already.

Turns out it wasn’t, because the site is getting tossed to the side and replaced with something called “The Jane Dough.” The site carries the tagline “The Business News We Knead,” and will “explore the world of business through the female prism.”

Amy Tennery and Hilary Reinsberg, the same editors who ran Mogulite, will continue to steer the ship at Jane Dough. Here’s hoping they direct it away from anymore puns.

Late yesterday afternoon, Adweek broke the news that Jared Kushner and Dan Abrams were talking, and the news spread like wildfire. Two big time media moguls discussing deals is certainly news, but maybe not as big as everyone thinks/hopes it will be.

The basis of the talks, according to Abrams, was that he was looking for potential investors in his media properties. Abrams’ talk with Kushner’s brother — who owns Thrive Capital — led to his conversations with Jared. Since that was boring, sources told Adweek and New York magazine that the talks really involved Abrams and Kushner joining forces and each owning a 50 percent share in Abrams Media and The New York Observer. One rumor even had Abrams taking control of the editorial side of the Observer.

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Everyone likes to debate manhood lately, so why not toss some more wood onto that fire? Two of New York’s most powerful (and manly?) media men – Dan Abrams and David Zinczenko – are going to talk it out in a debate at NYU’s Skirball center on September 20, as part of the Intelligence Squared debate series. Abrams will be arguing that “men are finished,” while Zinczenko will be arguing against that notion.

And because men really don’t know much anyway, two women will be joining them. Hanna Rosin, an award-winning journalist, will be paired with Abrams, and Christina Hoff Sommers, a feminist scholar and author, will be with Zinczenko.

Tickets for the event just went on sale, so be sure to buy one and check this out. The night is sure to entertaining.

Another Monday, another weekend media feud to report. This time it’s between Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren and blogul Dan Abrams, who owns Mediaite and its related sites, including our personal favorite, Mogulite.

On Saturday, Van Susteren took to her blog to complain about the fact that she and Fox News had covered a serious, important story about how North Korea is about to run out of food in June, but when Mediaite covered her report, they focused only on how many viewers they had. This was their “silly” headline:  “Among Viewers 25-54, Van Susteren Leads Cooper By Just 63,000 Viewers At 10 P.M.”

Van Susteren starts out by saying she’s upset that Mediaite chose this trivial angle to report on, and not the real North Korea story. But her point gets lost because she then seems more upset that Mediaite didn’t choose to report more flattering numbers:

I figure the website hates Fox since, although equally trivial when millions are dying, mediaite.com chose not to highlight that 1.6 TOTAL watched our broadcast

If the number of people who watched is so trivial compared to the story, Van Susteren, why keep quibbling over it? Moreover, Mediaite is a website devoted to reporting ratings. Comparing ratings between networks is their beat! They never purported to be a general news site. The whole thing is sort of maddening.

Abrams posted an annoyed response:

I was struck by the hypocrisy of your post. When you and Fox News crow about your own ratings do you put an asterisk when the ratings skyrocket for something trivial like the national obsession with Natalie Holloway? Of course not. What if during that same period, CNN is covering stories of far greater national significance?

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The Dan Abrams empire has expanded once again today, with the launch of Mogulite, a website dedicated to CEOs, entrepreneurs and really, really rich people.

If it seems like Abrams is launching a new site every other day, that’s because he is: Mogulite is the seventh site began by Abrams since 2009. And lest you think he’s done after this one, he tells The Cutine that there’s more coming. “We will be launching more sites this year,” said Abrams. “We expect to create at least two more in 2011, probably three.”

With that kind of attitude, FishbowlNY decided to offer some help on what those sites could be. Here’s a few we liked:

• Puppyite – The latest gossip from the world of puppies, including who’s humping who, and why Pugsly the Pug can’t resist eating rubber bands
• Sandite – An inside look at sand, where we find the answers to questions like which kind of sand is really the king of all sandcastles?
• Tacoite – Everything and anything tacos. Key feature: Tacos have so much to offer us, but will the feud between beans and meat cause irreparable harm to the fragile shell of the taco lifestyle?

Yesterday evening Discovery Communications held its annual upfront presentation, wooing advertisers and media buyers, while previewing upcoming programming and networks.

With a suite of channels that includes Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, there was plenty of ground to cover.

Luckily, they had Oprah there to sell it.

Yes, talk show queen turned media mogul Oprah Winfrey herself was in attendance at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and revealed the 2011/2012 OWN programming slate on stage.

She was joined by Rosie O’Donnell, who will be making her return to daytime with a talk show on OWN later this year. O’Donnell performed a song and dance routine with a troupe of male dancers.

Discovery had other big names in attendance, inducing actor Morgan Freeman, who hosts and produces the program “Through the Wormhole” on Science, and magicians Penn & Teller, who have a new show “Penn & teller’s Secrets of the Universe” on Discovery later this year. Billy Ray Cyrus also unveiled his new show for TLC, “Homecoming,” which reunites military men and women with their families, while SNL’s Andy Samberg told some jokes in advance of his gig as “Chief Shark Officer” during 2011′s Shark Week.

FishbowlNY also spotted:

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