Jess Cagel, Managing Editor of Entertainment Weekly, says in an Ad Age interview that EW‘s Must List iPad app is a hit with readers because it allows them to engage in an immediate and meaningful way.

The app is a digital version of the popular Must List, which features pop culture picks from the magazine’s editors. Cagle says that magazine staffers figured out quickly that the list was the best way to go when creating their iPad app:

We felt it was really critical to leverage the capabilities of the iPad, and that’s a primary reason we decided to launch with the Must List app. It’s a popular print feature that translates extremely well to a digital platform, where users can act immediately on our recommendations with one tap. Plus, from a development perspective, it was a manageable concept for us to deliver a quality, useful experience in a very short production window.

Seems like a smart strategy for an app to us.

Cagel tells Ad Age that even though the app is in its infancy, updates are already on the way. He  also says that it’s not necessarily the biggest celebrity news that gets the most attention from readers, sometimes it’s an indie band or some obscure website.

So keep writing that blog about socks that look like presidents, you never know when your time to shine will come.

Yesterday on The View, Whoopi Goldberg lost her mind when Barbara Walters brought up an article in the New York Times that seemingly left Goldberg out of a list of black actors who had won Oscars.

Goldberg lashed out at the paper, and co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck canceled her subscription in protest. Goldberg claimed it was a travesty that the Times didn’t know she had won:

It’s hard not to take it personally. People in Somalia know; people in China know. You’re supposed to be better than this. This is not some newspaper from Hoochie-Coochie Land. Dammit, get your facts straight!

However, the piece in question, titled “Hollywood Whiteout,” by Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, seems to have been misread. This according to the Times, who issued a statement to Entertainment Weekly writer Ken Tucker, who covered the story early yesterday. The statement:

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A bit ago FishbowlNY poked fun at Time for having a whole team dedicated to their Twitter feed, but it looks like the joke is on us. According to Folio, four out of the top five most followed magazines on Twitter are Time Inc. brands.

As of January 31st, People was the number one most followed magazine with 2.3 million followers, then Time, Instyle, WWD, and Entertainment Weekly round out the top five.

Of course just because those magazines have a lot of followers doesn’t mean they know how to turn the numbers into cash, but regardless, it bodes well for the brand in general. So to those at Time that we might have offended with our joke, we’re sorry for being temporarily right.

Check out the 50 most followed magazines after the jump.

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New York magazine’s blogs — from Daily Intel to Vulture to Grub Street — represent an interesting mini-empire on the Web. Unlike the disparate sites owned by say, Dan Abrams or Nick Denton, you always know that the New York blogs are there to represent the print publication and sell subscriptions, even if their timely scoops and commentary often transcend that purpose.

But magazine’s entertainment blog, Vulture, has been gearing up for a massive revamp, which it is unveiling this week. The redesigned blog now includes new widgets to help you search, expanded coverage and highlights, under the leadership of recent hires Josh Wolk (formerly of Entertainment Weekly) and Claude Brodesser-Akner as entertainment editor and West Coast editor, respectively.

In addition, NYmag.com is looking towards doubling their first quarter profits from the same time last year. So while ad sales might be trickling back into print, there is still an argument to be made for keeping your Web sites timely and relevant. Hear that, Condé?

Full press release after the jump.

Previously: Enetertainment Weekly Editor Joins NYMag.com, Former FishbowlLA Editor Joins NYMag.com As West Coast Editor

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Fortune has named Robert Festino its newest design director.

Festino has previously worked at Entertainment Weekly and Runner’s World and has served as art director at ESPN magazine and Bon Appetit.

He will be joining Fortune on February 8, reporting to the business magazine’s creative director John Korpics.

Related: Time Names New Design Director

As part of its expanding entertainment coverage, NYMag.com has hired its first West Coast editor.

The New York magazine site announced yesterday that Claude Brodesser-Akner, a media and entertainment reporting veteran, would be joining the team of its Vulture blog. Brodesser-Akner has been covering the industry since 1996, working for Mediaweek and Variety, editing our sister site FishbowlLA and creating the weekly public radio show “The Business.” He also helped launch TMZ.com and served as the Los Angeles bureau chief for Advertising Age. He was most recently a contributor for Wired.

This latest hire is part of NYMag.com’s plans to expand its entertainment and culture coverage, led by former Entertainment Weekly editor Josh Wolk, who joined the site in November.

Previously: Entertainment Weekly Editor Joins NYMag.com

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With the end of the year upon us (almost) we’re girding ourselves against the inevitable onslaught of top ten end-of-the-year lists.

But we were unprepared for the sheer number of lists Time magazine has pumped out for the end of the year.

One of our favorites is their top ten magazine covers of 2009. Their list? Two New York magazine covers (including Bernie Madoff as The Joker) and two New Yorker covers, Texas Monthly and The Advocate, among others.

Another list that caught our attention is Time‘s top 10 relevant comics about 2009′s political and social issues, including Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Newsday number about Iranian Twitter users, and yes, even a Jon & Kate joke from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. View them all here.

The Top Ten Everything of 2009 –Time

–Additional reporting by Drew Grant

Even as the media industry is seeming falling apart all around us, the industry still insists on honoring its members. There’s no better time than the present to look on the bright side, we suppose.

This morning, min announced the winners of its first Editorial & Design Awards, awarding prizes in 27 different editorial and design categories. The award breakfast also celebrated the induction of several notable magazine industry movers and shakers into min’s Hall of Fame, including keynote speaker Jackie Leo, formerly of Reader’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal‘s Sally Lee, Ellen Levine of Hearst, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia chief creative officer Gael Towey and John Rasmus of National Geographic Adventure, as well as Vogue editrix Anna Wintour and former Variety editor Peter Bart.

Other top winners of the day included Food Network Magazine‘s win for Best Launch and Fortune, which nabbed the Best Feature award for its “Three Days that Shook the World” piece on the economic collapse of last fall. BusinessWeek won for Best Investigative & News Coverage for its cover story on subprime mortgages (and snagged a prize for best use of social media), while epicurean pub Saveur was honored for best design for a single issue for its Dining in America issue.

Entertainment Weekly, which recently cut staffers as part of Time Inc.‘s budget slashing, took home a number of awards including best photojournalism for its special Photo Issue, the best blog award for its PopWatch blog, best online column for Ken Tucker‘s “Watching TV” column and the top profile or Q&A prize for a feature story on Cheeta the chimp’s life after Hollywood. Self magazine, a Conde Nast title also recently plagued by staff cuts, took home two prizes.

See a full list of the winners here.

min Announces Editorial & Design Award Winners –min Online

It didn’t take long for the body count to start adding up at Time Inc. Hours after FSB folded, resulting in 11 layoffs, Entertainment Weekly reportedly started cutting staff — letting at least 11 people go.

Sources told Erin Carlson from The Business Insider that four editorial staffers and seven business-side employees got the axe today, including two from EW‘s Los Angeles office.

The entertainment pub is no stranger to cuts. Last year, EW trimmed its staff by about 15 people across the board as part of Time Inc.’s massive layoffs totaling 600.

Eleven Staffers Axed At Entertainment Weekly –The Business Insider

Earlier: Time Inc. Shutters FSB

NYMag.com, the ever-expanding Web site of New York magazine, today announced the hiring of Entertainment Weekly senior editor Josh Wolk as entertainment editor for the site.

In his new role, set to begin November 17, Wolk will oversee an expansion of NYMag.com’s Vulture blog. The first phase of the revamped blog will debut next week, with the introduction of Vulture TV Recaps. Building on the popularity of NYMag.com’s current recaps of shows like “Gossip Girl,” the new Vulture Recaps will cover about 20 current shows. The recaps will be written up by the magazine’s talented stable of writers, including Logan Hill, Will Leitch, Emily Nussbaum and Adam Sternbergh.

As the writer of EW.com first regular TV recap, Wolk seems like the best choice for NYMag.com as it seeks to expand its online content selections.

Earlier: NYMag.com Launches Sports, TV Blogs

Full release about Wolk after the jump

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