Everyone loved The New York Times’ digital Snow Fall piece. We praised it. It won a Pulitzer. Even Jill Abramson started using Snow Fall as a verb. Now Newsweek/The Daily Beast appears to be taking it a step farther. Its site redesign is very similar to Snow Fall. It features a giant banner photo at the top of each story, and (while in beta) no ads among the copy.

Baba Shetty, CEO of NewsBeast, told Ad Age that the site’s design was already in place when Snow Fall was published, and that might be true. Either way, the new Newsweek/Daily Beast is great. It’s clean and bold.

One thing we do worry about? Shetty says that when ads do come to the new site, they’ll be going the sponsored/native route. Shetty said that they’ll be “beautiful, high-impact units.” Let’s all hope that doesn’t actually mean “Annoying, disruptive ads that try too hard to mimic editorial.”

The “Most Honest And Unintentionally Depressing Answer Of The Day” award goes to Barry Diller, IAC’s chairman. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Diller admits that buying Newsweek was a mistake, and even adds that the all-digital NewsBeast isn’t likely to succeed:

For a news magazine, which is a bit of an odd phrase today, it was not possible to print it any longer. We said we will offer digital products. We have a very solid newsroom. We will see. I do not have great expectations. I wish I had not bought Newsweek. It was a mistake.

Okay! Now, get to work Tina Brown and crew! Or don’t.

Dan Klaidman, who rejoined Newsweek/The Daily Beast in early 2012, has been named national political correspondent. Klaidman originally came to Newsweek in 1996 as an investigative reporter. He also served as a managing editor of the magazine. He most recently served as a special correspondent.

“Danny is one of the best-sourced and most insightful reporters I’ve ever worked with,” wrote Tina Brown in a memo announcing the change. “We’re thrilled to be bringing his force to bear on the second Obama administration”

Brown’s full memo is below.

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Newsweek/The Daily Beast Company has renamed itself “NewsBeast.” Above is a photo from The Daily Beast’s Instagram, capturing the announcement from Tina Brown and Baba Shetty. Newsweek and The Daily Beast are keeping their names; this is only a change for the company.

We imagine Brown and Shetty decided to change to NewsBeast because it sounds cool, but we cannot confirm that as it is Friday and we’d rather just roll with an unverified, absurd guess.