Nick Denton has a Q&A with Michael Learmonth of Ad Age. There’s a snippet on SAI. What I’ve seen so far seems really sharp. For instance, the below quote, via Lunch Food:

Mr. Denton: When Gawker started, there was a surfeit of information and not nearly enough context — so we provided that, in the form of links and occasionally snarky commentary. But now the balance has shifted. There are pointers to articles on the blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Digg. And all these intermediaries are looking for something to link to. If a good exclusive used to provide 10 times the traffic of a standard regurgitated blog post, now it garners a hundred times as much. That should be reassuring to people. The content market is finding its new balance. Original reporting will be rewarded.

This has nothing to do with the above, but I think a smart thing Denton/Gawker does is place the Gawker artists series around the content. If it were blank or just banner ads all the time, I would never look at them. Since they’re art, I check them out. When there’s ads in there, I still look, because suddenly I’ve been conditioned to look over there.

I’m not sure if the success of the program is measurable in any real way, but it’s one of smartest things in online publishing I can think of. It’s an argument that less can become more. The argument becomes even stronger when you look at the giant ads that are taking over his sites, as well as the Times and ESPN and the Journal.

Ad Age: Gawker adopted some of the bigger ad formats, now the rage at places like NYTimes.com. Did that help?
Mr. Denton: People have faster connections and bigger screens — and the editorial images are getting larger. It’s about time that the advertising caught up. Nobody complains that the ads in Vanity Fair are lavish. Why should premium sites on the web be any different? With about 13 million unique visitors in the U.S., we finally achieved scale. We’ve been more willing to provide value to advertisers — in the form of our giant marquee ads, for instance. And I do wonder whether online marketers are finally distinguishing between crappy networks and online properties with genuine followings.

Well, here we go. The year of charging for content is underway. The S.F. Chronicle is exploring how to charge for some of its content. My hint to you: don’t charge for the OP-Ed section. Maybe if you find some definitive evidence that Barry Bonds used steroids, charge for that, though.

S.F. Chronicle may charge for web content – San Francisco Business Times:.

Alan Mutter, the ‘dean’, of analysing the newspaper biz fires up the controversy machine with a blog post called “Why media must charge for its content.”

It’s a longun and I haven’t read it yet. However, I anticipate it will start a long string of blogs debating the fineries of his points. I’ve already advocated for news businesses charging for their content in the past. It’s not for every company, though. Could the Rocky Mountain News exist as a paid web product? I’m guessing not. At least not with a staff of more than 30. Could the New York Times charge for its product? Probably. If not them, then who exactly?

The problem with the web is that it is hyper competitive and has a tendency to cut all prices to zero. If a bunch of newspapers want to move in a coordinated manner and start charging for their content, then great, we’ll all have to pay for news. But if 30 papers start trying to charge and 10 don’t, then those ten will likely get bigger pageviews. They can blog the news that’s behind the paywall and they can also report original pieces. They’ll get bigger viewers, more advertisers and probably make more money. But, maybe not. I really don’t know.

It just looks like we’re in an untenable situation that can’t hold with or without paywalls.

New York Magazine let Google scan its entire archive and put it online for free. Why? According to their digital head in this video, they weren’t sure there was much value in the archive. Makes sense to me. He says NY Mag will get more use for itself by having an easily searched and indexed archive of its magazines. If there’s a revenue opportunity down the road then so be it.

I made this graphic, but I don’t think it’s going to be used for anything, so I’m putting it here. I’m quite pleased with how it looks.

Bank Of America took $20 billion in TARP cash. This happened at the end of 2008. In September 2008, BofA acquired Merrill Lynch. Merrill gave itself $15 billion in bonuses and took $15 billion in losses. So Merrill had $40 billion in money out the door, while it’s new parent company took $20 billion from the government.  Or another way to think of it, the government, that is, us, paid for Merrill Lynch’s bonuses.

Another graphic, though not as nice as this one:

Maybe you’d like to see another representation of this? This version depicts the ineptitude of Bank Of America’s CEO in the past year.

I’m in full radial blogging mode for the Silicon Alley Insider group. I’m helping them out with a ton of different projects, so I’ll have less time for this. Sorry.

So, we endorse you read this link for totally trustworthy information. No bias, no nothing, just the straight reliable facts:

TNS: We Trust Online News and Newspapers, but Not Blogs – Advertising Age – MediaWorks.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Those all-important “digital influencers” actually get their information from magazines, newspapers, TV and radio.

That’s according to an MS&L survey whose results will be released tomorrow. The study, developed by MS&L’s influencer-marketing unit IM, reveals that some 84% of digital influencers go online to find out more about something only after first reading about it in magazines and newspapers or hearing about it on TV or the radio.

Renee Wilson, deputy managing director of MS&L New York and director of the IM MS&L practice, said the study reveals that traditional media sources are shaping opinions in the rapidly evolving digital-media landscape.

‘Digital Influencers’ Get Info from Magazines, TV First – Advertising Age – News.

Just like all advertising, online video ads are slowing down too:

“The most surprising thing to us is how fast the digital marketplace has come to a standstill in the fourth quarter,” said Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, during the conference.

Online video is still expected to be one of the highlights of the digital-ad market. When it revised its forecasts for U.S. online ad spending earlier this month, research firm eMarketer predicted that online video-ad spending by U.S. advertisers would grow 45% to $850 million in 2009.

By contrast, Bernstein Research forecast last month that total TV advertising would fall 1.9% this year, and another 5% next year, to $65 billion for 2009.

Despite its small footprint, online video has gotten advertisers excited, as they shift dollars to the Web to keep pace with the amount of time consumers spend watching videos there. But the eMarketer forecast is down from earlier projections of 49% growth, and as the recession forces marketers to scrutinize every penny, no area is immune.

Online Video Ads Slow – WSJ.com.

Why You’re Losing Your Magazine Job | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD.