65% of Buzzfeed traffic now mobile

Buzzfeed now sees 65% of its traffic coming from mobile devices, according to Kenneth Lerer, chairman of Buzzfeed and Betaworks. “Everything is going to the phone,” Lerer said.

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Guggenheim on Hulu

Hulu has hired Guggenheim Partners to advise on a sale of the company, even as the financial services firm is considering making its own bid for the video streaming service, according to a report from Reuters.

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LinkedIn Acquires Pulse

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- Professional networking website LinkedIn is paying about $90 million to acquire Pulse, which makes an e-reader platform used on mobile devices.

More than 30 million people worldwide use Pulse's e-reader applications on devices running both Apple (AAPL) and Android-based operating systems. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2010 by Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta while they were students at Stanford University.

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The deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter, is a combination of 90 percent stock and 10 percent cash.

Following the close, Pulse employees will join LinkedIn at its headquarters in Mountain View.

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Newspapers abandoning iconic buildings

Traditionally located downtown, close to the centers of power, newspaper headquarters were once a paper's most potent branding tool, a high-visibility signifier of place — not to mention a corporeal reminder of the publication's significant first amendment powers. In recent years, newspaper buildings have become something else: fabulous real estate. That explains why so many struggling newspapers are now scrambling to convert their flagships into cash.

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Examining Marissa Mayer's Out-of-Office Message to Yahoo Employees

Ed Frauenheim is on assignment.

The business case for telecommuting was established more than two decades ago.

No doubt Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer knows that. I'm guessing that in the days and weeks leading up to her recent call to ban telecommuting at the search engine giant she considered 20-year-old-plus arguments favoring thousands of her employees working remotely.

You know: Telecommuting is a strategic tool, it empowers employees to create flexible solutions, the technology is available, results can be measured … They are all legitimate arguments with case history that dates back to at least 1991. That's as far back as our online archives go—back to the days when Workforce was called Personnel Journal. And sure enough, there's a reference to telecommuting in a story about Marriott's corporate culture.

You could also argue that telecommuting's origins lie just up the 101 from Yahoo's corporate headquarters at Silicon Valley neighbor Hewlett-Packard. In 1967, the pioneering computer-maker allowed its plant in Germany to offer flextime—a truly radical concept for its time. HP then implemented large-scale telecommuting in the mid-1990s as technology advanced.

And from its earliest days after being founded in 1994 Yahoo has employed legions of telecommuters. So Mayer—a Stanford University grad, by the way—is no stranger to the culture of a remote workforce.

Mayer's decision leaves no doubt that she believes the merits of telecommuting are outweighed by the other side of the argument: Collaboration truly happens at the office. That chance meetings at the water cooler and tooling down the halls on a Razor scooter help push innovation.

It also implies that Yahoo's previous commitment to telecommuting created a bloated, lazy and unproductive remote workforce. Will Mayer's office-centric edict change that? By permanently etching a line not only across Yahoo's addiction to telecommuting but through a massive sector of the workforce who work out of the office, this is a defining moment of her career.

If indeed Mayer and her HR boss, Jacqueline Reses, have done their homework on overhauling a workforce, they should understand that merely swinging the doors wide open and offering a posh cafeteria and shiny new smartphones won't make collaboration happen overnight.

I don't think I am overstating it by saying Yahoo's culture shift is like building a brand-new workforce from scratch—a team of thousands at that. First, construction crews are going to be working 24/7 to facilitate a horde of new employees in an office setting. Then there are the inevitable technology glitches (and they will happen) that will impair the workforce for weeks, if not months, driving stress to dangerous levels.

But before they knock down that first wall, has Yahoo management considered office culture? Who gets seats near the window—employees or managers? Trust me, that's a big deal.

They also better realize that some employees won't play nice together. Try as you might to establish a friendly, open, warm environment, the bottom line is no good deed goes unpunished. Personalities will clash.

It's people management 101, and hopefully Reses already has her HR team equipping managers with the training to put out every office fire from perfume policies to flaps over the office candy dish.

Learning personalities, nuancing situations and creating a team atmosphere will take time. And lots of patience. When teamwork clicks it's a thing of beauty. It's like watching the Harlem Globetrotters run circles around the Washington Generals.

Whether intended or not, Mayer's declaration to collaborate in person rather than cooperate virtually is turning Yahoo into a large-scale laboratory overhauling its corporate culture.

I'm glad I can watch the experiment play out—remotely. Because I don't think I'd want to be a one of the lab rats at Yahoo.

Rick Bell is Workforce's managing editor. Contact him at rbell@workforce.com.

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“I haven’t worked for a newspaper for quite a while...”

Jeff Zeleny, who will leave the New York Times for ABC News next month, says the decision to jump from print to TV was a no-brainer. “I haven’t worked for a newspaper for quite a while,” Zeleny, The Times‘ national political correspondent, tells TVNewser, acknowledging the paper’s moves toward video in its storytelling.

“The web has prepared me a lot for this new fast-paced tempo of reporting from morning to evening,” says Zeleny. “I think it’s just an interesting moment in our reflective businesses that we’re doing more TV at The Times and ABC is doing great reporting.”

And he’ll have plenty of platforms on which to report: ABC News programs, ABCNews.com and Fusion, the upcoming ABC/Univision cable network.

“We’ll see if I can keep up,” says Zeleny. “I think I will.”

The easiest part of the decision to leave the Old Gray Lady — ABC approached him — was joining the ranks of ABC’s DC team. “I’ve long admired the tradition of ABC. I’ve been big fan of their coverage. The news division is on a roll and doing great things and I’m excited to join George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz and Jon Karl, who’s been a friend.”

For ABC, Zeleny will focus on his main beats, Capitol Hill and politics. “At the end of the day reporting is reporting, storytelling is storytelling, and breaking news is the centerpiece. And this is one heck of a time to be explaining this dysfunctional Congress.”

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Nascar signs with video news agency SendtoNews

21 February 2013 | Posted in Broadcast, Motorsport, Global | By David Cushnan

Nascar has signed a major worldwide digital partnership with video news agency SendtoNews, which will see race highlights and other content distributed to thousands of news outlets.

The announcement comes on the eve of the Daytona 500, the first race of the 2013 Sprint Cup season.

SendtoNews will distribute cuts from the 500, plus the rest of the Sprint Cup series, the second tier Nationwide Series and the Nascar Camping World Truck Series via its News Partnership Network. The package will be tailored for local and international digital media.

"We’re always thinking about ways to offer fans more Nascar content, no matter where they are," said Marc Jenkins, Nascar's vice president of digital media.

• Nascar agrees eight-year extension with Fox
• Nascar and Twitter sign 'unique digital partnership'

"This partnership allows us to better reach fans in communities across the country and enhance the coverage of our sport at the local level. After fully vetting the category, we feel confident that SendtoNews’ flexible platform provides the most turnkey solution in the local content space and the most powerful way to distribute our content to local outlets."

SendtoNews' chief executive Greg Bobolo, whose company debuted its distribution platform at the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver, added: "This deal enables SendtoNews to guarantee our media and advertising partners complete highlights of Nascar and multi-year access to one of the largest and most engaged audiences in pro sport."

Meanwhile, as the build-up to Sunday's season-opener intensifies, Nascar has signed a partnership with brake pad manufacturer FDF Friction Science. The company's Duralast brand will become the 'official brakes of Nascar'.

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More Ads for Seattle HyperLocals

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The End Of EveryBlock

NBC pulled the plug on its EveryBlock site today, though the network’s digital chief suggested not to read too deeply into the move’s tea leaves.

“The decision to shut down the site was difficult, but in the end, we didn’t see a strategic fit for EveryBlock within the portfolio,” said Vivian Schiller, senior VP and chief digital officer for NBC News, via e-mail. “This has no bearing on the NBC Owned station strategy. Those sites are strong, and growing under [President of NBC O&Os] Valeri Staab’s leadership. It’s a very different model.”

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Founded by Adrian Holovaty, EveryBlock launched in 2007 with a $1.1 million grant from the Knight News Challenge. It was acquired by msnbc.com in 2009 and then came under NBC News’ aegis last year. Holovaty left the company last August.

At its closing, EveryBlock covered 19 different cities.

In notifying readers of the site’s closure on its blog, editors suggested a struggle to find profitability. “Within the world of neighborhood news there’s an exciting pace of innovation yet increasing challenges to build a profitable business,” the brief post read.

But one hyperlocal news leader suggested that other dynamics were EveryBlock’s undoing. Dylan Smith, the editor and publisher of the independent Tucson Sentinel and chair of the Local Independent Online New Publishers group, said the biggest problem had more to do with EveryBlock’s approach.

“Local news should be reported by local journalists working for local news organizations,” Smith said. “I believe the aphorism ‘local doesn’t scale’ is as readily apparent in the case of EveryBlock as it is with AOL’s Patch. No matter how well they might work in one location, the cookie-cutter, top-down templated play can’t be widely replicated in every market.

“Central planning works even less well for the news industry than it did for Soviet agriculture.”

Smith did concede one lasting legacy EveryBlock leaves for digital journalism, however. “Certainly the judicious application of technology can assist journalists at all levels, and the code behind EveryBlock was an important experiment in gathering data at the local level.”

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Nominees For 9th Annual Intl. Mobile Gaming Awards Announced

The nominees for the 9th Annual International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) have been announced. 52 different countries were represented by the 600 games submitted. This year with the expertise of 15 jury members consisting of both press and industry leaders, 57 games were nominated in six different categories and will move on to the final round of judging.

  The IMGA summit and awards ceremony takes place on March 28 in San Francisco.

  IMGA founder Maarten Noyons was particularly impressed by the submissions. “This year's submissions have been quite exceptional,” he said. “We have never seen such a broad spectrum of games in the submissions. The jury reviewed hard core triple-A games, poetic indie games, educational games and a significant number of narrative games.

  The categories have changed from last year. They now include: Innovation, Visuals, Gameplay, Storytelling, Social Game, and Serious Game. The IMGAs also include People’s Choice awards in those same categories.
PR Web

MMA Creates Mobile Coupon Standard

The Mobile Marketing Association has released an updated primer on mobile couponing as it works toward establishing a standard ad unit for mobile offers and discounts. The MMA formed a specific group late last year to develop a mobile coupon ad format to help promote consumer use of on-device coupons for redemption at checkout.

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Daily Deals Space Thins Out

Having taken $39 million in funding, Group Commerce, chaired by former Doubleclick-er David Rosenblatt, has had to lay off "28% of its 109-person staff " as the shifting sands of daily deals claims a victim. CEO Jonty Kelt tells Business Insider about the root of the problem, "...the local-offers business, which launched two years ago, was too much work for too little reward. Sourcing local deals is as much work as sourcing national deals, but yields far fewer sales because the offerings are relevent to a much smaller audience." Read more.

Patch Shifts Platform

Patch hopes that all 903 of its hyperlocal news sites will be profitable by the end of 2013, and that many of them will have migrated to a less-newsy, more community-based platform, Warren Webster, the hyperlocal network's president, said Tuesday at the Street Fight Summit.

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