Here’s what you do for it. (Hint: we’re featured way too much in it.) Courtesy Terence Kawaja of GCA Savvian, who moonlights as an improv comedian, when he’s not selling companies.

Investigative News Network, a new news network formed by 32 non-profit news orgs aimed at public service journalism, has recruited digital vet Kevin Davis as its inaugural CEO. Davis till now was the COO of LA-based Hollywood trade site TheWrap; prior to that he was president and COO of Hollywood.com. Earlier in the decade, he held a series of high-level publishing positions at Variety Group, part of Reed. Davis will be based out of LA. In addition, INN also announced that it received a new two-year, $200,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, to help kickstart the project. It also has…

Next Issue Media, the magazine industry JV meant to develop content and formats for the next generation platform devices, is having a lot of teething troubles, though a late course correction may help, according to multiple sources we have spoken to over the last few weeks. The JV—which consists of News Corp (NSDQ: NWS). Hearst, Time (NYSE: TWX), Conde, Meredith (NYSE: MDP)—was formally announced late last year. The five companies together put about $10 million into the venture, we have learned, with each company getting two board seats, for a total of 10 (yes 10!) board members. You know where…

Six Apart, the blogging software and media company, has acquired NaturalPath Media, an online ad network for “sustainable, healthy, and conscious lifestyles”, in other words, around green and healthy lifestyle. Financial terms were not disclosed. NaturalPath was founded in 2006, and says has about 200 publishers in its network, including DrGreene.com, GreenLivingIdeas.com, ScientificAmerican.com and EcoSalon.com. With this acquisition, SA will have the “ability to help marketers reach women 25+ in highly engaged, influential media environments and provides more opportunities for NaturalPath Media publishers to increase revenue through premium conversational marketing programs,” whatever that means. Meanwhile, what’s happening with Six Apart?…

Nielsen, one of the biggest B2B media and measurement companies, has filed for an IPO, and hopes to raise as much as $1.75 billion. J.P. Morgan Securities and Morgan Stanley are the lead underwriters for it, but no word on share price range, how many shares, or what exchange it will be on, though very likely NYSE. Nielsen was acquired for about $10 billion, in 2006 by a group of PE firms including AlpInvest Partners, The Blackstone Group (BX: News ), The Carlyle Group, Hellman & Friedman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Thomas H. Lee Partners. Since then it…

Someone finally cares enough for Divx. Sonic Solutions, the digital media solutions firm and owner of CinemaNow online movie service, has announced its intent to buy DivX (NSDQ: DIVX), the long outlier in the digital video codec space. Sonic will pay $3.75 in cash and 0.514 of its own shares for every DivX share, which is about $9.83 a DivX share at Tuesday’s closing price, or around $323 million in total. That is a 41 percent premium to Tuesday’s close price for DivX shares. The deal is expected to close in Sep, after both shareholders approve it. Here’s the rationale…

Rob Glaser has landed at his next gig, relatively quickly. He is joining one of the bluechip VC firms Accel Partners, as a Venture Partner, focusing on digital media technology, social media, and mobile service investments. He will remain at his homebase in Seattle, and will surely be looking at the startups based there. (He elaborated on his interests in an interview with Staci; see below.) Glaser was at RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) for 16 years, before he stepped down as CEO in January this year, though he still remains the chairman there. Accel has a long history with Glaser: they…

As I start my transition out of ContentNext, I am also “transitioning” into travels. First mini-stop (prior to the actual world travels in July-Aug-Sep): Iceland for a week, starting tomorrow. As part of that I am in Reykjavik for a day, and then go up to the northwest part of the country in Westfjords, up to the Arctic Circle. And no, nowhere near the volcano. If anyone in the media/internet/tech community wants to meet up in Reykjavik, either on May 27th or 31st evening, let me know at rali AT paidcontent.org. Separately, I am in London for a few days,…

TrueSlant, the journalism site founded by Lewis Dvorkin, has been acquired by Forbes. We first reported on the sale talks last week. The company raised $3 million in August 2008 from Forbes and Fuse Capital; Dvorkin has also been consulting with Forbes for since April, so likely this is a very family-friendly acquisition, meaning low single digit millions at best, if that. Lot more details on the background of the site in our previous sale talks post. Updated: DVorkin writes in detail about the decision to sell. In short, VC money in this environment, for this kind of venture is…

Blair Harrison, the former CEO of the once-pioneering online video entertainment site iFilm, has quietly launched his next startup, called Frequency. The site is built on a leanback TV model, focused on the videos, as a tuner to everything being talked about in social media and more traditional outlets. As a mix of automatic and curated aggregator, it shows 15 second clips one after the other in a specific category. It is an idea in this moment when web video is finally beginning to come to TV, and newer concepts like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV, Clicker and others are cropping…

In the end, all things *do* come to an end. The good and bad part is, it is never a definite marker, but all part of a process. And so it has been for me. After pouring exactly eight years of my life and a lifetime into this, I am leaving ContentNext and paidContent in early July. I will continue to advise the company for the rest of the year. For most of you who know me, this isn’t coming as a huge surprise. I have been wrestling with this for months now, and the two-year mark under the Guardian…

When the Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) announced that Newsweek was for sale, the top-line numbers we pulled out of SEC documents weren’t new but they were stark. The first-quarter earnings released a couple of days later highlighted the rationale. But, based on the sale book and cover letter sent out by banker Allen & Co. and obtained by paidContent, the complete financial picture WaPo is showing potential buyers details an even more dire situation. Some excerpts and financial and headcount charts below: —What WaPo expects: “Seller contemplates an asset transaction, with the seller to retain all long-term employee-related liabilities…

So what’s Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) launching/announcing Monday in NYC? According to a press invite sent out earlier today right in the middle of the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV launchageddon, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be talking Monday morning at Nasdaq site about “an exciting announcement about providing global consumers with rich online and mobile experiences, and bringing forward a new era in keeping consumers connected.” That sounds too vague to me, but the phrase “connected” make me think of its now-on-now-off Yahoo Connected TV widgets-on-TV initiative. Which would be interesting in the face of Google TV launch, and unlikely to…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK), in the never-ending quest to catch up to the iPhone and other high-end devices, has hired mobile vet Bryan Biniak to a new position of VP and Head of Ovi Publish. He will be based out of New York and Los Angeles, and report to Marco Argenti, who is the VP and Global Head of Media and Games at Nokia. Biniak till recently was the CEO and founder of Jacked, a TV-web software platform that was sold to Roundbox last year. Prior to that he was the SVP of Interactive at American Greetings (NYSE: AM), looking primarily…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is continuing on its breakneck acquisition spree: it has bought the assets of Simplify Media, a media sharing software/application that allows users to share digital music, photos and videos online, especially media in their iTunes account. The company says it had been developing the technology for the last four years, and also launched iPhone apps called Simplify Music and Simplify Photo, but took it off the app store in March. Presumably that’s when Google came in for the tech/software. CNET has a good series of posts about Simplify’s various software tools and apps over the years. In…

Right as the debate about the future of newsweeklies is at its loudest—with Newsweek being for sale—Time (NYSE: TWX) magazine has filled up its vacant publisher position: it has promoted Brendan Ripp, till now the VP of ad sales, as the new publisher of the magazine. He will also be overseeing digital ad sales for Time.com and Life.com. This marks the completion of the formal integration of its print and online business sides, it says. Earlier last week, when the news of Newsweek’s potential sale came out, Time mag was quick to react saying that it has a profitable year…

New York University, not wanting to be left behind in the craze for starting up new seed funds (and I realize the glibness of my comment), is launching its own seed and venture fund, aimed primarily at startups that come out of the university. And it has hired Frank Rimalovski, till now a partner and co-founder at New Venture Partners, to run it. NVP specializes in corporate IP spinoffs, and Rimalovski’s expertise working there fits right in. According to an e-mail he sent out late tonight to “friends and colleagues”, this Friday will be his last day at NVP, after…

It really is that simple: “I was wandering through a neighborhood in Manhattan today that I hadn’t been in for a while. I found myself looking at a new building — one that we all hated when it was under construction. Truthfully, it doesn’t look so bad. Maybe that’s just how cities work. We think it’s awful that they change, and then something new goes up, and then THAT is the city that the next generation claims as theirs. Maybe media is like that too. Magazines served a very good purpose in their day, uniting our culture. Newspapers and *CBS*…

The best way you can spend 48.24 minutes today: watch this video of Conan speaking at Googleplex last week.