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SPEED-NETWORKING, CITY-OF-LAKES-STYLE
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Just a short week and a half until the Speed-Networking Happy Hour at the Times Bar & Cafe in Minneapolis. Be there at 6 pm on Wednesday, February 15th, ready to hoist a glass, swap a business card, and make contacts like nobody's business. Please RSVP to Brian at minneapolis@ed2010.com by the middle of this week if you want to come and please pass the invite on to anyone that you think maybe interested.

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News
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1. WWD
Memo Pad: Who's In At Out? ... Modus Operandi
By Jeff Bercovici and Sara James
2/7/06
http://www.wwd.com/issue/article/104194?page=1

WHO'S IN AT OUT?: How long can a magazine go without an editor in chief? Out publisher LPI Media seems intent on finding out, with the search for a successor to Brendan Lemon pushing into its fifth month. Lemon stepped down in October after five years at the helm of the gay men's lifestyle title; a friend of the former New Yorker staffer said he felt he had taken Out as far as it could go with the limited resources available to him.

LPI has retained search firm Howard Sloan Koller to vet candidates. The goal, according to several sources familiar with the company's thinking, was to recruit an editor from a mainstream title, preferably one with a strong grounding in fashion, rather than someone from the world of gay media. Among those approached: Joe Zee, former editor in chief of the now-defunct Vitals; Michael Slezak, a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly and former managing editor of Genre; Simon Dumenco, a media columnist and former editor of Colors; Andrew Essex, editor in chief of the luxury magazine Absolute, and Drew Lee, former executive editor of Radar, another defunct title. Only Lee appears to have pursued the job beyond an initial conversation. While a spokesman for LPI declined to comment on the search, Lee is said by several sources to be the front-runner, having met recently with corporate editorial director Judy Wieder. Lee also declined comment.

MODUS OPERANDI: If the cast of "Laguna Beach" made a magazine, it might look something like what Primedia's California-based Action Sports Group will be putting out this fall. ASG, publisher of numerous board sport titles, is launching a new twice-yearly fashion publication targeting 18- to 24-year-old women, called Modus. Students from Los Angeles' OTIS College of Art and Design will produce pages for class credit, under the supervision of editor in chief Steve Hawk, a 10-year veteran of Surfer magazine and brother of pro skateboarder Tony Hawk. "It's intended to be a trend report of what's coming out of Southern California, and who better to interpret that than the kids who are going to be in that next wave?" said ASG president and Modus publisher Don Meek.

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SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- CNET Networks Inc.'s (CNET) fourth-quarter profits rose sharply and the company said it would sell its Computer Shopper magazine business for undisclosed terms.

CNET also offered a first-quarter and full-year outlook below Wall Street expectations.

In a press release Monday, the company posted net income of nearly $23 million, or 14 cents a share, up from year-earlier income of $9.2 million, or 6 cents a share.

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Insiders say that embattled faux-memorist James Frey and talk-show goddess Oprah Winfrey have not only reconciled following their notorious on-camera falling out, but have been secretly seeing each other. Now, says a friend of the new couple, Winfrey is pregnant with Frey??™s lovechild.

The intense romance began Jan. 26, ???backstage after James was on the show,??? says a source close to Harpo, Oprah??™s production company. ???James broke down in tears and Oprah hugged him, holding him tight. I think they both realized right then and there how much they really cared for each other.??? Frey??™s very public dressing-down, says the source, culminated in ???some hot-and-heavy undressing??? behind closed doors. A friend of Winfrey and her stunned, now-ex-boyfriend Steadman Graham notes that Winfrey??™s baby bump also comes as a surprise because the pregnancy came unusually fast, particularly for a 52-year-old woman. ???But she??™s Oprah, y??™all. And if Oprah puts her mind to it, Oprah can do anything.???

There. Can I give a guest lecture to Columbia University students now?

Because in late January, Bonnie Fuller -- the editorial director of such journalistic pantheons as Star, Celebrity Living and Globe -- got to. She was invited to Columbia??™s Graduate School of JOURNALISM by the Columbia chapter of the Society of Professional JOURNALISTS (SPJ). To speak about ... JOURNALISM.

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Founding Wondertime publisher Dave Mevorah, who knows the raising-kids-magazines marketplace having previously been at American Baby and Child (publisher from 2003 to 2005), tells min that the get-acquainted events in several cities serve as "thank-yous" for the 70 ad-page support in Disney Publishing's just-released premiere. Like birthday parties, which father-of-triplets Mevorah is well familiar with, there are candy-filled "goody bags," with a few also "filled" with iPods. "We are getting excellent early feedback," he says. "In part it is because many in the agency and advertising community are parents themselves, so they can identify with us." (To get them further in the mood, the background music played Louis Armstrong's It's a Wonderful World, and Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time.) Wondertime's positioning vis-? -vis American Baby/ Child/ Parenting/ Parents/ Cookie, is, says Mevorah, on "child development rather than how moms cope." It will be Disney-parlayed on the Internet, dvds, Radio Disney (joining a FamilyFun program there), and, probably, theme parks. Opening rate base is 300,000; frequency is quarterly with planned upgrades to bimonthly in 2007 and 10 times yearly in 2008.

Meanwhile, Mevorah's Child alma mater will have its second Fashion Week "runway" event (with the "littlest trendsetters," like actress Lindsay Lohan's kid sister--who modeled last year--in mind) tonight (February 6) at New York's Bryant Park. Then, on Thursday (February 9), Child's 2006 book awards at Barnes & Noble (Union Square) will be highlighted by editor-in-chief (since February 2000) Miriam Arond bestowing lifetime achievement honors to Babar author/ illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff.

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Whisper Jobs
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Ed hears ...

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