Jonathan Krim (Photo via Twitter).

Jonathan Krim has been named the technology Editor and San Francisco Bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, announced a memo that went out this afternoon. The appointment seems to be part of the Journal's stratedgy to ramp up their tech coverage.

"The Journal’s unrivalled global reach makes us uniquely placed to produce the most comprehensive, lively and authoritative reporting of this most important business section," the newsroom memo said. "From breaking news in real time on some of the best-known companies in the world to providing the most insightful analysis of where tech is headed to providing fast and in-depth reporting on tech finance and innovation, Jonathan will lead an expanded team to ever greater journalistic dominance."

Just this past February, Mr. Krim was promoted from acting editor to editor at MarketWatch, where he spent the past two years. Mr. Krim covered the Bay Area tech scene during his 17 years at the San Jose Mercury News. 

Full memo below:

I’m delighted to announce that Jonathan Krim is appointed Technology Editor and San Francisco Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones.

In his new role, Jonathan will lead our global coverage of technology and drive expansion of tech readership around the world. The Journal’s unrivalled global reach makes us uniquely placed to produce the most comprehensive, lively and authoritative reporting of this most important business sector.  From breaking news in real time on some of the best-known companies in the world to providing the most insightful analysis of where tech is headed to providing fast and in-depth reporting on tech finance and innovation,  Jonathan will lead an expanded team to ever greater journalistic dominance.

Jonathan is an experienced journalist with a rich background in technology and general news coverage. He spent 17 years at the San Jose Mercury News in Silicon Valley, where, among other roles, he oversaw business and technology coverage.  Among his many successes, he led prize-winning coverage of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos’s international finances and the northern California earthquake of 1989.  He also covered technology policy for The Washington Post.

Jonathan is a digital innovator and has successfully managed major online publications. Most recently, he oversaw Marketwatch, where, during his two-year tenure, site visits increased nearly 50%. Prior to his stint at Marketwatch, Jonathan was Deputy Managing Editor for washingtonpost.com and Senior Deputy Managing Editor for WSJ.com.

Jonathan will report to Dennis Berman, Business Editor for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal.

“We all like to think of our home as a mansion, even if it is a humble abode, and we all have the license to aspire, so we have created Mansion to be the home of both aspiration and real estate realization,” WSJ managing editor Robert Thomson said in a statement announcing the launch.

The section bears a subhead with a quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that is uttered by the titular heroine about midway through the play.

“O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess’d it,” reads the subhead.

This expression of unrealized romance seems like a tragic allusion for an aspirational section about houses in a newspaper, but maybe the Journal editors never got to the end.

Mansion is littered with pictures of, well, mansions. In the premiere edition, readers learned that Maya Angelou has three lovely large homes and that Silicon Valley millionaires are going SoCal and buying oversized houses on the beach. Who can blame them? In London, pop idols and footballers are living in a converted mental asylum.

The back page doesn’t feature a mansion, because its subject, William Shatner, once lived in a normal-sized shack! Oh, the horror. It was certainly no starship Enterprise, but we all had to start somewhere.

The section is headed by editor Emily Gitter (formerly a deputy editor for the old Friday Journal). “Many of you already know Emily for her sharp editing skills, her excellent judgment and a wit as elegantly edgy as a rough-hewn granite benchtop in a just-refurbished Old Greenwich home,” said a memo announcing Ms. Gitter’s promotion last summer. Her sensibility sounds appropriate for a rustic mansion.

That isn’t the only change on Fridays. Last week, the Journal also debuted  a revamped—and renamed—arts and culture section, Arena, which takes a look at the art market but also covers sports. It’s an odd mix, but the clashing content is appropriately gladiatorial, considering the title. Arena’s ads are mostly for movies (because what is a theater if not an updated arena) that mansion-dwellers may be inclined to enjoy. A banner ad on the front page of the section quotes Sean Hannity calling Atlas Shrugged a “must-see film.”

Arena and Mansion don’t match the guilty-pleasure ridiculousness of the yuppyish “how we live now” that is the Times Styles or the sheer over-the-top voyeuristic pleasure of the Financial Times’s lifestyle sections (we are especially fond of the “How To Spend It” column), but they were certainly passable reads in the first week out.Even the advertising gets in on the action. Ads in Mansion are mostly all homes—and yes, they are all quite spacious. From our perch high above the fray in the content coliseum, we’ll give these gladiators a thumbs up and let them live to fight another day.

Ms. Rusli's jump to the Journal was first reported by Capital's Joe Pompeo, who published a joint memo from DealBook team Larry Ingrassia, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Jeff Cane breaking the news to the newsroom and expressing their regret at Ms. Rusli's departure.

"Evelyn lit up the newsroom with her energetic personality and her enthusiasm for stories. We will miss her," they wrote.

Ms. Rusli's exit comes the same day as the announcement that the Times poached Deborah Needleman from WSJ to edit T.  The move makes sense for Ms. Rusli as Mr. Sorkin's massive media profile casts a rather large shadow over Dealbook. Changing newspapers may give Ms. Rusli a chance to take more of the spotlight for herself.

Previous plans for a Governor's Island ferris wheel. (WSJ)

Who doesn’t want a giant ferris wheel in the middle of Staten Island?

We’re assuming this is the exact inquiry Mayor Michael Bloomberg demanded of his administration after talking with an investment group interested in erecting this enormous asset.

Apparently, the giant ferris wheel, if approved, would stand 600-feet-tall, making it the tallest “observation wheel” in the world, The Journal reports.

We’re going to take a stab in the dark and say it’s probably no coincidence that it will be just large enough to mitigate London’s own revolving claim-to-fame, the London Eye–which stands 443-feet-tall.

Bravo, Mayor Bloomberg.

This move solidifies any suspicion of his slight fixation with London. After all, we’ve already attempted congestion pricing and bike sharing.

Now we’re waiting for the integration of a Big Ben-esque clock tower in the New York skyline, but with a bell toll loud enough to trump the city’s own noisy soundboard.

All jokes aside, the current investment group–Plaza Capital Group Management­–isn’t the first to bring this idea to New York. An unsuccessful attempt to implant a large wheel on Governors Island was proposed more than two years ago, The Journal reminds us in a follow-up post.

The proposed investment was around $100 million.

This idea seems to be a mainstay in the minds of investment groups with the end goal being to provide tourists, who ride the ferry from Lower Manhattan to Staten Island, with a reason to stay on the island. No more cheap booze cruises, in other words.

“Gina Chon agreed to resign this afternoon after acknowledging that while based in Iraq she violated the Dow Jones Code of Conduct by sharing certain unpublished news articles with Brett McGurk, then a member of the U.S. National Security Council in Iraq," a Dow Jones spokeswoman said in a statement.

Ms. Chon did not disclose their relationship to her editors but the Journal found no evidence that it affected her coverage, she added. Since returning from Iraq, Ms. Chon covered Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake and M&A with the Money & Investing team since April 2010.

Memoir time?

Andrew Langhoff, publisher of The Wall Street Journal Europe, resigned yesterday after an internal inquiry revealed that Journal editorial content could have been influenced by a business-side relationship, reports the New York Times.

The paper's circulation department had an arrangement with Netherlands consulting firm Executive Learning Partnership, which it had featured twice in its "Special Reports" section, in October 2010 and March of this year.

According to The Guardian, Dow Jones sponsored Executive Learning Partnership seminars, where they offered the companies that attended them cheap Wall Street Journal subscriptions to distribute to students, ultimately boosting circulation 41%.

“Because the agreement could leave the impression that news coverage can be influenced by commercial relationships, as publisher with executive oversight, I believe that my resignation is now the most honorable course,” Mr. Langhoff said in a statement.

(Photo: pcmag.com)

Fox News was the first broadcasting network to rollout the breaking news ticker on 9/11, so it’s not exactly surprising that News Corporation is ahead of the game again. Following The Wall Street Journal’s launch of WSJ Social on Sept. 20, more news organizations will unveil similar ‘Facebook editions’ at the annual F8 developer conference.

These branded news apps will resemble WSJ Social, allowing readers to consume content within the Facebook environment. Facebook invited several news outlets to produce pilot versions, including The Daily, CNN, theWashington Post and the Huffington Post, according to Forbes.

Though we can't say for sure why Facebook encouraged news organizations to develop applications, it’s probably because they don’t want people to click on a link and leave Facebook. We’re guessing users can expect the news apps to have ads in addition to those on the right-hand side of the site.

(Screenshot: The Wall Street Journal)

The Wall Street Journal announced Sept. 20 the beta launch of WSJ Social, a Facebook news application that allows users to read, share and comment on content within Facebook.

“It’s an app that will live on Facebook,” said Daniel Bernard, digital product chief of the Journal’s digital network, at a launch party Sept. 19. “Instead of taking the old paradigm of driving traffic to our website and having people go back and fourth, why not create a great useable product and usable experience for someone right inside of Facebook? So that’s the direction we’re heading…it’s fantastic.”

The Facebook app will include a grid-like stream of content from articles and blogs on WSJ.com. Similar to linked materials on Facebook news streams, users can “like,” re-share and comment on articles through WSJ Social. But in addition to these traditional Facebook features, WSJ Social users can also read entire articles without getting linked to the original article.

WSJ Social does have advertisements but will be available for free for the first month. After that, Mr. Bernard explained to the Observer, users must pay for access to app’s content that's behind a paywall on WSJ.com. While he said the details for paying for WSJ Social access directly on Facebook haven’t been arranged, readers will be able to use the app with an online subscription after the first month.

In addition to WSJ.com content, other features will be added to the app in the coming days and weeks as part of the beta release.

One such feature treats users as “editors” of their own customizable content stream where they can share their favorite stories and follow other “editors.” Users with the most followers are recognized as “top editors” on the left-hand side letter board of the app.

“Basically every user of the app is an ‘editor,’” explained Maya Baratz, head of new products at the Journal, at the launch party. She said top editors are going to receive rewards for their activity on WSJ Social.

“We’re very excited for all of you to add the app to your Facebook, start using it and to start that competitive set to become one of our top editors,” Mr. Bernard said.

After the announcement, Mr. Bernard and Ms. Baratz joked that they’d become pretty competitive vying for a top editor position on WSJ Social.

“It’s really fun,” Ms. Baratz said.

Don't stop us now, we're having such a good time, we're having a ball.

For the past year or so, The Observer, along with the rest of the press corps, has been chronicling the city's, and the press corps', reaction to our burgeoning bicycle culture. The Post, obviously, has been highly critical, to say the least, if not downright damnatory. The News has, understandably, followed suit. Even The Times has been playing against type, turning its back on its pinko-brownstone readership to criticize everything from a--gasp--European-style bike share program to streets czarina JSK (rhymes with DSK!).

We just pointed fingers and laughed.

With all this skepticism about what is basically a child's toy, never did we expect to read the most clear-eyed and concise defense of biking yet in the (ever-so-much-so-these-days) conservative Wall Street Journal. Granted the praise comes from a wry sports columnist, but the fact remains: Jason Gay declares the Bike Wars over, and he may just be right.

Bikes are New York fringe? Email your friends. Ask how many of them own bikes. Then ask how many of them own cars. If more of them say they own cars, look out the window. You live in Connecticut.

[...]

The revival of urban cycling in this country follows a fairly predictable pattern: nervousness and ridicule, followed by the realization that the truth never matches the fear-mongering. The supposed choice between bikes and everyone else is a bogus choice. More bikes in a city doesn't merely benefit riders; it reduces congestion, saves money, improves quality of life, elevates the experience. No one returns from a city and says, "Oh, it was great—except for all the biking."

Whether the bicycle backlash is truly over remains to be seen. Yesterday, arguments in the lawsuit against the Prospect Park West bike lane were postponed yet again until July 20. Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes, the anti-lane group backed by Iris Weinshal, the former DOT commish and Chuck Schumer's wife, as well as officials at Brooklyn College, the botanic garden and a former deputy mayor, want time for depositions and discovery. As Streetsblog notes, this is a rare administrative challenge the group is undertaking, but if it succeeds, it "could turn into another round of media spectacle for the case."

We might be in for a long, hot summer after all.

Recently, two high-profile News Corp. properties went head-to-head: The Daily was reportedly "destroyed in the face" by The Wall Street Journal's softball team, one W.S.J. staffer tells us. The Daily's team--coached by reporter Joshua Hersh--was no match for the Journal's Capitalists, who beat the legendary High Times Bonghitters in 2009 and 2010 to become reigning media softball league champions. "We got our asses handed to us," Mr. Hersh admitted over email. Elsewhere in media softball, the Newsweek/Daily Beast team held off The Economist 26-8 (it ain't cricket, after all), only to be defeated by Vanity Fair a week later 17-11.

The season's first major museum matchup was a no-show: the Whitney Museum team, known as the Whitney Houstons, was due to face off against its rival, the Guggenheim. Unfortunately, the game was canceled due to a rain delay, and has yet to be rescheduled.

Finally, in the Broadway League, Phantom of the Opera continues to dominate both on and off the Rialto, being one of the five teams in the league to maintain a spotless record. By contrast, The Book of Mormon is 2-and-1. Fortunately, in the contest that really counts, the Tonys, they still hold a clear lead.

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