Andru Edwards' Gear Live broke the news of what's in Apple's next iPhone software update, with a story and a Bleeding Edge video. The news is drawing attention from everywhere, shattering previous traffic records for Gear Live. Congratulations Andru!

Hear Ree, author of Confessions of a Pioneer Woman and The Pioneer Woman Cooks, tell the tale of her move from the lights of L.A. to an Oklahoma ranch in this segment from CNN:

Amruta Gadgil joins Federated Media this week as a Sales Coordinator. She is a graduate of Illinois State University where she majored in communications with an emphasis in broadcasting. Prior to joining FM, Amruta worked with various sales and marketing organizations in Illinois. She relocated to the Bay Area in 2006. In her spare time she enjoys singing, learning how to play the guitar, cooking, traveling, writing, foreign films and exploring San Francisco. Every once in a while she still craves a good old fashioned Chicago Hot Dog (who can blame her?!). Welcome to the FM family, Amruta!

I love this, which I found via IWantMedia:

Media Ad Spending Drying Up Quickly

Total measured advertising expenditures grew just 0.2% to $108.2 billion in the first nine months of the year, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Television, radio and print media all took a hit. Increased spending on "untracked digital alternatives" contributed to the slowdown.

I got yer untracked alternatives right here, brother!

Jennifer Tamez joins the FM team with a background in sales, advertising and marketing. She received her degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder focusing her studies on advertising as well as technology, arts and media. A newcomer to the Bay Area, Jennifer previously practiced real estate in Texas and spent a year traveling and working throughout Europe. Welcome to the FM family, Jennifer!

Here's the full text of today's release:

Federated Media and Graffiti Wall Partner to Bring Conversational Marketing to Facebook

New Partnerships Help Federated Media Surpass Major Milestone of One Billion Page Views Per Month

HP, Wacom Campaigns Demonstrate Unique Potential of Social Applications

SAUSALITO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Federated Media Publishing (FM) today announced that it has partnered with one of the most-used applications on Facebook®, Graffiti Wall, to offer marketers compelling new ways to interact with consumers.

HP and Wacom are two of the initial sponsors launching conversational marketing campaigns on Graffiti Wall.

Graffiti Wall, which has more than 300,000 daily active users on Facebook, provides drawing tools that allow users to create simple, and in some cases elaborate, illustrations to post on friends’ profiles and walls. Since the launch in May 2007, users have created and shared more than 37 million drawings, which are known as Graffiti. Creators Mark Kantor, Ted Suzman and Tim Suzman are working closely with FM and major advertisers to create campaigns that allow brands to participate in and add value to these exchanges.

As part of these efforts, HP is adding a branded print button to all existing and new Graffiti illustrations, allowing users an easy way to bring their creations to life on paper. HP also is sponsoring a new Graffiti Wall feature: In-application commenting. Users can now engage in dialogues about individual images in the new HP “What do you have to say?” section.

"HP’s new campaign is focused on empowering its customers to express themselves in new and exciting ways -- both online and in print,” said Daina Middleton, director of global interactive marketing and advertising, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “The visual content created by Graffiti users, the conversations inspired by that content and the ability for anyone to print that artistry are perfect examples of that expression brought to life."

FM is also helping Wacom, a leading provider of digital drawing tablets, to roll out a series of Graffiti Wall drawing contests that will tap into the immense creative talent of the application’s users.

"Our partnership with Graffiti Wall provides Wacom an ideal way to support an entire community that has an interest in online drawing and sketching,” said John Bistolas, director of marketing communications at Wacom. “With Wacom-sponsored contests at the Graffiti Wall public gallery, users of Facebook will be more aware of all that our pen tablet technology provides, and how it can truly help them express their graffiti with intuitive, natural pen strokes.”

In addition to Graffiti Wall, FM is also working with the "Addicted To..." series of entertainment applications from Watercooler as well as new offerings from a number of existing FM authors. These additions bring FM to a significant milestone, managing more than one billion page views per month of high-quality editorial voices and active user engagement.

Watercooler is the creator of more than 400 applications that allow fans of TV shows and sports teams to join active, engaged communities around those topics. Trivia quizzes, discussions, fan blogs and user-contributed media keep the engagement level high and constantly attract new users. With Watercooler, FM is introducing marketers to fans of specific TV shows and sports teams, creating a new range of targeted advertising opportunities.

“We are thrilled to be working with such established and popular Facebook application publishers as Graffiti and Watercooler,” said John Battelle, founder and CEO of Federated Media. “Federated Media is about bringing new kinds of conversations to author-driven websites, applications and anywhere online there is a community.”

About Federated Media

At FM, we believe great voices attract great audiences. We're in the business of supporting those voices by connecting them to great marketers, as well as providing a suite of services that let authors focus on what they do best: make compelling media. In so doing, we are creating federations of respected voices that prosper on their own terms. Current federations include Sports, Technology, Automotive, Business & Marketing, Media & Entertainment, Momentum, Travel & Leisure and Parenting. For more information, please go to http://www.federatedmedia.net.

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

(Cross posted from Searchblog)

I don't use this space very often to talk about my "other" business, but as loyal readers know, that "other" business has become my passion, so much so that it has taken the best of my time away from Searchblog. I often say to folks that I started FM to create a model that would allow me - and hundreds like me - to write and publish full time. Well, two and a half years in, I'm proud to say that's true for scores of FM partners, but I'm not quite there at Searchblog. I have so much I want to write about, but so little time to actually write - as writing, of course, also requires reporting, reflection, and editing. And FM requires, well, full time focus.

But given that the last two posts have been about pals - Casey at Dell, and the team at Six Apart - I figured I may as well do a bit of log rolling with regard to the latest deal FM has consummated - our partnership with Tina Sharkey and her colleagues at BabyCenter.

The mainstream media world has woken up to the power of conversational media in the past six or so months, with nearly every major company announcing a blog and/or social media strategy. At FM, we knew this was coming, and we welcome it - it's a validation of the authors we work with - from Om and Mike to ProTrade and Graffiti. We're at more than 50 million uniques worldwide, which makes us a pretty big media company, if you want to look at it that way. But we don't, really. We focus on each of our authors, and the federations they are part of.

We started with a small technology federation, and our second federation was about parenting. Why? Well, besides the fact that I have three kids, one of our tech authors was a huge fan of Dooce, one of our anchor authors. And when we met Heather and Jon, we knew we had to figure out a way to make parenting our second federation.

As time went by, it became glaringly obvious that we were not alone in seeing the value of conversational media, in particular when it comes to an area that large media companies call "women's interest." Very large companies - from Martha Stewart to Conde Nast to Time Inc - were noodling their own social media plays. And while we were very proud of the voices in FM's network, it was clear that we needed a partner if we were going to take our support of parenting authors to the next level.

That's where Tina and BabyCenter came in. As I surveyed the landscape of possible partners, there was only one I saw as a perfect fit with our current authors. BabyCenter is not only the best (and largest) parenting resource on the web, Tina is one of the finest media execs I've worked with. It was a perfect match.

Together, FM and BabyCenter are integrating our authors' voices into BabyCenter, and bringing new voices into the family. From the point of view of marketers, we have scale, quality, and safety; from the point of view of readers, we have extraordinarily deep resources and singular voices; and from the point of view of authors, we now have a partnership that brings both new readers and new marketers to their respective sites.

I'm looking forward to more partnerships like this one, and to continuing to scale FM while maintaining our focus on supporting independent conversational media. How does this relate to search, you might ask? Well, to be honest, search is what proved the whole idea of conversational media in the first place. With search as the navigational interface to media, we all started finding voices we could connect with. And a new form of media was born. It's pretty cool, when you think about it.

After a long process that was referred to in this interview, Dell has chosen an agency partner, WPP, and together the two companies are going to start an entirely new agency. I've had the pleasure of speaking with Casey Jones, Dell's VP Marketing, as he's gone through this process, and I'm certain that this new agency will create all sorts of fascinating new models. Not only that, but it looks like the agency might be located here in the Bay area, which would be great for our media community. Congrats, WPP and Dell!

From PRWeek's coverage:

The controversial move, which is unprecedented in scope, will bring Dell's entire external marketing communications function under one profit and loss statement. WPP and Dell will create one agency, comprised of all marketing disciplines and staffed with professionals, at least initially, devoted full time to Dell. The agency and Dell will also co-invest in a significant analytics tool that will map the efficacy of all marketing disciplines against each other and provide measurement for marketing initiatives against business goals.