Just last week we noted that medical marijuana-related advertising was filling up the pages of Denver's Westword; now a medical marijuana website is calling on shops that advertise in L.A. Weekly to pull their ads. The boycott, proposed by the site WeedTRACKER, comes after the paper ran a cover story that looked at Los Angeles' inability to regulate the city's medical marijuana shops. "The person who calls for the boycott obviously wasn't pleased with what we found," Patrick Range McDonald writes, "even though the Weekly takes local politicians to task for allowing non-permitted, opportunistic pot shops to give a compassionate cause -- the legal use of medical marijuana by truly sick people -- a very public black eye."

Continue ReadingWebsite Calls for Medical Marijuana Ad Boycott Against L.A. Weekly

"Manhattan Media has thrived as the media landscape has fragmented," Crain's New York reports. The privately-held company, which owns a stable of community weeklies and local specialty magazines, says revenue has grown fivefold since 2002 and advertising revenue for its newspapers is up this year over last. Crain's doesn't make much specific mention of the Press, which Manhattan Media purchased in 2007, except to note that "the company is still tinkering" with the alt-weekly.

Continue ReadingNew York Press Parent Co. ‘Has Defied Industry Trends’

A new study from market research firm Synovate finds that 32 percent of Americans would be open to having their web browsing habits monitored if it meant they received ads more relevant to their interests, as long as they couldn't be identified as an actual person by the data collected. Another 8 percent said they would be open to behavioral targeting with "few, if any, concerns," but 35 percent said they weren't interested because of privacy concerns.

Continue ReadingStudy: 40 Percent of Americans Open to Behavioral Targeting

The contest website will open Tue., Dec. 15, 2009 and will close on the contest deadline, Mon., Feb. 8, 2010 at 11 pm (EST).

There are now three separate blog categories: Group/Staff Blog, Individual Blog, and Music Blog. There is also a new award for the best use of Multimedia. The Wild Card category is Health Care.

Download the complete contest rules here.

Continue ReadingAAN Releases Guidelines for 2010 AltWeekly Awards

On Nov. 20, AAN officially stopped accepting applications for the executive director position. Since then, the Executive Committee has narrowed a list of more than 75 candidates to a group of eight individuals. At the same time, the committee created a Hiring Committee to oversee the rest of the process; this newly formed committee's first task will be further winnowing the group of eight down to a smaller group of finalists, who will then be invited to AAN headquarters in Washington, D.C. for interviews.

Continue ReadingUpdate on the Executive Director Search