Rojo: MyJournal; Digg Riot; Conspiracy Theories

Top Stories For the Week of April 30 – May 4

Will they call it MyJournal? After years of unrequited lust, News Corp. and MySpace owner Rupert Murdoch finally made his bid for Dow Jones, publishers of the Wall Street Journal, blogs BuzzMachine. Murdoch’s move spiked DJ shares by a remarkable $20 to $57.28 before trading was halted, approaching Murdoch’s $60/share offer (via PaidContent). The controlling Bancroft family hasn’t said no, blogs Valleywag, and Paul Kedrosky figures that after a century of control the family may finally be ready to cash out.

Speaking of cash, employees at Murdoch’s other New York paper, the Post, would like to see some – as in for modern computers, LEXIS accounts, and running water in the bathrooms, blogs Gawker. Murdoch’s bid was pure marketing genius, says Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed but Bloomberg thinks it could also spur an auction that brings in big bidders like Google.

Bloggers were also buzzing about other media news: On a Virginia Tech campus still recovering from the shootings, the first book deal arrives as journalism professor Roland Lazenby and his students sell their school’s resilience and recovery to Plume, blogs Gawker. Even the New York Times bought shooting-related search-engine keywords – for up to five bucks each, blogs PaidContent. To millions of MySpace accounts already choked with content, Sony adds five-minute “minisodes” of undead Aaron Spelling series like Charlie’s Angels and T.J. Hooker, blogs Mashable! And Joost launched to the world this week with 150 ad-supported personal TV channels that can carry everything from steamy swimsuit videos to frosty NHL games, writes GigaOm.

Meanwhile over at Digg this week, the power of Web 2.0 was in full effect, reports Gizmodo where geeks revolted over the site’s decision to nix a story that netted 15,000+ diggs and contained the HD-DVD AACS Processing Key number for cracking the copy protection on an HD-DVD. Digg’s founder Kevin Rose finally caved and the story went back up.

Yahoo parried Google’s DoubleClick deal by buying the rest of Right Media, an ad-market maker with 19,000 participants that could greatly expand its advertiser base, blogs Profy.com. Nice counter play, blogs Mashable!, but $680 million is an awesome amount and GOOG is still pulling ahead of the pack. No matter, Yahoo needed a bold move to counter Google’s march and this was it – but PaidContent notes that the Google and Yahoo deals pour $4 billion into an advertising form that currently lags behind search advertising. Next: will MSFT pay a big premium for 24/7 Real Media?

Google took further steps into Yahoo turf with iGoogle, its Ajax-based personal homepages that compete with My Yahoo (via TechCrunch). VentureBeat lists some of the new iGoogle gadgets and Micro Persuasion cites the millions who already have personalized Google pages – then adds Forrester stats showing few use those pages or find their ads useful.

Elsewhere, the Food and Drug Administration gave inspectors the authority to “;detain” all food imports from China – for humans or animals – suspected of melamine contamination, blogs MetaFilter. Why is the FDA so startled? Adding melamine, a coal-based compound used in plastics and fertilizer (via small dead animals), to animal feed is common practice in China to boost protein readings without boosting protein content says Daou Report. First dogs and cats dropped dead from renal failure, blogs HorsesAss; now humans wonder whether they’ve been eating Chinese melamine as well. Bon app��tit: Melamine-contaminated feed was provided to 38 Indiana poultry farms whose chickens are already in the human food chain.

In politics, John Edwards launches the first TV ads of his campaign, urging Congress to stand up to President Bush’s veto of the war-funding bill (via Taegan Goddard), while Fred Thompson is shocked that potential GOP primary opponents are digging up dirt on him rather than Dems. Mitt Romney can expect never-ending questions about the “;secretive” Mormon Church (via ABC News), and Joe Biden finally did something right, saying the one thing he would want with him on a desert island is his wife, Jill. (Hillary wanted a good book.)

William F. Buckley Jr. emerged from retirement to slam George Tenet‘s 60 Minutes appearance in the National Review, wondering how someone so vain, emotional and unreasoning could have led the agency. Besides, Tenet only confirms what many already knew.

Finally, if you thought a mere petroleum fire could melt structural steel on that freeway overpass in California, Boing Boing wants you to know the truth is far, far, far, far, far more sinister.