WSJ Social features articles in a tile format, which consists of a thumbnail image, a headline, and other thumbnails of people that have liked specific links. At the top left-hand corner, WSJ Social displays the total number of WSJ stories that you liked and saves them for later.

[VentureBeat]

After the recent Wall Street meltdown, you would figure that less people would be interested in financial jobs but now the economy is recovering.  The Wall Street Journal plans to capitalize on the economic recovery by launching a financial career website called Fins.com.

Dow Jones Ventures General Manager and former Chief Revenue Officer of Jobster Kevin Hatfield is the General Manager of Fins.  Fins is the first launch to come out of Dow Jones Ventures.  Ann Sarnoff is leading the project.  Before Fins, Dow Jones Ventures and IAC partnered on a website called FiLife which has not gained much success.

One of the biggest problems with Fins right off the bad is that there are too many job seeking website alternatives out there as of right now.  If I were looking for a finance job, I’d first check TheLadders, Monster, and CareerBuilder.

[via paidContent]

Other major publications that have built an application for the mobile device includes Bloomberg, CNN, and The New York Times.  None of these charge to use the application so The Wall Street Journal had to remain competitive too.

The videos and streaming radio that is available through The Wall Street Journal application connects to the built-in YouTube application on the iPhone.

[via Wired]

Through this deal, Microsoft will also power the ads for Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com, and other WSJ-owned online properties. 

“Relevant and targeted digital advertising is important to our business and to the quality of the experience that we deliver to our users,” stated Gordon McLeod, President of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. “Microsoft’s state-of-the-art advertising platform will enable us to dramatically improve our revenues from this key sector, and we look forward to working together.”

Altogether, the websites in The Wall Street Journal Digital Network generate 20 million unique visitors per month.  The Microsoft ads will start appearing in February.

“This deal is a significant win for Microsoft for two key reasons. First, it makes the extended Microsoft advertising network the premier destination for advertisers interested in reaching financially minded users, as it complements our offering in this vertical through MSN Money and other syndication partners,” stated Brian McAndrews, Senior VP of Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft. “Second, this deal is a strong indicator that we’re gaining significant traction with our advertising platform. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network is one of the largest financial services publishers in a very dynamic vertical segment, and we’re delighted to add it to our portfolio.”

Microsoft affirmed their position in the digital advertising industry through its acquisition of aQuantive for $6 billion in May 2007.

[Information Source: Microsoft PressPass]

Did I read that correctly? WSJ.com articles that are submitted to Digg can now be read for free? What if I use my Digg account to submit every WSJ.com article I’m interested in, just so I can read it for free and save myself the $9.95/month? Or wait, I have a better idea, how about Rupert Murdoch hurries up, buys Dow Jones and WSJ.com, and makes WSJ.com for free like he said he was going to.

Regardless, I think this is a great move for WSJ.com. Its great to see big media companies embrace Web 2.0 technologies like Digg and Sphere. Digg users will have access to more information. WSJ gets more people to read their content, thus generating higher advertising revenue. But I think for publishers like myself, WSJ adding Sphere is a bigger deal because it gives us an avenue to promote our related content and opinions on the WSJ also.

“It appears that News Corp. is set to enjoy a successful ending to its masterful pursuit of Dow Jones,” stated Deutsche Bank analyst, Doug Mitchelson. “Cost synergies should be meaningful and could offset the dilution the market fears from the deal.”

If I were to summarize my thoughts in a couple words about the parent company of MySpace, News Corporation’s definitive agreement of the Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal announced today, they would be: “total clusterf**k [pardon my language].” Why do I say this? I don’t trust the spam, porn, and pedophiles that are constantly crawling on MySpace whatsoever. Now take the exact opposite and you get the WSJ. The WSJ stands for education, sophistication, and global progression. These two companies mix just as well as water and oil.

Any thoughts? MySpace lovers, try to be unbiased in comments.

Greenspan mentioned in the letter that a possible result of the transaction can include a joint venture.  Through the join venture, three new businesses could be created called WSJUSLIve, WSJAsiaLive, and WSJEuropeLive.  Greenspan would also drive for WSJ content to be delivered in video forms as well.  The five groups and Greenspan would invest $300 million in cash.

In reference to News Corp.’s bid for Dow Jones, Greenspan stated, “It is not too late for the directors to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and initiate a true sales process.”  According to Wikipedia, Greenspan published “The MySpace Report,” which claimed that News Corp. unfairly determined the valuation of MySpace.  MySpace was owned by Intermix before the acquisition.

References:
[1] Thomson Financial: Greenspan has more Dow Jones support (via CNNMoney.com)
[2] Wikipedia: MySpace – Brad Greenspan / The MySpace Report

The purpose of Vator.TV will be for entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas and thoughts through video. Amazon is powering the video streaming. The name comes from “elevator” in the context of the concept of the elevator pitch.

The funding came from various sources and the amount was not disclosed. Richard Rosenblatt, the former CEO of Intermix was an investor. Intermix is the company that owned MySpace which is now owned by News Corporation. Georges Harik, a developer of Google AdSense also joined as an investor. Peter Thiel, the former CEO of PayPal Inc. and Matthew Hill, an early investor in Shopping.com (which was acquired by eBay in June 2005 for $635 million) both joined in for funding.

Below is a video of Bambi being interviewed by Mr. Thiel:

Information Source: [VentureBeat]

The producers of AllThingsD is Walt Mossberg and and Kara Swisher.  Mossberg is the creator and author of the Personal Technology column in The WSJ since 1991.  Swisher is the author of a section called “BoomTown” which appears on the Marketplace frontpage in The WSJ.

John Paczkowski, a previous Good Morning Silicon Valley correspondent is also joining on board for the project.  The website is expected to launch tomorrow.