Everybody, let's give a warm hello to Rachel Sterne! The 27-year-old GroundReporter was just named the city's first Chief Digital Officer, a job described as helping "develop forward-thinking policies on social media, digital communications, web 2.0 initiatives and other tools to better serve the public," that starts with a salary between $75-125k. Her first assignment? A 90-day report on the city's online strategies. Sterne also founded GroupReport, has done a bit of consulting, and works as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. In 2009, BusinessWeek (before it became Bloomberg BusinessWeek, natch) named her one of America's most promising social entrepreneurs. more ›

Since Mayor Bloomberg was busy preparing for a mayoral debate and a standing agreement with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board separates his private and political dealings, he wasn't involved when Bloomberg LP purchased BusinessWeek yesterday. But he thought it was a solid move on his media company's part, "I think it’s a great magazine." more ›

Bloomberg LP is sniffing around for new acquisitions in business media. And now they have placed a bid to buy Businessweek, according to Jon Fine of Businessweek itself (via Fishbowl NY). It's not certain that the sale will actually be completed, but Fine notes that Bloomberg LP is "viewed as a company with both the resources to outbid most other comers and also one that has an existing infrastructure that many BusinessWeek operations can be folded into." He points out that Bloomberg LP has in excess of $5 billion in revenue annually, and more than "2,350 journalists -- or around 15 percent more than the combined staffs [of] The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal." more ›

The Smart car has arrived in the States, and measuring at 8 feet and 8 inches long and 5 feet wide, the miniscule vehicle got some big attention in the Big Apple this week. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at Stanton and Rivington Sts. in Manhattan, a homicide on Light St. in the Bronx, and a robbery at Sutter Ave. and Powell St. in Brooklyn.
• The 72nd St. exit ramp off the West Side Highway is officially closed.
• Times Square foot and vehicular traffic is held up as an example of why the city needs congestion pricing.
• Miss New Jersey, Amy Polumbo, received another package of possibly scandalous photos, along with a threatening letter.
• Brooklyn's very own dream factory: Steiner Studios. Business Week magazine looks at the film and television studio at the Navy Yard on Wallabout Bay.
• After the loss of an intimidating but diplomatic presence on 125th St. to a heart attack, a street community finds itself off balance.
• A 27-year-old man somehow fell six stories to his death yesterday afternoon on East 85th at the corner of 2nd Ave. in Manhattan.
• Bike sharing in NYC is undergoing a five day trial out of a SoHo storefront.

Surveillance video and witness testimony marked day of testimony in the trial of four lesbians who beat up a man in Greenwich Village last summer. more ›

Only a handful of weddings this Weddings and Celebrations, so let's go: more ›

Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, YC Media, authors, The Girl's Guide To Starting Your Own Business more ›