Tech Writer Leaves Gray Lady for a Yahoo!

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After 13 years of writing about gadgets and advancements in technology in his wildly popular State of the Art column and Pogue's Posts blog, David Pogue is leaving The New York Times to join Yahoo!, according to articles by the Associated Press and Forbes.com.

Pogue will maintain both of those features at Yahoo!, and also will continue to contribute to Nova on PBS, the CBS Morning News and Scientific American magazine. The promise of editorial freedom and the prospect of reaching 800 million readers a month attracted Pogue to Yahoo! AP viewed the move as reflective of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's master plan to bring higher quality content to the Internet company's Web site.

Bad news for the Gray Lady, which also lost popular statistics wizard and election prognosticator extraordinaire Nate Silver to ESPN last July. Pogue and the Times clashed over the latter's conflict of interest prohibitions and Pogue's lucrative speaking engagements (see "TUOL" post 7/7/11).

According to the Associated Press, Pogue has 1.5 million followers on Twitter, which is only 1,499, 691 more than "TUOL."