PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Oct 3

Oct 3 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* Facebook Inc and Twitter both see the social conversation around television as a way to increase use of their sites and win a bigger piece of advertisers spending, which eMarketer estimates will be $171 billion across all types of media this year in the United States. ()

* In their first meeting since a budget impasse shuttered many federal operations, President Obama told Republican leaders on Wednesday that he would negotiate with them only after they agreed to the funding needed to reopen the government and also to an essential increase in the nation's debt limit, without add-ons. ()

* Federal and state officials moved Wednesday to strengthen the computer underpinnings of the new online health exchanges, which proved inadequate to handle a flood of consumer inquiries that began as soon as the system opened on Tuesday and continued into the next day. ()

* Cerberus Capital Management LP is seeking a confidentiality agreement that would allow it to examine the books and internal operations of BlackBerry Ltd, a person briefed on Cerberus's plans said on Wednesday. ()

* Clean Energy Fuels Corp will announce on Thursday that it has started selling a transportation fuel made by converting methane, a byproduct of decomposing organic matter, from landfills and other waste sources. The fuel will be available at more than 40 filling stations in California. Clean Energy Fuels, backed by T. Boone Pickens, is developing a nationwide network of natural gas pumps and plans to introduce the fuel elsewhere as well. ()

* Activist investor Daniel Loeb said on Wednesday that he wanted to join the board of the auction house Sotheby's and called for the chief executive to step down. ()

* Boutique investment bank Greenhill & Co has opened an office in Brazil and hired the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive Daniel Wainstein to run it, a move that comes as several Wall Street players have been retrenching amid Brazil's economic woes. ()

* Three portfolio managers with an SAC Capital Advisors unit in London have left the firm, according to documents filed with a British agency that tracks corporate registrations. Alidod Shirinbekov, Woei Chan and Paul Crouch left the firm's SAC Global Investors unit in London on Sept. 26, according to filings with the agency, the Companies House. ()

* Vernon Hill II shook up American retail banking more than a decade ago, and now he's bringing the same model to Britain. In central London, at the flagship branch of his three-year-old banking startup, Metro Bank, eager young tellers greet waiting customers as soon as they enter, directing them to plush leather couches. ()

* Fashion designer Marc Jacobs is leaving Louis Vuitton to focus on his own label and prepare it for an initial public offering, Louis Vuitton Chief Executive Michael Burke said Wednesday, ending the 16-year tenure of the highest profile American designer at the helm of a major European fashion house.()