BuzzFeed courts Brits with new UK homepage, London launch
Can America’s viral site BuzzFeed succeed in a country where sensationalist journalism already thrives? We’ll soon find out. Read more »
AP wins big: Why a court said clipping content is not fair use
photo: Pixelbliss
A New York court issued a major ruling that limits the amount of content an internet scraping service can take without paying for it. Here’s a plain English explanation. Read more »
How a toothbrush news site can get more visits than the Economist: More on the botnet scam
photo: qvist
An investigation this week revealed that major brands are paying at least $6 million a month to serve ads to bots on 202 websites. Here are some more names and details. Read more »
Supreme Court sides with bookseller in major copyright ruling, says resale is ok
photo: flickr / dbking
The Supreme Court sided with a student textbook seller agains the publisher John Wiley in a major dispute over who can resell copyrighted works. Read more »
Massive bot network is draining $6 million a month from online ad industry, says report
photo: Lukiyanova Natalia / frenta
An analytics firm has uncovered a network of more than 200 sites that appears aimed at defrauding the online ad industry. The network tricks marketers into serving billions of “targeted” ads to bots every month. Read more »
NewsCred gets new $15M investment, adds New York Times as a partner
photo: Shafqat Islam, NewsCred
NewsCred, a service that syndicates content from more than 2500 publishers, is expanding further with a major new investment and a partnership with the NYT. It plans to use the money to expand globally. Read more »
Washington Post announces a (very leaky) paywall
The Washington Post, the last remaining paywall holdout among major newspapers, will begin charging for content this summer. The paywall, however, is set to be an extremely leaky one — meaning casual readers will have no trouble accessing the site. Read more »
The FT has “crossed over” to become a digital business — but can anyone else replicate that feat?
The Financial Times stands out in the news industry for its clever and aggressive switch to a digital revenue model. But while the paper is an inspiration, it’s not an example. Read more »
Media outlets will argue in Apple, Samsung appeal over sealed documents
Last years’ gigantic court fight between Apple and Samsung continues to have ripples in the court and the press. This week, an appeals court agreed to let the New York Times and others argue that documents in the case should not be secret. Read more at GigaOM »
Google is getting even tougher on sites that abuse links, says report
Google is continuing its effort to punish sites that manipulate outside links in order to increase their search visibility. The move means websites should be careful that their SEO strategies doesn’t lead to a penalty. Read more »
Social media editor at Reuters indicted for hacking LA Times
photo: Reuters
The Justice Department has unsealed a stunning indictment that accuses an editor at international newswire service Reuters of collaborating with the hackers’ collective Anonymous. Read more at GigaOM »
Grumpy Cat shows claws, vows to sue infringers
photo: Grumpy Cat Incorporated
Grumpy Cat is the latest internet meme whose fame is growing by the day. The feline’s fame is valuable and her owners and lawyers have filed trademarks to protect it. Read more »
Social sports betting: market is huge but big payout is unlikely
photo: Jerry Sharp
A social gaming site called Fanhood invites players to buy tokens and make sports wagers with their friends. While they may entertain sports fans, sites like this have little hope of being part of recent moves towards legal online gambling. Read more »
Big publishers sign on to New York Times sticky ad tool
photo: New York Times
The New York Times offers an ad tool that lets brands use its stories in a unique form of content marketing. The tool, which can provide publishers with a new source of long-tail revenue, will soon be used by other publishers like Forbes and Condé Nast. Read more »
Feds issue rules for social media and small screen ads — Twitter and bloggers take note
photo: Mel Canlas
Social media and small screens have led to new forms of marketing. In response, the Federal Trade Commission has updated its disclosure rules and provided 22 examples to explains what advertisers must do to avoid confusing consumers. Read more »
Spotify hits 6 million paid users as market for music streaming heats up
A report shows that music subscription service Spotify continues to grow at a rapid pace. The growth validates Spotify’s business model but is also inviting a growing cluster of rivals. Read more »
Authors and publishers objects to Amazon’s “.book” and “.read” names; future process unclear
photo: Amazon
A flood of new website addresses with endings like “.book” and “.movie” are set to arrive in coming months. Companies like Amazon and Google are set to control the names but the terms under which they will do so are still undefined. Read more »
They found you: ad firm uses 2 billion data points to track consumers across devices
photo: Alexey Fursov
Many people are familiar with ads that follow them across different websites. Now, one company says it can have the same ads show up on an individual’s smartphone too. Marketers like the idea but does it actually work? And will regulators tolerate it? Read more »
GoDaddy predicts first batch of new web site names will go on sale by June
photo: d3images
The process to add hundreds or thousands of new names to existing suffixes like “.com” and “.org” is chugging onward. Here’s an overview of when we’ll see them and what it means for brand owners. Read more »
AOL’s CEO to haters: Our content strategy was right after all (and Patch is fine too)
photo: EDHAR
Back from near-death, AOL feels vindicated that it bet on a content strategy when everyone else was turning to platforms and technology. CEO Tim Armstrong shared some thoughts on content, hyper-local site Patch and whether AOL might buy Time’s magazines. Read more »
Time Warner spins off magazine empire, Meredith talks fall through
Time Warner will put its magazine titles, including People and Sports Illustrated, into a separate company later this year. The move is a surprise as the publishing world had expected the company to sell most its publications to Iowa-based Meredith. Read more »
How the fastest-growing media site could help Democrats win the next election
photo: SoulCurry
Upworthy is attracting attention for its headlines and its viral videos about gay marriage, women’s rights and other social causes. But the site’s real value may be its potential to help the Democrats maintain their lead in social media and big data. Read more »
Steve Jobs biographer dropped from Apple ebook case, James Murdoch named in email
The case accusing Apple of fixing ebook prices is heating up. New court documents show that Steve Jobs’ biographer have been dropped from the case but that Jobs himself is still at the center of it. Read more »
YouTube set to launch Spotify rival as music-streaming gets crowded
More people are streaming music online — leading to more companies vying to be their providers. It looks like YouTube is finally set to enter the market, which could be good news for musicians and studios that crave higher royalties. Read more »
Product testers go on social media “missions” – a new frontier in content marketing
photo: Franck Boston
Companies like Johnson & Johnson have long encouraged consumers to spread the word about their products. These marketing campaigns are taking on new twists in the age of social media. Read more at GigaOM »
Amazon execs set to testify in price-fixing case against Apple
photo: Getty Images / Spencer Platt
Amazon won a court ruling last week that restrict Apple’s access to its executives and documents. Filings from the case also show that senior Amazon executives are poised to testify for the government in its price-fixing case against Apple. Read more »
US writers on the take: how demand for more media content leads to more corruption
photo: Straight 8 Photography
The government of Malaysia paid 10 media columnists to smear its political opponents on American media sites. It was able to pull this off, in part, because of online publications’ insatiable appetite for content. Read more »
Marketing to men: Break Media and the business of bro videos
Bro videos — crotch shots, beer chugging, cool cars and so on — have long been a staple of the internet. Today, bro vids are also big business thanks to “man research” and big brands pouring money into making them. Read more »
What the Atlantic learned from Scientology: native advertising is harder for news brands
photo: Phuriphat
The venerable Atlantic is being made the poster child for what happens when native advertising goes wrong. An ad industry event in New York raised the question of whether the Atlantic deserves this blame when many other sites engage in similar practices. Read more »
New York Times gives Starbucks visitors 15 free stories a day
photo: Starbucks
News brands like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are turning to free Wi-Fi as a way to promote their content. In the lates example, Times readers can get 15 free stories a day while sitting in Starbucks. Read more »
Mark Cuban-backed start-up launches “HootSuite for YouTube”
Brands and publishers are well aware that they need to monitor and manage Twitter and Facebook. VidIQ, which launched today, says they’re overlooking YouTube as a critical social and data platform. Read more at GigaOM »
New York Times backs AP in lawsuit against news collector Meltwater
photo: Shutterstock / Voronin76
How much can news agencies like the AP control their stories on the internet? The New York Times has just weighed in on a critical case that will help determine that. Read more »
Here comes the “International New York Times” — NYT rebrands the Int’l Herald Tribune
photo: Getty Images / Mario Tama
The New York Times Company is betting its future growth becoming a global news brand. It took another step towards doing so by announcing it will rebrand and relaunch the IHT. Read more »
Here are 5 tools that might juice online video ads
photo: cybrain via Shutterstock
Video remains the most promising ad format for publishers hoping to improve their ad returns. The industry is still in early stages but here are five winners of a contest to make video ads more interactive. Read more »
Aereo expands TV on-the-go service to 3 more states, launches first big ad campaign
Aereo is disrupting the traditional TV model with a service that lets users subscribe to TV for a day at a time and watch in on their iPhone. Today, it expanded beyond New York City to a total of 29 counties. Read more »
Buy laxative, get a fiber ad on Facebook: social network mulls expanding offline reach
photo: gcpics via shutterstock
Facebook plans to tap into the loyalty reward data collected by retailers like drug stores to serve you ads based on your off-line purchases. Read more »
What stays in Vegas: how Nevada’s online gambling law will — and won’t — change social gaming
Nevada became the first state in the country this week to legalize online gambling — but don’t expect this to change the fortunes of companies like Zynga anytime soon. Read more at GigaOM »
Sony announces PlayStation 4, touts speed and social but media vision unclear
Gaming consoles are still big business, especially when you consider that they also double as cord-cutting devices. But Sony’s Playstation 4 announcement was short on details and just plain long on everything else. Read more at GigaOM »
New York Times is selling the Boston Globe
photo: Boston Globe
The New York Times is selling the last of its non-core assets according to a release from the company. Read more »
Boston Globe’s 28,000 digital subscribers: a flop or a foothold?
The Boston Globe can be seen as a bellwether for metropolitan newspapers. Its digital strategy so far appears to be off to a slow start but some see more to the story. Read more »
