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 »
Amazon Publishing is speeding up its royalty payments to authors, the company said in a letter to literary agents Monday. The full letter is printed below. Read more »
Twitter has teamed up with Turner Broadcasting and a startup to provide short video highlights from the NCAA March Madness games, showing again how the company is interesting in a variety of multimedia options. Read more »
Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish is tightening its paywall. Users will now be able to access 5 free “read-on” stories every 60 days, down from seven stories every 30 days. Read more »
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 »
TWiT’s Leo Laporte teamed up with YouTuber Lamarr Wilson for a new show called This Week In YouTube. The show is another sign of how far TWiT has come. Read more »
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 »
The Pew Center’s latest report on the state of the media shows the financial woes affecting the traditional news business continue, and this is having an effect on consumers — but there are a few bright spots as well. Read more »
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fan site Pottermore is launching on Sony’s PlayStation Home. Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne said the partnership provides the “most immersive experience possible within that space.” Read more »
Sony is ending a price promotion that it had been running in its U.K. store since last July. The promotion sold select ebooks for just 20 pence, and Amazon matched the discounts on Kindle books in the U.K. Read more »
Content creators no longer need to brandish a Flattr button in order to receive micropayments through the service. All that’s needed is for a Flattr user to ‘like’ their video, tune or tweet. Read more »
For a week, readers can download free copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The giveaway is intended to promote Brown’s upcoming book Inferno. Read more »
March Madness is once again streaming each and every game live online. However, this time around, viewing live streams will require a cable subscription – unless the game airs on CBS. Confused? Then check out our guide. Read more »
It’s breaking records and changing paradigms — but what impact will Veronica Mars‘s studio-supported but fan-funded feature film have not just on the Kickstarter economy, but Hollywood in general? Read more »
Last fall, Book Riot successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign to publish a book. But it was grueling and not very financially rewarding. Here’s what you need to keep in mind if you decide to publish via Kickstarter. Read more »
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 »
If Buzzfeed had a business section (and soon it will) this is what it might look like. Read more »
Google’s startup division, Niantic Labs, is launching a line of ebooks that tie into its augmented-reality mobile game Ingress. Read more »
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 »
Amazon Publishing is launching a New York-based literary fiction imprint that will publish novels, short stories and memoir. Read more »
Ricky Gervais, creator of British hit “The Office,” is bringing David Brent back to life on his new YouTube channel. Read more »
A lot of die-hard RSS users are upset that Google has decided to kill off its Google Reader service, but for me Twitter and other platforms based on social news are far superior to any RSS reader and have been for some time. Read more at GigaOM »
Samsung and self-publishing company Blurb are partnering to let Galaxy S 4 users create and order physical photo albums directly from their phones. Read more at GigaOM »
Hulu has a new CEO — for now, anyway: SVP of Content Andy Forssell will take over as acting CEO when Jason Kilar leaves by the end of the month. Read more »
NowThis News, the video news app from former HuffPo execs Ken Lerer and Eric Hippeau, just launched on Android. Read more »
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 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 »
Mourning the demise of Google Reader? Digg announced Thursday that it’s already planning a revamped reader, and will speed up production in light of Google’s announced spring cleaning. Read more at GigaOM »
Redbox Instant is available to all after a closed beta test that netted the company tens of thousands of paying customers. CEO Shawn Strickland told us that his company won’t do original content any time soon. Read more »
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 »
CBS’s new iOS app lets viewers stream episodes of some shows a week after they air. But full episodes from popular shows like “The Mentalist” and “The Big Bang Theory” are missing. Read more »
Devices like Google Glass are going to change the way that we consume the news and other information — how will media companies have to change the way they think about the news and how it is constructed? Read more »
Google Reader is one of the top-three tools I use to do my job — and Twitter and Flipboard aren’t good substitutes. Read more »
Still waiting to try out Redbox Instant? Then better get ready: The service is set to open up to the public as early as Thursday. Read more »
Veronica Mars is coming back, thanks to Kickstarter: A crowdsourced fundraising campaign to make a Veronica Mars movie has hit its $2 million goal in just 10 hours. Read more »
Google is shutting down more projects it considers distracting to core business. So far it has shut down 70 such apps and services, but it is Google Reader whose loss I bemoan. Read more at GigaOM »
YouTube switched to adaptive streaming for its desktop player last year, reducing buffering by 20 percent as a result. Now it wants to bring the technology to TVs and mobile devices. Read more »
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Apple CEO Tim Cook must testify in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Apple for conspiring to fix ebook prices, citing Steve Jobs’ death as a key factor in her decision. Read more »
Twitter is reportedly getting ready to launch its own social music discovery app on iOS. The app has been built by the team behind the music site We Are Hunted. Read more at GigaOM »
Amazon announced Wednesday that it’s dropping the price of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD in the United States, and is also rolling out the tablet in Europe and Japan. Read more at GigaOM »
