Looking for a book suggestion? Culling information from your Twitter feed and turning that into accurate recommendations is harder than it looks, but Parakweet is looking to use natural language procesing to do just that. Read more at GigaOM »
Book publishers discussed digital-first and digital-only initiatives at the Making Information Pay conference this week. Read more »
Yahoo wants to buy Tumblr. We hear Facebook might spoil the party. But the question is: is Tumblr the fountain of youth that Yahoo badly needs or will this be case of a pathetic old-middle aged guy hanging with youngsters trying to be hip. Read more at GigaOM »
Google launched its own music subscription service Wednesday. Currently, it’s not very different from all the other services out there. So how does it want to compete? Read more »
Journalists and organizations now have the ability to use sensors to collect their own real-time data and report on it. The practice raises both practical and ethical questions, Columbia’s Emily Bell said Thursday. Read more »
Google CEO Larry Page, who has been suffering from vocal cord issues, showed up at the end of the Google I/O keynote and spent some time talking about his vision of technology and took questions from the audience. And that’s when the fun started. Read more at GigaOM »
Neal Edelstein, producer of hit movies like The Ring and Mulholland Drive, has a new film project: A film delivered in chunks directly through an iOS app. Read more »
Looking for a job in digital media? Each week we highlight some of the most interesting positions posted to paidContent’s jobs board. Check out the latest gigs at media companies across the country. Read more »
Apple’s exposure in a closely-watched price-fixing case over ebooks looks more serious as the CEOs of major publishers — which have already settled with the government — will testify about Apple’s role in the case. Read more »
Content providers will soon pay mobile carriers to exempt their traffic from consumers’ mobile data plans, says AT&T’s Randall Stephenson. That may seem like a good deal for consumers but in the long-term it’s actually a raw deal. Read more at GigaOM »
The New Yorker has launched Strongbox, an open-source software system that allows users to submit confidential documents to the magazine anonymously. Strongbox was built by Aaron Swartz before his death. Read more »
Tech Cocktail, a company that covers startup-related news and organizes events, has received $2.5 million from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project, which aims to revitalize downtown Las Vegas. Read more »
Our live coverage from Google I/O 2013, Google’s most significant public event of the year, can be found right here. Read more at GigaOM »
The U.S. consumer book publishing industry had a strong 2012, fueled in part by the growth of ebooks. Read more »
Google is set to launch a music subscription service at its Google I/O developer conference Wednesday, according to multiple reports. The service will compete with Spotify and similar services. Read more »
Here you’ll find all our coverage of Google I/O 2013, Google’s annual showcase of its technology prowess. Read more at GigaOM »
A public campaign by some of the biggest German online publishers against ad-blocking software may have backfired, as downloads of one popular ad-blocking product have more than doubled. Read more »
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen says that many of the cultural barriers to doing “networked journalism” have been lowered, and he is trying to help media outlets develop smart tools and ways of making use of crowdsourcing. Read more »
In an interesting public-private partnership, children’s reading app Ruckus is teaming up with Connecticut Public Television to offer a CPTV-branded kids’ iOS app. Read more »
Aereo announced Tuesday that it will launch in Atlanta in June. It’s already available in the New York City area, and will launch in Boston on Wednesday. The company also simplified its pricing plans, eliminating daily and yearly options. Read more »
Figuring out which titles are going expire soon on Netflix just got a lot harder: The company changed its public API Monday night to prevent this information from popping up on third-party websites. Read more »
The Associated Press is raising the alarm over news that the Justice Department secretly seized records for more than 20 phone lines tied to its reporters and bureaus. Read more at GigaOM »
If you’re looking for the latest video clips from your favorite sports, you might soon find them on Twitter. The social media company has solidified a deal with ESPN that will let users check out the action via Twitter video clips. Read more at GigaOM »
As more sites focus on longform content, Fast Company disclosed some statistics on how its longer pieces have been doing — but the data shows that the real secret isn’t length but ongoing engagement with readers. Read more »
Jane Austen scholars know “Sanditon” as a posthumously-published unfinished novel, but for Lizzie Bennet Diaries fans, it’s the springboard for a new bridge series that promises unprecedented audience interactivity. Read more »
Amazon has acquired Samsung’s color screen display technology, Liquavista. The technology could be used to create low-power color screens for Kindles. Read more at GigaOM »
Research from McKinsey seems to suggest that print-based media still commands a large proportion of time spent by consumers of news — but that is just part of the larger picture media companies have to understand. Read more »
iTunes’ increasingly good quarterly sales demonstrates how the long-rumored Apple video and “iRadio” subscription services the company has over the years tried to bring to fruition could become significant revenue sources. Read more at GigaOM »
Bloomberg is at the center of a storm over its reporters’ use of the company’s terminals to track customers. The incident has been somewhat overblown — but the underlying issue of news and data platforms has not. Read more »
Amazon’s virtual currency, Amazon Coins, launched Monday. It can be used to buy apps and games and make in-app purchases on the Kindle Fire and in Amazon’s app store. Read more at GigaOM »
Amazon Publishing is launching a weekly romance podcast, “Kindle Love Stories.” The podcast will include a discussion group at Goodreads, the reading-focused social network that Amazon recently acquired. Read more »
PBS’s MediaShift is launching a line of ebooks, starting with titles on self-publishing and cord-cutting. Executive Mark Glaser says he plans to release 10 to 20 books this year, depending on how well the first titles do. Read more »
ABC is going to offer iOS users in New York and Philadelphia a 24-hour live stream of its programming this week. It’s the first time a broadcaster has embraced live streaming. Read more at GigaOM »
Bitcoin is more liquid and popular than ever before — though the cyber-currency remains controversial. Here’s a round-up of a busy week of Bitcoin news. Read more at GigaOM »
We are used to thinking of a “mass media” market made up of large newspapers and TV networks as the normal state of affairs in media, but what if that was just a historical anomaly? Read more »
YouTube started to offer paid subscriptions to select channels this week. But are people actually going to pay for their YouTube videos? Read more »
The NYT’s multimedia project Snow Fall was a huge success, attracting big audiences and lots of plaudits. But the paper can do even better — it can build a new business from this type of project, and change the definition of journalism in the new century. Read more at GigaOM »
ESPN is reportedly in negotiations with Verizon to exempt its content from the carrier’s data caps. Such a deal would set a precedence for a very different mobile internet than the one we know today. Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter says it doesn’t have any interest in hiring reporters or performing other journalistic functions — but regardless of whether it does so, it is still a powerful media entity and one that grows stronger by the day. Read more »
The Financial Times is the latest publisher to strike a partnership with Flipboard. The deal is interesting because the FT recently left another third-party platform, iTunes. Read more »
