In “The Slow Death of the American Author,” Scott Turow decries the state of the country’s copyright system. He gets it wrong and hurts the Authors Guild’s standing among potential allies. Read more »
The Week surprised the publishing industry by carving out a profitable place in the competitive world of magazine news. Now, it is building up its operations for the digital long term. Read more »
Thin Reads, a website devoted to e-singles, offers reviews of titles and statistics about the format. Read more »
Flipboard’s recent update lets users create custom “magazines” and share them. For a large swath of the publishing industry, this provides a glimpse of what (for them) could be a grim future. Read more »
An early blogger and startup founder who had recently launched a new business focused on health and fitness, Allen Stern passed away last week and was remembered by his friends and blogging colleagues. Read more »
Short films released online have become an increasingly common way for filmmakers to break into the studio system — the latest example being an upcoming action film produced by Mark Wahlberg. Read more »
Obvious, the company that came from Twitter co-founders and launched companies like Blogger and Twitter, is back in full force. The founders explained that the biggest venture, Medium, will now be operating independently. Read more at GigaOM »
Our panel on writers who have built independent businesses around themselves — and one who has chosen to remain inside a traditional media entity — gets a new addition: viral publishing phenomenon Tim Ferriss. Read more »
The European Union approved the merger of Random House and Penguin without conditions on Friday, saying it doesn’t pose a threat to competition. The U.S. approved the merger in February. Read more »
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has led a $5 million investment round in Henry Blodget’s website Business Insider, which lost about $3 million last year but has been increasing its audience rapidly. Read more at GigaOM »
The U.K.’s legal deposit rules, which require publishers to submit copies of all publications to national and other major libraries, have been updated to cover everything from blogs to tweets. Read more »
The Atlantic and long-form journalism site Longreads are teaming up in a partnership that will feature Longreads content across The Atlantic’s digital properties. Longreads remains an independent site, and founder Mark Armstrong will retain full control over editorial content. Read more »
Dish has reportedly been talking to Aereo – but the satellite provider doesn’t want broadcasters to know what those talks were about. Read more »
Film critic Roger Ebert talked about how much Twitter meant to him as a form of conversation, and his enthusiastic use of it as a way to connect with readers is a lesson to journalists of all kinds. Read more »
Intel registered a trademark for Intel inside and out last week, which seems to be connected to its TV plans – and which turns out to be virtually identical to another mark registered in secrecy last year. Read more »
About two months after Macmillan agreed to settle with the Department of Justice, retailers have begun discounting its ebooks. In general, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the iBookstore appear to be matching each other’s prices, while Google and Kobo aren’t yet discounting in most cases. Read more »
The financial company Bloomberg says it will add Twitter to its platforms now that the SEC has given a green light to companies to use social media to announce market moving news. Read more »
Newspapers have been a blend of the serious and the entertaining for decades — why is it so surprising that a site like BuzzFeed could broaden its appeal into more serious topics as well as funny cat photos? Read more »
Arthur Frommer, the founder of Frommer’s Travel Guides, has bought his brand back from Google after the search giant reportedly decided to stop publishing the guides in print. Google had acquired Frommer’s from Wiley in 2012 for $22 million. Read more »
A new court decision reflects the ongoing difficulties in deciding how old book contracts should address the issue of ebook royalties. In the ruling, a federal judge dismissed a class action brought by writers against Harlequin Romance. Read more »
Media theorist and author Douglas Rushkoff argues that many traditional media outlets like the New York Times are trapped between the flow of real-time information and the need to stand back and analyze that stream. Read more »
Smaller and mid-size newspapers have been the early adopters when it comes to paywalls. But now, more of the big papers are starting to flip the switch too. Read more »
Rdio launched its video service Vdio to the public Tuesday night, offering movies and TV shows for rent and for sale. It’s not a subscription service, but it’s closely tied to Rdio’s music subscriptions. Read more »
Web discovery engine Trapit is launching a set of tools for publishers. Publishing clients can use the tools to create their own white-label iPad and web apps that surface content around given topics. Here Media is the first client. Read more »
The FT launched a new version of its iPad offering, a move that reinforced the publication’s contrarian web-only mobile strategy, and an FT executive predicts that the problem of collecting mobile payments outside of app stores will soon be solved. Read more »
The Digital Public Library of America, an initiative to make the collections of research libraries, museums and archives freely available to the U.S. public online, will launch on April 18 with an initial collection of two to three million items. Read more »
Rovio’s Angry Birds Toons may very well be the first-ever mobile video show that reaches an audience of millions – but that doesn’t mean that startups are having it any easier. Read more »
I may disagree with them about the benefits of a hard paywall, or the wisdom of cutting 90 percent of the newspaper’s blogs, but at least the owners of the Orange County Register are putting their money where their mouths are. Read more »
Neil Vogel, an entrepreneur who created the Webby Awards, is the new CEO of About.com. He plans to increase traffic and add more flash to the site while sticking to its advertising-based business model. Read more »
Have you checked out Vine recently? Legendary pop artist Prince has, with his record label filing a copyright notice with Twitter regarding videos on Vine. It seems like the general public might be giving Vine a serious look. Read more at GigaOM »
Would you pay $10 a month to rewatch Gilligan’s Island? Warner Bros. thinks some people will, and launched a video service to do so. Read more »
MLB’s At Bat app was accessed 6 million times on Monday, the first day of baseball’s 2013 season. That’s more than double the app’s audience on Opening Day last year. Read more »
Google+ is partnering with two companies, Gigya and Janrain, that provide social sign-in tools to thousands of websites. The move gives publishers and users another log-in option to Facebook Connect. Read more at GigaOM »
It’s a risky bet, but the new owners of the Orange County Register — two entrepreneurs with no background in traditional media — are pouring money and resources into the newspaper, and not just online but in print as well. Read more »
A long-running debate over apps has taken a new turn with the rise of the mobile web and the proliferation of tablets. At paidContent Live on April 17, leading publishers will share their thoughts on whether the industry should embrace or abandon them. Read more »
Kobo is now selling its e-readers directly through its website in the U.S. and Canada. Previously, customers had to go to third-party retailers to buy the devices. Read more »
iOS RSS app Reeder is going free on Mac and iPad while it gets some updates. The app will live on after Google Reader dies, creator Silvio Rizzi says. Read more »
In this podcast, we talk with Wool author Hugh Howey about his self-publishing success and how he arrived at a seven-figure, print-only deal with traditional publisher Simon & Schuster. 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 »
Netflix won’t expand to another international market until the end of this or early next year, but the company is already looking for help to translate its site – giving us some interesting clues. Read more »
