Google has a useful new tool to manage your “digital afterlife.” The feature sends passwords to trusted contacts if you have been inactive, and provides a way to send on many aspects of your digital life — except for any media you bought. Read more at GigaOM »
Teamwork just got easier for YouTube creators: The site now allows up to 50 people to administer a YouTube channel together. Read more »
Ebooks accounted for nearly a quarter of the U.S. trade book business in 2012, according to statistics released Thursday by the Association of American Publishers. The ebook industry appears to be maturing, however, and triple-digit growth is likely a thing of the past. Read more »
Google’s Susan Wojcicki says the viral success of a Pepsi prank video shows how online ad viewing is becoming a voluntary experience where marketers strive to produce content viewers want to watch. Read more »
Paywalls can bring in extra revenue for newspapers and other traditional media outlets, and they can help keep existing readers from leaving — but how do they help bring in new readers? And what happens if they don’t? Read more »
BajaLibros, a large Spanish-language digital bookstore headquartered in Argentina, announced its launch in the United States Wednesday. But the company may have trouble breaking through because Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple have all also launched Spanish-language bookstores in the U.S. Read more »
Read Petite, an e-singles subscription site, will launch in the U.K. this fall. Waterstones founder Tim Waterstone is chairman. The site was founded by literary agent Peter Cox and consultant Martyn Daniels. Read more »
Viki secured a bunch of new content for its global TV platform, including Japanese TV shows that have never been available in other countries. Read more »
Although its Storyboard editorial operation won awards for the content it curated from the Tumblr network, founder and CEO David Karp said Tuesday the unit is being shut down and all the editorial staff are being let go. Read more »
People wondered why Google sold Frommer’s Travel barely nine months after acquiring it in the first place. The answer is that it’s keeping a huge number social media followers from sites like Facebook. Read more »
There’s been plenty of focus on how publishers are catering to advertisers by producing “native” advertising, including sponsored content — but a much bigger trend is brands and advertisers that are becoming publishers themselves. Read more »
Boxee TV is dead, long live Boxee Cloud DVR: Boxee’s recently-launched consumer electronics device has been rebranded, and the company introduced a free service tier. Read more »
AOL announced Marketplace, an effort to consolidate the stack of tools publishers use to serve ads. AOL is competing with Google in the ad tech field as it tries to diversify its revenues Read more »
Mendeley, an open collaboration platform for scientific research, has promised that it won’t become less open after being acquired by journal publisher Elsevier, but some prominent users aren’t waiting around. Read more »
Commenting and conversations on Branch have always aimed to make things simple. But the company is announcing some updates on Tuesday that will make it even easier to start discussions. Read more at GigaOM »
Nonprofit Worldreader says that its e-reading app, which is aimed at users in the developing world on 2G networks, is now installed on over 5 million feature phones worldwide. The platform counts 500,000 active readers a month. Read more »
Barnes & Noble has rebranded its self-publishing platform, PubIt!, as Nook Press, and is offering some new features intended to make self-publishing faster and easier. The platform is only available to authors in the U.S. Read more »
A new site called Blackstrap will let you turn the articles you’ve saved on Instapaper, Pocket or Twitter into a $15 printed book. But does anybody actually need this service? Read more »
The process of selling digital ads is notoriously complicated and involves a lengthy list of competing companies and technologies. A recent ad tech conference explored if things will ever change – here’s some highlights. Read more »
The company hopes Marketplace will stand out because it is offering app publishers and developers a way to sell their ad inventory while also giving them built-in, accurate data about their audience. Read more »
The rumored takeover is now reality, at a reported price of $69 million. But, given Elsevier’s reputation and Mendeley’s open access ethos, will this deal turn out to be a harmonious success? Read more »
In a new book, former Kindle exec Jason Merkoski examines where e-reading platforms are now and how they could change in the future. If you’re looking for secrets about Jeff Bezos, though, you’re in the wrong place. Read more »
Is “podcast” a dirty word for a media business? Earwolf doesn’t think so. We talk with the CEO of the podcast network to learn how he’s making them work. 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 »
Digital First Media chief executive officer John Paton says that paywalls aren’t the answer for newspapers, and that print is eventually going to go away — which is why the company needs to take more risks. Read more »
BuzzFeed has become the poster child for what some call sponsored content or “native advertising,” but despite the skills of founder Jonah Peretti, the secret to making ads go viral is not quite as simple as it appears to be. Read more »
Programmatic buying for online video ads — which lets brands buy select audiences in real time — is growing rapidly. The spread of this buying technique may coincide with a drop in prices but the two phenomena are not necessarily connected. Read more »
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 »
