Media startup Journatic has come under fire for using fake bylines for hyper-local content that appeared in the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere. But the reality is that something like Journatic is likely a part of the future of local journalism, whether we like it or not. Read more at GigaOM »
Beneath the furor over Twitter’s clampdown on its API is the same dilemma that many traditional media companies like the New York Times are also confronting — namely, how much should you be an open platform, and how much should you be a destination? Read more at GigaOM »
A major error in CNN’s reporting of a landmark Supreme Court decision on Thursday has provided even more ammunition for the ongoing debate over whether it is better to be right rather than first, and whether the scoop as we know it is dead. Read more at GigaOM »
The arrival of the iPhone five years ago changed many things, but one of the most fundamental was the way that news and journalism are delivered and consumed — and at the same time, it also revolutionized the way that news content is created. Read more »
Comedian Louis CK, who made $1 million selling downloads of a show through his website, has sold $4.5-million in tickets to a new tour in 48 hours. He and musician Amanda Palmer show that for content creators, building a community is more important than ever. Read more at GigaOM »
News Corp. billionaire Rupert Murdoch has confirmed that the company is considering splitting itself in two, with the newspaper assets spun off as a separate entity. What would — or could — the digital future look like for that standalone newspaper unit? Here are a few ideas. Read more at GigaOM »
News-aggregation services Flipboard and Pulse have both signed deals this week to distribute content from a mainstream outlet — one the New York Times and the other the Wall Street Journal — but they are taking very different approaches when it comes to monetizing those relationships. Read more at GigaOM »
A partnership between the New York Times and Flipboard isn’t just noteworthy because it is a first for the newspaper. It could also be a sign that the NYT‘s philosophical approach toward content in the digital age might be changing for the better. Read more at GigaOM »
Media advocates say Twitter should add a feature that allows users to correct an erroneous tweet by striking through a mistake after the fact, to prevent errors from being retweeted — but is such a thing really necessary, even if Twitter could implement it? Read more at GigaOM »
In the first round of its three-part News Challenge, the Knight Foundation has awarded $1.37 million to six startups who are trying to develop video, mobile and crowdsourced solutions to the problem of filtering the vast ocean of news that washes over us every day. Read more at GigaOM »
Newspapers haven’t really had a monopoly on the news or the advertising market for some time, but they continue to behave as though they do. If they are to survive the transition to a digital future, they will have to learn how to compete for both. Read more at GigaOM »
Huffington Post now looks less like a blog network and more like a traditional media entity, having launched its own weekly digital magazine for the iPad — but is launching a subscription app a smart way of branching out, or a sign of old-media thinking? Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter’s new feature, which shows enhanced content for certain media partners such as the New York Times, is another example of how the service can be both a partner and a competitor for media companies in the ongoing battle for users’ attention. Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter’s deal with SoundCloud to embed audio in tweets isn’t just a deal that gives the Berlin music startup a ton of exposure: it’s a signal that while Twitter may carry a threat for media companies, it could be a serious alternative to Facebook. Read more »
That newspaper owners like Advance Publications need to make a transition from print to digital is not in doubt, but so far all we have seen from the company is massive layoffs and anemic websites. Is this what the future looks like? Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter announced today that it will partner with a variety of online media companies to provide enhanced versions of “expanded Tweets,” giving users more in-depth previews of content without leaving Twitter’s site. The change comes as Twitter blurs the line between content provider and producer. Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter’s hiring of editorial staff to curate real-time information around news events through “hashtag pages” may not be a direct competitor for media companies, but the areas of overlap are growing — and so is its attractiveness to the advertisers that media entities desperately need. Read more at GigaOM »
While some mainstream newspaper companies are being dragged toward a digital future whether they like it or not, the Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon has decided to remake itself for a digital and mobile world before it is forced to do so. Read more at GigaOM »
The deal that Twitter announced on Thursday with NASCAR will see an editor employed by the network curating and highlighting tweets and other content, a deal that takes Twitter even further into the realm of being a media entity. Should traditional media players be concerned? Read more at GigaOM »
Newspaper companies are trying to cut costs by shutting down the printing presses and laying off staff, but unless they have a strategy for managing the transition from print to digital, all they are doing is liquidating the goodwill of a generation of readers and advertisers. Read more at GigaOM »
Wattpad, which describes itself as the world’s largest online community of readers and writers, has raised $17 million from a group of venture funds led by Khosla Ventures. Khosla partner Andrew Chung says he thinks Wattpad can do for writing what YouTube has done for video. Read more at GigaOM »
As more newspapers confront the same reality as the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and have to stop printing and go digital only to cut costs, what happens to the public role that a newspaper plays in a community? Can a digital-only media entity fulfil the same purpose? Read more at GigaOM »
In an interview with GigaOM, the editor of MIT’s venerable Technology Review talks about why he has decided to take a “digital first” approach to publishing the magazine, why he doesn’t plan to implement a paywall — and what he sees as an alternative. Read more at GigaOM »
While we in tech land tried to read the tea leaves of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent cryptic comments on the future of Apple TV, the media world saw the uncertainty around his statements as, “causing a boatload of angst and anticipation,” according to Variety. Read more »
Journalism professor Tim McGuire, a long-time newspaper editor and Pulitzer Prize judge, says there is much upheaval in the media industry but a lot of potential as well — provided media entities give up their gatekeeper role and learn to serve their readers better. Read more at GigaOM »
A single chart from a presentation by internet analyst Mary Meeker illustrates why the decision to move away from print is such a difficult one for traditional media companies to make — and also why it so important that they do so. Read more at GigaOM »
In an interview at paidContent 2012 in New York, venture capitalist Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures said he has stayed away from media investments, and believes that the future for content providers lies in connecting directly with consumers through platforms like Kickstarter. Read more at GigaOM »
Many media outlets still think of the story or the article as the atomic unit of journalism — but with so many competing sources of information and the real-time nature of the social web, is that still the case? And if not, what replaces it? Read more at GigaOM »
Forbes has been reinventing itself ever since it acquired Lewis DVorkin’s media startup in 2010 — and while there have been some stumbles, the magazine has shown how a traditional media entity can take advantage of the social web and the way that content works online. Read more at GigaOM »
Is Warren Buffett’s recent acquisition of the Media General chain a brilliant gamble, or an indication of his faith in the long-term prospects of newspapers? Clay Shirky argues it is neither — he says Buffett misunderstands some fundamental things about the business he has bought. Read more at GigaOM »
Just days after U.S.-based media chain Advance Publications announced printing cutbacks and layoffs at its New Orleans and Alabama papers, a national newspaper chain in Canada said it is cutting back, laying off more staff and looking to erect paywalls at several of its papers. Read more at GigaOM »
As painful as the decision to stop printing daily may be for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and its staff, it grappling with a reality that almost every newspaper will have to face sooner or later, whether they want to or not. Read more at GigaOM »
The pitched war between content owners and technology companies doesn’t have to persist if media companies would acknowledge and adapt to the new realities of digital distribution, famed venture capitalist Fred Wilson told attendees at paidContent 2012. Read more »
paidContent 2012: At the Crossroads is today at The TimesCenter in New York. Hundreds of media, entertainment, info and tech execs will be there in person to talk about the best ways to make content pay. You can join us via our livestream. Read more »
Newspapers are suffering from a number of problems, but one is the nature of the product that many still produce — the monolithic, ruthlessly objective, single-voiced editorial style most have grown accustomed to doesn’t work in a world where anyone and everyone can be a publisher. Read more at GigaOM »
New research about how news is verified through Twitter and a crowdsourced debunking of some fake Wikipedia entries reinforce the point that social networks and online communities can be powerful tools for the real-time verification of events, something that used to take place behind closed doors. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook’s advertising woes, including the highly publicized departure of General Motors, reinforce the fact that while Facebook may function like a social network, on the business side it looks almost exactly like a media company — and that is going to be a major challenge. Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter describes itself as an information network rather than a media entity, but it is making some interesting moves into the content business, including hiring a sports producer to curate content and sending out a weekly email of highlighted content. How far will it go? Read more at GigaOM »
The appointment of Ross Levinsohn as CEO is a sign Yahoo wants to focus on media as the core of its rebirth, but does the company have what it takes to succeed as a new-media entity? There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Read more at GigaOM »
In an interview about the future of the media industry, Google’s head of news products Richard Gingras said that newspapers are like old-fashioned internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo, and that unless they can adapt to the web instead of fighting it they are doomed. Read more at GigaOM »
