Ray Bradbury’s landmark novel Fahrenheit 451 is usually seen as a protest against government censorship, but the author said it was about how television and other media were making people less interested in ideas. What would Bradbury think of the world we live in now? Read more at GigaOM »
Paul Berry, the former CTO of the Huffington Post, is pulling back the covers today on his stealth social publishing start-up RebelMouse, a publishing tool that lets people pull in and present their Twitter and Facebook content and mix it with stuff from the web. 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 »
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 »
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 »
Image-sharing site Pinterest has been in negotiations for months with photo service Getty. A breakthrough could dispel some of the copyright questions hanging over the red-hot start-up — but one expert says not to hold your breath. Read more »
Salesforce is reportedly close to buying social media marketing platform Buddy Media for $800 million. If true, it shows how Salesforce is adapting to the changing face of customer relationship management, which is increasingly about managing branding, social media interactions and marketing for customers. Read more at GigaOM »
A Cornell professor argues that while Twitter’s “trending topics” algorithm may not be deliberately censoring topics, it is still distorting our view of the world, in the same way that other personalization tools do. But whose fault is that, and what should we do about it? Read more at GigaOM »
With each passing elections season, we’re seeing more how social media is changing the political news coverage business. It’s not just sped up the news cycle, but it’s helped kill it, said Josh Marshall, editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com, at paidContent2012. Read more »
Humor site JibJab doesn’t think White Castle’s animation is very funny, and has filed a lawsuit to stop the fast food chain from using its name to promote “chicken rings” on Facebook. Read more »
Brands may put plenty of time and money behind the content they share on social networks, but only a small percentage of their intended audience may actually ever see it. New York-based startup Adaptly believes it has a solution. Read more at GigaOM »
The recent dramatic declines in users of some Facebook social-reading apps from newspapers like the Washington Post reinforces a lesson that media companies need to keep in mind at all times — namely, that Facebook is the information gatekeeper now, and you are just a provider. Read more at GigaOM »
Sports media was in a lather this week over Sarah Phillips, a 22-year-old ESPN writer who blogged, tweeted and scammed her way to online infamy. Read more »
Surrounded by an overwhelming amount of digital content, many people are looking for something that can fill the role of a digital newspaper — filtering and highlighting interesting content. Among the many startups trying to solve this problem is a San Francisco outfit called Prismatic. Read more at GigaOM »
Less than a year after its relaunch, Fab.com is nearing 4 million members. Co-founder and CEO Jason Goldberg talks about the once-social network’s reinvention, saying it’s not just an e-commerce site — it’s a movement. Read more at GigaOM »
Luxury brand Burberry is in legal trouble for using an iconic image from the film Casablanca in a social media campaign to promote its trenchcoats. Read more »
Media people don’t like combining hard-nosed political reporting with lots of kitties. Excerpt for Jonah Peretti. Read more »
Organisers want to stop athletes and spectators from publishing photos, video and audio from this summer’s London Olympics, in an effort to protect Big Media rights outlay – but that doesn’t mean the Olympics doesn’t have a social media strategy… Read more »
Since its launch in 2009, Food52 has become a premier destination for community-vetted recipes online, but its founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs have grown even more ambitious. They want to build a crowdsourced clearinghouse of culinary knowledge that cooks can access anywhere on the Web. Read more at GigaOM »
The latest data from Nielsen’s State of Media: Advertising and Audiences report. Read more at GigaOM »
Snapguide, the three-week-old iPhone and web app that lets users create “how-to” guides with pictures and videos, is now the first mobile app to integrate with Pinterest for “seamless sharing.” Read more »
In a candid ruling, a New York judge said a protester can’t stop prosecutors from searching his Twitter account because he doesn’t own the tweets in the first place. Read more »
Some critics have raised the question of whether Facebook and Twitter are making us more lonely and disconnected from one another. But the Web and social media are just tools: They can be used to create connections or to create distance, just like any other technology. Read more at GigaOM »
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton talks about whether we are in another technology bubble, what the decline of Facebook and Twitter as conversational media say about social networks, the death of advertising and whether he has any interest in selling his digital empire. Read more at GigaOM »
Every week the media seems to offer a new account of some dumb crook who is off to the slammer because he posted about his caper on Facebook. It turns out this phenomenon may be even more widespread than we think. Read more »
Some traditional media entities seem to be hoping for a single magic bullet that will cure their revenue problems, but it is more likely success will come from making a number of smaller bets. Unfortunately, large media players don’t tend to be good at that. Read more at GigaOM »
Critics of reader comments often argue that they are worthless because they are filled with trolls, and not that many people read them. But despite these flaws, building community through comments and other social features is more important than it has ever been for online media. Read more at GigaOM »
It’s official: Following reports yesterday that he was stepping down as CEO, Pinterest cofounder Paul Sciarra confirmed that he is leaving the company. Read more »
Orange is having a run at the nascent second-screen social-TV space already occupied by the likes of GetGlue, Miso, Zeebox and Intonow. Read more »
When a movie opens to nearly $153 million dollars, the studio executives backing it always tend to look like geniuses. But in the case of th… Read more »
In the land of the freemium, how much free is enough to convince users to pay?
In the latest refinement to its market strategy, Spotify in… Read more »
For more than three decades, cable TV programmers enjoyed steady ratings gains — mostly at the expense of broadcasters. Inspired efforts li… Read more »
I thought it would be cool to be retweeted by the President, but it kind of sucked. Read more »
SnagFilms has already proven it can be profitable. But now, with several fresh rounds of funding, the indie video on demand service is tryin… Read more »
Digital influence is one of the hottest trends in social media and it is also one of the least understood. Like some relationships on Facebo… Read more »
The US Senate has overcome its fears about “crowdmuppeting” and passed an amended version of the JOBS Act, a bill that will make it easier f… Read more »
As companies like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) make big investments into video content channels with name-brand film and television talent, they might… Read more »
No disruption to see here folks, move along. A ratings analysis by Turner Networks and a report from Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wi… Read more »
Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) is eager to steer its core business away from mere movie rentals to an operation that resembles, to some degree, premiu… Read more »
