Mediagazer: Newspass, Is Google Murdoch's best friend? (Adriano Farano)

5:00 AM ET, June 21, 2010

Top News:

Google's Newspass: Is the King of Free About to Help News Providers Get Paid? — On Thursday, word seemed to quietly leak out, in Italian no less, that Google would soon unveil a one-click payment system for content called “Newspass.” — According to the newspaper La Repubblica, Google …

Discussion: Guardian, Search Engine Watch, Silicon Alley Insider, MediaPost Raw and Fortune

Adriano Farano:

Newspass, Is Google Murdoch's best friend? — Find the original French version of this article on OWNI, digital journalism magazine. — Murdoch dreamed of it? Google has just made it. In its June 17 edition, the website of the respected Italian newspaper La Repubblica said the giant …

Discussion: MediaPost

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Le Monde on The Brink — Within two weeks, the French newspaper Le Monde will run out of cash. By this Monday at noon, candidates to the takeover of the most prestigious French daily will have disclosed their offers. By June 28, the staff will vote and make the final decision for the fate of the 66 years-old paper.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg

Reuters:

France Telecom approves bid for Le Monde stake: source — (Reuters) - France Telecom's (FTE.PA) supervisory board has approved the firm's participation in a joint bid with two other investors for a stake in Le Monde, a source close to the matter said on Sunday.

Martin Fackler / New York Times:

Ink Gushes in Japan's Media Landscape — TOKYO — For years, the online newspaper JanJan News mounted a scrappy challenge to Japan's blandly conformist press, offering articles written by readers who took on taboo subjects like whaling and the media's collusion with the government.

Discussion: Guardian

Steven Johnson / New York Times:

Yes, People Still Read, but Now It's Social — “THE point of books is to combat loneliness,” David Foster Wallace observes near the beginning of “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” David Lipsky's recently published, book-length interview with him.

Discussion: stevenberlinjohnson.com and Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Nicholas Carr / San Francisco Chronicle: As technology advances, deep reading suffers

Evelyn Rusli / TechCrunch:

Scribd's Decision To Dump Flash Pays Off, User Engagement Triples — You could call it the perfect storm. — Over the last few months, user engagement on Scribd has surged, according to CEO Trip Adler, thanks to its transition to HTML5, the introduction of the iPad, and Scribd's Facebook integration.

Discussion: GigaOM

thepomoblog.com:

The Evolving User Paradigm — In 1961, a high school track coach moved into the house next to mine and introduced my younger brother and me to track and field events like the high jump and pole vaulting. We had a big open field behind our house, which served as a buffer for the C&O railroad tracks that ran through the neighborhood.

Discussion: TeleRead and smays.com

JD Lasica / MediaShift:

6 Takeaways from ‘TechDirt Saves Journalism’ Event at Google — What will the journalism landscape look like five to 10 years from now? The megatrend of unbundled, specialty-focused niche sources of online information likely spells doom for many of today's lumbering media giants.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …

Andrew Alexander / Washington Post:

Too hard to reach, too slow to fix — If a modern day Deep Throat phones The Post with a hot news tip, will the message get through? — Last month, a reader called to complain that he had been unable to alert the newsroom to a killing in Southeast. He'd telephoned The Post's main number …

Joelle Tessler / Associated Press:

FCC asks: Do media ownership limits make sense? — WASHINGTON - Even the news industry's free fall probably will not be enough to wipe out complicated federal rules designed to restrain the power of media companies. — For decades, the Federal Communications Commission …

Chris Morran / The Consumerist:

NY Times Threatens Suit Over Logo For Dead Newspaper — The New York Herald Tribune hasn't been published since the late '60s and it would likely not be remembered by most were it not for the now-iconic image of original manic pixie dream girl Jean Seberg attempting to sell copies of the paper …

Discussion: The Hood and TechCrunch