Mediagazer: AOL Shuts Down Software Blog Download Squad (Stan Schroeder/Mashable!)

12:10 PM ET, April 12, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL, Arianna Huffington Hit with Class Action Suit — Jonathan Tasini. Image via Wikipedia — Huffington Post bloggers who think they ought to get paid for their volunteer writing have been litigating their case in the court of public opinion. Now they're taking it to a real one.

Discussion: MediaMemo, Folio, Mediaite, Betabeat, The Wrap, SAI, Poynter, FishbowlNY, GalleyCat, The Daily Caller, Bloggasm and Chickaboomer, more at Techmeme »

Heather Dougherty:

Impact of paywall on NYTimes.com — After months of speculation, the paywall for The New York Times went live at 2pm on Monday, March 28th, which limits online readers (non-print subscribers) to 20 articles each month. For smartphone and tablet applications, only the top news section …

Discussion: paidContent, Mashable!, The Wire, FishbowlNY, VentureBeat, On Media's Blog, Poynter, eMedia Vitals, Betabeat, The Wrap and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

Violet Blue / ZDNet:

AOL/HuffPo Shuts Down Download Squad — In a surprise move Monday night, popular software blog Download Squad became the latest tech casualty in Huffington/AOL's so-called ‘consolidation’ of its content sites. In an end-of-the-day email, Download Squad's staff was told that the blog …

Discussion: Gawker and Poynter, more at Techmeme »

Stan Schroeder / Mashable!:

AOL Shuts Down Software Blog Download Squad — In a somewhat surprising move, AOL/Huffington Post has shut down popular software blog Download Squad, according to its editor, Sebastian Anthony, who shared the news on Twitter. — The site itself is still available, with the last post dated yesterday, April 11.

Discussion: mediabistro.com

New York Times:

Egypt Sentences Blogger to 3 Years — CAIRO — An Egyptian blogger was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for criticizing the military in what human rights advocates called one of the more alarming violations of freedom of expression since a popular uprising led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two months ago.

Discussion: This Just In, CNN, Crikey, Runnin' Scared and Gawker

Michael Roberts / The Latest Word:

Brian Hill: Righthaven drops suit against autistic blogger, warns other targets not to rest easy — Righthaven LLC, the Nevada firm that's been suing for copyright infringement on behalf of companies like MediaNews Group, owner of the Denver Post, picked a sympathetic target when it went …

Discussion: Techdirt, paidContent and Poynter

Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Judge to copyright troll: your “business model” isn't my problem

Discussion: TeleRead and Righthaven Victims

Stuart Dredge / Apps blog:

ABC and NBC launch iPad apps with new angles on news and social TV — Video books and social TV to the fore for US networks' latest applications — US broadcasters NBC and ABC have launched new iPad apps, but neither focuses on streaming live TV. Instead, NBC Live offers second-screen social features …

Discussion: Beet.TV

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

The New Yorker uses a ‘like-gate’ to find fans of long-form journalism on Facebook — The New Yorker is experimenting with Facebook this week, making a 12,000-word piece by Jonathan Franzen free behind a “like-gate” for a limited time. — When users “Like” the magazine's Facebook page …

Discussion: Mashable!, Forbes.com, The Atlantic Online, Editors Weblog, bookforum.com, MediaPost, Journalism.co.uk, FishbowlNY, New Yorker, The New Yorker Blog and Bloggasm, more at Techmeme »

Tom Krazit / paidContent:

Amazon To Sell Ad-Supported Kindle For $25 Discount — Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) will sell its Kindle e-reader for $25 less than the lowest list price currently available—if customers are willing see ads and other types of sponsored content. — Most of the valuable real estate on Amazon.com's home page …

Discussion: PC Magazine, ZDNet, IAB SmartBrief, Fast Company, mocoNews, SocialTimes.com, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, CNET News and Bridget Carey, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Research: YouTube Beats iTunes For Consumers' Music Attention — The format digital music listeners are most likely to pay for... is the one they use least, according to new Nielsen research... Only about 16 percent of consumers bought a digital download in the last three months …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:

The four enemies of indie Internet TV — Trying to assess the prospects for independent online video entertainment—video that doesn't come from one of the established outlets—is a day-to-day process. On some days the future looks bright; on others, less so.

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Maybe Cord Cutting Isn't Here Yet. What About Cord Shaving? — Here's an answer that might satisfy the two sides in the “Cord cutting is real! No it isn't!” debate: Perhaps Web video fans aren't dumping cable in favor of Netflix, Hulu, etc. Perhaps they're just dumping premium cable channels, like HBO.

Thanks:mikepilarz

Bobbie Johnson / GigaOM:

How Twitter Could Bring About World Peace — On certain days, Twitter can feel like the world's biggest, fastest echo chamber. Since we tend to follow people who are similar to us, we often see our own views reflected back at us — meaning a gloomy cloud of irritation can rapidly swirl …

Thanks:bobbiejohnson

AdAge:

Is Social Media too Engaging for Its Own Good? — As someone who has been tasked with monetizing social media continuously since 2005, the single most important thing I've learned is this: The biggest problem is that the content is too engaging. Here's why.

Discussion: GigaOM

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

10 Things the Media Either Gets Wrong or Doesn't Know About the Winklevoss Twins — The Winklevoss twins lost another round in their legal battle against Mark Zuckerberg today, but according to their lawyer, they aren't giving up yet. Our newest team member, Foster Kamer …

Forbes Blogs / Forbes.com:

A Vision for Unifying Access to Data and Documents — What do we really want when we start using technology for reporting and analysis of data? We want answers to our questions. We want to be able to discover and follow up on new questions that occur to us.

Discussion: CITO Research

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Consolidation of Trade Publications Nears — The long-planned consolidation of three familiar trade publications into one is beginning at Prometheus Global Media. — Monday brought the final issues of two publications, Brandweek and Mediaweek, which have been published along with their sibling, Adweek, for almost 10 years.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, The Wire and Poynter