Mediagazer: AOL/HuffPo Shuts Down Download Squad (Violet Blue/ZDNet)

1:45 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, Washington Post, Poynter, Fast Company, Media Decoder, paidContent, Guardian, New York Observer, On Media's Blog, Folio, Mediaite, SAI, Betabeat, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, CNET News, Digital Trends, @jason, The Daily What, The Daily Caller, Mashable!, Bloggasm and Chickaboomer

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!, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wire, FishbowlNY, VentureBeat, Poynter, On Media's Blog, NYConvergence.com, ReadWriteWeb, eMedia Vitals and Betabeat

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

The NYT Paywall Is Working — It's Keeping People Out — We're still in the early days of the New York Times paywall, but traffic-measurement firm Hitwise already has some numbers on how the subscription plan has affected the newspaper's readership. The bottom line?

Thanks:mathewi

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: Mixed Media, MediaPost, Gawker, Liliputing, @blogsdna, @mrseb, @primatage, @samuelgibbs, @jkendrick, @dpkvnt, Daring Fireball, @andrewkam, Switched, @mrseb 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: paidContent, Techdirt and Poynter

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

Discussion: PlagiarismToday, TeleRead and Righthaven Victims

Eliza Gray / The New Republic:

Vanity Fair's Absurd Preoccupation with the Kennedys — “Kate Middleton: A Kennedy?” Vanity Fair tweeted on April 1, linking to a story that purported to uncover a genealogical link between the princess-to-be and the Kennedy family. The story was based on a “never-before-seen” …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Awl, On Media's Blog, The 6th Floor and Poynter

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, Switched, bookforum.com, MediaPost, Journalism.co.uk, FishbowlNY, New Yorker and Bloggasm

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

Los Angeles Times:

Hulu is popular, but that wasn't the goal — Its owners — the parents of ABC, Fox and NBC — fear the TV website may hurt their bottom lines. — Pioneering Internet television service Hulu recently celebrated its third anniversary in a fitting locale: under the roller coaster at the Santa Monica Pier.

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 homepage …

Discussion: Forbes, 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