Mediagazer: Spotify, Gearing Up for U.S. Launch, Closes Its $1 Billion Round (Peter Kafka/AllThingsD)

6:45 PM ET, June 17, 2011

Top News:

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Spotify, Gearing Up for U.S. Launch, Closes Its $1 Billion Round — More momentum for Spotify: The streaming music service has finalized a huge funding round that gives it a valuation of about $1 billion. — The European company has raised around $100 million from DST, Kleiner Perkins and Accel.

Discussion: VentureBeat, GigaOM, paidContent, SAI, broadstuff, App Advice, Betabeat, ReadWriteWeb, MacRumors, Softpedia News, The Next Web, Guardian, PC Magazine and hypebot, more at Techmeme »

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

The kingdom and the power of David Carr — New York Times media reporter David Carr had a bad feeling during a photo shoot he was doing for Interview magazine early last month. — The photographer for the notoriously fashiony celebrity-on-celebrity Q-and-A magazine had taken a number …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Guernica / Blog and The Wire

Michael Kinsley / New York Times:
A Hyperactive Fly on a Newsroom Wall

Discussion: Mixed Media, The Huffington Post, AdAge, Rolling Stone, Company Town, Poynter, LA Observed, gary-weiss.com, Future of Journalism, FishbowlNY and On Media's Blog

John Cook / Gawker:

Gov. Chris Christie Claims Fox News Chief as Confidential Adviser — The office of Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is claiming that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes is a confidential adviser whose interactions with the governor should remain secret under New Jersey's executive privilege.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Mediaite, The Wire, TVNewser, Runnin' Scared and New York Magazine

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Olbermann Wants to Make Current a 24-Hour News Network — With three days to go before the debut of his new show on Current TV, Keith Olbermann is simultaneously trying to lower and raise expectations. In the short term, he'd like to lower them, particularly when it comes to ratings.

Discussion: The Wire, Multichannel, TVNewser and On Media's Blog

Keach Hagey / The Politico:

Cable after Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann — After years of generating both ratings and headaches for their respective networks, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are starting over on smaller and riskier television platforms, their departures from their prominent cable posts greeted …

Discussion: Poynter, On Media's Blog and TVNewser

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Following Departures, Murdoch's iPad Paper Makes A Big Hire — The Daily made a big hire Friday, scooping up Varietyâs Tom Lowry as the tablet publicationâs new business editor. — Daily editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo announced the hire Friday in a memo to staff obtained by The Huffington Post.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, FishbowlNY and The Wrap

Kevin / Strange Attractor:

The Guardian needs an intervention — The Guardian and its Sunday title, The Observer have just announced a “digital-first” strategy. However, this is not a triumphant announcement. This is a burning platform admission. — Guardian News & Media, the parent company for both newspapers …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Nieman Journalism Lab, (Re)Structuring Journalism, Editors Weblog, Guardian, paidContent:UK, Editor's Blog, Jon Slattery, themediablog.typepad.com and Yahoo! News

Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:

Senate Committee Votes to Make Illegal Streaming of Movies, TV a Felony … Moving to close a possible loophole in the laws against the pirating of movies, TV shows and other intellectual property, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved making illegal streaming of video over the Internet a felony in most cases.

Discussion: GeekWire, Fast Company, The Wrap, The Next Web, Bloomberg and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Shane Richmond / Telegraph:

Why Twitter's media critics are missing the point — Media commentators have called Twitter 'smug, ‘intolerant’ and suggested that it's pointless but that's like saying the telephone is smug, writes Shane Richmond. — Twitter: scaring people in the media since 2006.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Editors Weblog

Stefanie Botelho / Folio:

Financial Times Sees 100,000 Downloads In Week After HTML Launch — With digital subs up 50 percent in 2010, FT enters app world through the Web. — Financial Times has decided to go another way for their digital subscription offering, opting out of the Apple sub model and creating an app through HTML 5 …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Future of Journalism

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

The Devil Made Me Do It. AOL's Regrouped Advertising.com Is A $500 Million Business — AOL's advertising platforms, which are grouped under the Advertising.com business, is now a $500 million business, the company revealed today at its Investor Day in New York City.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Nieman Journalism Lab

Noah Davis / The Wire:

Meet Hearst's Secret Weapon Who's Making Magazine iPad Apps Pay — If Hearst Corporation figures out how to make magazine subscriptions pay on the iPad and other tablets, Jim Meigs will deserve plenty of the credit. — The editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics is one of the leaders …

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Thrillist Brings Discount Lap Dances to ‘Deals’ Party — Building a New Kind of Media Company With Less Media, More Commerce, Deals and Advertising — How's this for a daily deal: half off a steak dinner at Roberts', the steak house inside the Scores gentlemen's club on Manhattan's West Side …

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

BBC launches news app for TV — News app is first to deliver corporation's content direct to internet-connected TVs — The BBC has launched an app to allow the delivery of the corporation's news content direct to Samsung televisions in an attempt to position itself for the rise of internet-connected TV viewing.

Discussion: Pocket-lint

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

comScore: The Average YouTube Viewer Watches 5 Hours Of Videos A Month — comScore has just released its monthly data on online video engagement, with 176 million U.S. Internet users watching online video content in May for an average of 15.9 hours per viewer.