Mediagazer: Amazon vs. Publishers: The Book Battle Continues (Brad Stone/Business Week)

10:50 AM ET, April 27, 2012

Top News:

Nick Denton / Gawker:

Why Anonymity Matters — Gawker Media is flying in the face of conventional media wisdom. While other outlets are doing away with anonymity, we've built anonymous accounts into our new comment system. We'll accept some disorder if that's the price of freedom in one's personal life, in politics and the press.

Discussion: The New York Observer, Adweek, GigaOM, Guardian, the Econsultancy blog and Nieman Journalism Lab

Ross Neumann / rGn: Corgis and Journalism Want to Coexist

Jay Yarow / Business Insider: Nick Denton Is Crushing BuzzFeed And Jonah Peretti Right Now In Gawker's Comments

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

How tech's giants want to re-invent journalism — Some of Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies reject suggestions they are now news organisations. — But they nevertheless think they have the prescription for what news media must do next... First, the disclosures …

Discussion: Garcia Media and The Paley Center for Media

Jennifer Preston / The Lede:

Rupert Murdoch on the Future of News … On Thursday, the second day of Rupert Murdoch's testimony in London during a British inquiry into media ethics, he took a question about new regulations on the press to expound at some length on the future of journalism.

Discussion: Online NewsHour, New York Times, Guardian, Big News Network.com and AdAge

Erik Wemple:
Murdoch flatters Huffington Post

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Politico

Estelle Shirbon / Reuters:
Hunter turns hunted as Murdoch “harassed” by press

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Guardian:

Jeremy Hunt to hand over all relevant BSkyB emails and texts — Culture secretary to give messages he sent to Adam Smith and News Corp executives about takeover bid to Leveson inquiry — Jeremy Hunt, the embattled culture secretary, is to disclose all his private correspondence over the BSkyB takeover deal to the Leveson inquiry.

Discussion: BBC, Sky News, The Huffington Post, New York Times, Big News Network.com and Journalism.co.uk

Press Association:
Ofcom extends BSkyB investigation

Discussion: Guardian, Journalism.co.uk, mnilive.com, Jon Slattery and Broadcasting & Cable

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Are you a young dude interested in news? All else equal, this study says you're a top paywall target — Here's a biggie: How do you get someone to pay for online news? A new study (PDF here) out of the University of Texas develops a theoretical model to begin answering that question.

Discussion: Journalism News and MarketingVox News & Trends

Bloomberg:

Providence Said Selling Hulu Stake at $2 Billion Value — Hulu.com owners Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) and News Corp. (NWSA) are close to buying out Providence Equity Partners Inc.'s stake at a price that values the company at $2 billion, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

Discussion: Bloomberg, mediabistro.com, Wall Street Journal, Company Town, Los Angeles Times, Media Decoder, New York Post, C21Media, paidContent, VentureBeat, Mashable!, Reuters, Media Money …, AllThingsD, Digital Media Wire, Deadline.com and Business Insider

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Flipboard is ‘head-on competitor’ on Economist's road to all-digital — The Economist's CEO thinks news publishing will go all-digital at some point in the near- to mid-term. — “Print circulation is at record highs,” Andrew Rashbass told the Paley Center's international council in Madrid on Thursday.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

New York Times R&D Group Launches First Commercial Product (and It's for Brands) — Ricochet Helps Brands Drive Traffic to Relevant Articles, Surrounded by the Right Ads — The New York Times R&D Lab has spent the last six and a half years building what its chief calls the equivalent of “concept cars” for the media world.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, eMedia Vitals, AdExchanger.com, paidContent, Business Wire, NetNewsCheck Latest and FishbowlNY

Neal Ungerleider / Fast Company:

How Assignmint Will Change Freelance Journalism — A new startup hopes their integrated freelancer workflow and financials system will change the media industry. — New startup Assignmint has an ambitious goal: To change freelance journalism as we know it.

Discussion: newsplexer

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Wall Street Journal dives into live, continuous coverage with its new Markets Pulse stream — The Wall Street Journal on Monday unveiled Markets Pulse, a platform for a continuous flow of news — including blog posts, articles, videos, tweets, photos, and other elements …

Discussion: paidContent

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

As news shifts toward mobile, will text alerts get left behind? — In a blast text message to subscribers on Tuesday afternoon, The Washington Post announced that it's...ending blast text messages to subscribers, on April 30. So don't expect to get SMS headlines like “Mitt Romney sweeps GOP primaries in five states” for much longer.

Discussion: B2B Memes

Lauren Margolis / PhotoShelter Blog:

How The New York Times Does Social Media — To think that it's impossible to draw any parallels between your photography business and The New York Times is to be shortsighted. What makes or breaks your business these days is whether you stand out from the crowd, and both you and NY Times need …

Brad Stone / Business Week:

Amazon vs. Publishers: The Book Battle Continues — There's a glaring anachronism at the center of most Amazon.com (AMZN) fulfillment centers: aisle after aisle of old-fashioned books. Amazon stocks these volumes for the many customers who still favor the tangible pleasures of reading on paper.

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Phone hacking: Thurlbeck will not be prosecuted over witness intimidation claims — The former News of the World chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, will not be prosecuted over claims of witness intimidation relating to the phone-hacking scandal, the Crown Prosecution Service has said.

Discussion: BBC, Associated Press and Reuters

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Journatic founder: ‘Being based in the community is not beneficial’ — Brian Timpone sounded frustrated by press coverage of Journatic when he commented on a Mathew Ingram post this morning linking to a story that mentioned the Chicago Tribune had tapped his company to operate its TribLocal network.

Discussion: Chicago Reader and NetNewsCheck Latest