Mediagazer: On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro (Rob Walker/New York Times)

1:35 PM ET, June 30, 2012

Top News:

On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro — A kid from Nebraska shows up in New York City to make it big. This kid was Bryan Odell, a 21-year-old college dropout who lived with his parents. Gangly, with curly blond hair, he looked and talked as if he arrived straight from central casting.

Discussion: Beet.TV, The Huffington Post, The Verge and Fortune

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

SCOTUSblog: After a decade, an overnight sensation — Amy Howe used to think 3,000 live blog participants was a lot. Thursday, more than a half-million users tuned into SCOTUSblog to find out how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on health care and what it meant.

Discussion: GigaOM, SCOTUSblog and Poynter

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab: Anatomy of a spike: How SCOTUS Blog dealt with its biggest traffic day ever

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:

NBC News Chief on Ann Curry's ‘Today’ Departure: ‘It Was Not Where Her Real Passion Was’ (Exclusive) — “She's completely endearing,” Steve Capus says of replacement Savannah Guthrie, whom he compares to Mary Tyler Moore. — NBC News on Friday made a big bet on Savannah Guthrie …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Inquisitr and Mediaite

Poynter:
Alessandra Stanley described old online tribute to Ann Curry as if it aired during ‘Today’ farewell

Discussion: Mediaite, Gawker and Tampa Bay Times

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Cuts Off LinkedIn — Who's Next? — Throughout Twitter's infancy, the company had a loose philosophy toward its APIs. In the quest for a user base, developers were welcome to do much anything they wanted in integrating with Twitter, which often mean creating spin-offs that muddied Twitter's original intended experience.

Discussion: The Next Web, TPM IdeaLab, GigaOM and Twitter Developers

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of the News Corp. split — Are two Ruperts even better than one? We may soon find out, as News Corp. moves forward today to clone itself. — The cloning, or splitting, of the $34 billion company certainly has its logic. Hive off those pesky newspaper assets …

Discussion: Capital New York and Erik Wemple

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:
Even if News Corp. Divides, the Murdochs' Control Is Undiluted

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Gawker and Wall Street Journal

Nick Wingfield / Bits:

The Well, a Pioneering Online Community, Is for Sale Again — Before Facebook, Twitter, Google — heck, even before the Web — there was The Well, an online discussion community founded in Northern California in 1985 that became home to the early denizens of what used to be called cyberspace.

Discussion: @stevesilberman

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Freelance writing network Contently makes its platform free — Contently, a New York City-based startup that connects vetted freelance writers with publishers and brands, is making its editorial management platform free while continuing to charge brands in search of journalists.

Thanks:@dmfreeman

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Joe Williams to leave POLITICO — Joe Williams, the POLITICO reporter who was suspended last week for controversial remarks he had made on television and Twitter, will leave his job. — “After some cordial discussions, Joe Williams and I mutually decided that the best step for him is to begin …

Discussion: FishbowlDC

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The iTunes effect, seven years later: Podcasting in a world where Apple is kingmaker — Seven years ago today, Apple embraced a digital-native medium called podcasts. The iTunes 4.9 software update turned a somewhat geeky hobby into a mainstream product. Users could now browse a menu …

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Nickel-and-Diming? More Magazines to Charge for Hotlinks in Tablet Edition Ads — $1,500 Fee Reflects the Production Process, Meredith Says — Another magazine company has decided to charge advertisers for something as small as a working hotlink in a tablet edition.

The Local:

CUNY Journalism School Reacts to Times ‘Local’ Pullout — There has been a lot of chatter on the blog since media reporter Joe Pompeo of Capital NY revealed that The New York Times would end its partnership with The Local over the next six months to one year.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

News has been changed forever by the iPhone — The arrival of the iPhone five years ago today has disrupted many things, including photography, the music business and the mobile software business; in fact, the entire technology industry. But from my point of view, one of the most interesting things …

Discussion: Reuters, VentureBeat and The FJP