Mediagazer: Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells for $500,000 (Wall Street Journal)

10:40 AM ET, July 13, 2012

Top News:

Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells for $500,000 — Digg Inc., a social-media pioneer once valued at more than $160 million, is selling for the deeply discounted price of about $500,000, three people familiar with the matter said. — The buyer is New York technology development firm Betaworks …

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Digg Sold To LinkedIn AND The Washington Post And Betaworks — Sun Valley and self-driving cars aside, the story of the day today is that social news site Digg has sold its remaining assets for $500K to the NYC-based tech firm Betaworks. While that number is indeed in the ballpark …

Discussion: WebProNews, Business Insider, Media News, The Wall Blog and One Man & His Blog

Jenna Wortham / Bits:

Betaworks Buys What's Left of Social News Site Digg — For a while, Digg, the social news site, was one of the hottest things on the Web. But then it fell on hard times as services like Twitter and Facebook emerged and captured the Web's attention. — Digg's founders fled to greener pastures …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, SocialTimes, Digg Blog, Mashable!, Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day, Guardian, Softpedia News, Wired, Betabeat and ReadWriteWeb

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

The Big Digg Lesson: A Social Network Is Worth Precisely as Much as Its Community — A social networking company is not a technology company like Intel is a technology company; its users are its product. — Digg has been sold for the astonishingly low price of $500,000 to Betaworks, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Discussion: MOTHERBOARD

Bloomberg:

Diller Says Aereo Will Expand To Most Large U.S. Cities — Aereo Inc., the online television service backed by Barry Diller, will expand from New York to other large U.S. cities following a favorable court ruling, the 70-year-old billionaire said. — “We're going to really start marketing …

Discussion: Betabeat, Fast Company, Gotta Be Mobile, VentureBeat, CNET, The Verge and Wall Street Journal

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:
Barry Diller making trouble for broadcasters

Discussion: MediaPost, Washington Post and Bloomberg

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

BBC Launches Localized iOS, Android Olympics Apps (Video Not Included Internationally) — The two-week countdown to the Olympics is on, and the big broadcasters are getting their ducks in line for how they will be streaming, tweeting, sharing, and generally filling your digital life with their own twists on big sporting event.

Discussion: bbc.co.uk, The Next Web, Multichannel and PC Magazine

Steve Myers / Poynter:

For AP, Olympics are the Olympics of news coverage — The Associated Press announced its 2012 Olympics coverage plan Thursday, and as you might expect it's expansive: text packages and updates posted throughout the day, medal counts on its AP Mobile apps, interactive presentations viewable …

Discussion: Associated Press and ap.org

Salvador Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:
NBC launches Olympics apps; one will stream every single event

Discussion: Forbes Real Time and CNET

Erik Wemple:

Text of Romney campaign correction request to the Boston Globe — Mitt Romney's campaign asked the Boston Globe for a correction to its big story this morning on the timing of the candidate's departure from Bain Capital. The correction request is a muscular bit of polemical writing …

Discussion: Business Insider, Washington Post and Boston Globe

Dylan Byers / Politico:
Romney camp: Globe story ‘inaccurate’

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Pressthink, msnbc.com, The Huffington Post, TIME.com, Business Insider, The Caucus, The Raw Story, The Week, The Daily Dish, The Boston Globe, CNN, Mother Jones, Erik Wemple, Washington Post, CJR, Guardian and @erikwemple

Erik Wemple:
Globe to credit TPM, Mother Jones in Bain-Romney story

Discussion: Fortune, The Huffington Post, Quote and Comment, FactCheck.org, American Prospect, Politico and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

News Corp. Said to Be Deciding Fate of The Daily — News Corporation is deciding the fate of The Daily, the tablet publication that just over a year ago Rupert Murdoch, the company's chairman and chief executive, introduced as a digital savior of the printed news industry …

Discussion: Deadline.com, FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post and The Wall Blog

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

The End of TV and the Death of the Cable Bundle — People have been predicting the demise of cable television for years. After this week, they might be right. — Two small pieces of news yesterday could make for a big headache for TV. — First, Viacom yanked its 19 channels …

Discussion: Erik Wemple

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes Real Time:
Viacom and DirecTV Are Both Right, But DirecTV Is Righter

Discussion: Home Media Magazine and Broadcasting & Cable

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Publishers' Online Headache — With mobile devices, magazines have more ways than ever to distribute their content—and more ways of getting ripped off. — Like the music and movie businesses before them, magazines are getting their own taste of piracy with the spread of tablets and handheld mobile devices.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Matthew Fleischer / FishbowlLA:

Reuters Teams Up with Next Media Animation — Reuters announced today that, as of July 16, it plans to offer 20 Next Media Animation videos per week through its distribution network. Not familiar with Next Media Animation? Actually, you probably are. They're the Taiwanese company …

Discussion: Mashable!, Reuters, 10,000 Words and The Knowledge Effect

Federica Cherubini / Editors Weblog:

Journalistic start-ups in Western Europe: survival is success — A study by author Nicola Bruno and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen published this year by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the Oxford University analysed the situation of the Western Europe emerging pure player journalistic start-ups.

Annika McGinnis / McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Congress considers prosecutions of reporters over leaked information — WASHINGTON — In response to New York Times stories that relied on leaks of sensitive national-security information, a House of Representatives panel on Wednesday discussed legislation that could allow journalists to be prosecuted for disclosing such information.

Discussion: The Raw Story and Capital New York