Mediagazer: Amazon Revamps Its Cloud Music Player to Compete With iTunes (Ben Sisario/Media Decoder)

4:55 AM ET, August 1, 2012

Top News:

Our approach to Trust & Safety and private information — We want to take a moment to explain some of our general Trust and Safety policies and procedures, and address the specific case at hand that has unfolded over the past 48-hours (we normally don't address matters pertaining …

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Twitter restores reporter's account, tweet with NBC email remains — Two days after his account was suspended, the U.K. reporter who touched off a media kerfuffle about corporate control of speech is back on Twitter. The Independent's Guy Adams, who made his name bashing NBC's Olympic coverage …

Discussion: Media Decoder, AdAge, @producermatthew, @ianbetteridge, AllThingsD and eMedia Vitals

Amy Willis / The Daily Telegraph:
London Olympics 2012: Twitter 'alerted NBC to British journalist's critical tweets'

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:
NBC Is The Real Loser In Guy Adams v. Twitter

Discussion: The New York Observer and Wall Street Journal

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
Guy Adams suspension, now lifted, punctuates Twitter censorship evolution

Discussion: Washington Post, Forbes, The Independent, Business Insider, VentureBeat and LA Observed

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The Daily Lays Off a Third of Its Staff — The Daily, News Corp.'s attempt to create a digital newspaper for the iPad age, is laying off nearly a third of its staff. — The publisher plans to tell its workers today that it will fire 50 of its 170 employees, according to people familiar with The Daily's plans.

Jesse Angelo / The Daily:

A Note to Our Readers and Friends — A note to our Daily readers and friends: — The Daily was born of change. A changing technological landscape - the beginning of the tablet and smartphone revolution - made us want to rethink how we create media. And we believe that a healthy product …

Discussion: PC Magazine

Rebecca Shapiro / The Huffington Post:

The Daily Lays Off 50 Staffers, Announces Content And Design Changes — Rupert Murdoch's daily iPad publication announced its plans to lay off almost a third of its staff on Tuesday. AllThingsD was first to report the news. The Daily, which News Corp. hailed as a wave of the future upon …

Elaine Woo / Los Angeles Times:

Writer Gore Vidal, 86, has died — Gore Vidal, the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86. Vidal died Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills of complications of pneumonia, said nephew Burr Steers.

Discussion: New York Magazine, The Wrap, Slate, Reuters, New York Times, EW.com, Associated Press, Boing Boing, @pareene and The Daily Beast

Charles McGrath / New York Times:

Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer — Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy.

Discussion: LA Observed, Crikey, Associated Press, NY Daily News, The Atlantic Wire, Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day and Pressing Issues

Salvador Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:

NBC Olympic live streams aren't live, Phelps flub indicates — NBC's Live Extra app doesn't exactly stream live. The app's streams experience a delay. (NBC / July 31, 2012) — A blunder during one of Michael Phelps' races Tuesday has confirmed that NBC's live stream of Olympic events is not actually live.

Discussion: CNET, Gizmodo and CNN

John Ourand / SportsBusiness Daily:

Chairman Mark Lazarus defends NBC Sports' decision for tape delay — NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus defended his network's decision to show some marquee Olympic sports, like swimming and gymnastics, on tape delay in NBC's prime-time window. Addressing the topic for the first time since …

Discussion: Associated Press, Bleacher Report, The Big Lead, Mediaite, Deadspin and Newsweek

Erin Griffith / PandoDaily:

The Great Digg Experiment Begins Tomorrow — Will It Work? — The promise of Digg was great, and its fall was just as incredible. The company's firesale sent shockwaves across the Web, especially to anyone sitting on a currently hot startup. Here is a Web 2.0 darling …

Discussion: PC Magazine, TPM IdeaLab and VentureBeat

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
The New Digg Arrives Ahead Of Schedule, Features Tight Facebook And Twitter Integration

Discussion: Digg Blog, NYT Bits and The Verge

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:

NBC Takes Steps to Avoid More Spoiler Promotions — The spoiler “Today” show promo that told viewers that Missy Franklin had won the 100-meter backstroke during Monday night's Olympic broadcast was not screened before it was shown, an NBC executive said on Tuesday.

Discussion: Daily Mail, NY Daily News and The Huffington Post

Rebecca J. Rosen / The Atlantic Online:
News Outlets: Only You Can Prevent Spoilers

Discussion: @tcarmody and @tcarmody

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

paidContent 50: The world's most successful digital media companies — Digital media is exploding. Half of us now read news on tablets, virtually all music tracks are bought electronically, and nearly a tenth of Americans are ditching cable for internet TV.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, MediaPost, CyberJournalist.net, Felix and The FJP

Guardian:

News Corp directors could face charges — Lawyers for Rupert Murdoch's company have protested against criminal charges amid fears over broadcasting contracts — Directors within Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation could face corporate charges and prosecution for neglect of their duties …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Erik Larson / Bloomberg:
News Corp. Asks To Keep Allegations In Phone-Hacking Case Secret

Discussion: Guardian

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Defense of Ridiculed Vogue Profile of Assad Leads to More Ridicule — “Syria. The name itself sounded sinister, like syringe or hiss.” — That's what the author Joan Juliet Buck wrote in the Aug. 6 edition of Newsweek in an article describing why she felt uneasy profiling Syria's first lady, Asma al-Assad, in Vogue last year.

Discussion: Guardian

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Booksellers, Barnes & Noble to weigh in on Apple ebooks case — The American Booksellers Association and Barnes & Noble say the Department of Justice's proposed settlement with three book publishers is so inaccurate and harmful to booksellers that they are seeking permission to intervene in the case.

Discussion: TeleRead

Daniel Gross / The Daily Beast:

CNN, NBC's “Today,” are big money makers. But you wouldn't know it. — From all the bad press, you'd think CNN and NBC's ‘Today’ are financial sinkholes. Guess again. Daniel Gross reports on why media types love to say the sky is falling. — Have you heard about the big crises at two of America's most established media brands?

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Mitt Romney aide's gaffe exposes rift — In one week abroad, Mitt Romney has managed to enrage both the Brits and the Palestinians. Now add to that roster his own press corps. — Over seven days in the UK, Israel and Poland, Romney held just one media availability for the U.S. traveling press …