Mediagazer: Napster, Udacity, and the Academy (Clay Shirky)

5:00 AM ET, November 16, 2012

Top News:

Viacom CEO Signals No Interest in Acquisition of Major Studio — Asked if the company could bid if a studio like Sony Pictures became available, Philippe Dauman said “I continue to not see any large-scale acquisition.” — Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said Thursday that he continues to expect …

Discussion: The Wrap

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Viacom Profit Increases, but Movie Division Hurts Revenues — Viacom's net income for its fiscal fourth quarter increased by 12 percent, while its revenue fell 17 percent as a result of a decline in domestic advertising revenue and a corporate strategy to release a diminished slate of movies through its Paramount Pictures studio.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine and Radio & Television …

Jennifer Saba / Reuters: Viacom posts higher profit; CEO says MTV is not broken

Clay Shirky:

Napster, Udacity, and the Academy — Fifteen years ago, a research group called The Fraunhofer Institute announced a new digital format for compressing movie files. This wasn't a terribly momentous invention, but it did have one interesting side effect: Fraunhofer also had to figure out how to compress the soundtrack.

Jessica Roy / Betabeat:

Social Media Companies Have Absolutely No Idea How to Handle the Gaza Conflict — After announcing their intention to attack Hamas on Twitter, the Israeli Defense Force began military operations in Gaza yesterday. The Alqassam Brigades, Hamas's military arm, also has a Twitter account …

Discussion: Wired, The Verge, Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day, Ynetnews, Daily Dot, WorldViews, Red Alert Politics, Mother Jones, BAGnewsNotes, AllThingsD, Forbes, Poynter, The Huffington Post, Betabeat, IDF Blog and GigaOM

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Anonymous Hackers Hit Israeli Sites In Retaliation For Gaza Attacks

Discussion: CNN, SocialTimes and Red Alert Politics

Nick Bilton / NYT Bits:
In Israeli Attack on Hamas: Shock, Awe and Social Media

Discussion: Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, New York Times, KDVR.com, GigaOM, The Wrap, The Hill, Softpedia News, BuzzFeed and The Stream

Ben Fritz / Los Angeles Times:

Variety lays off staff, plans to reduce frequency of publication — Variety has laid off nearly 20 staffers and will cut back on its print frequency. (Variety) — The new owner of Variety is laying off nearly 20 employees at the Hollywood trade paper while preparing to cut back on the number of times it prints each week.

Discussion: LA Observed and Deadline.com

Tara Conlan / Guardian:

BBC rules out costly search for George Entwistle replacement — BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten and trustees will not follow lengthy search and interview process for next director general — Lord Patten, the BBC Trust chairman, and fellow trustees have ruled out another lengthy and costly search …

Sky News:
Lord McAlpine And BBC Reach Settlement

Discussion: Poynter and Wall Street Journal

Paul Sonne / Wall Street Journal:
BBC Faces Probe Over Abuse Scandal

Discussion: Press Gazette, @skynewsbreak, Media Decoder, New York Times and Daily Mail

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

A Counterculture Totem to Return as a Leaner Magazine — From 2002 to 2008, Arthur was music's version of a literary-minded “little magazine.” Distributed free in record stores and coffee shops, it celebrated underground culture of all kinds and attracted writers like Alan Moore ("Watchmen" …

Discussion: Arthur Magazine and The Awl

Jim Romenesko:

How Elizabeth Spiers got Mediabistro noticed - then failed to profit from its sale — When Mediabistro was sold in 2007, I told some people that I thought Elizabeth Spiers deserved at least a few of the millions that Laurel Touby took to the bank. — Touby (left) and Spiers

Discussion: The Awl

Penelope Green / New York Times:
The Loft That Mediabistro Built

Discussion: @laureltouby, Gawker, @laureltouby and @real_kaplan

Glynnis Macnicol / Capital New York:

Nate Silver receives the adulation of New York's media demimonde in Nick Denton's Soho loft — “It's like we've taken a time machine back to 2007,” remarked one guest as he mounted the staircase to the second-floor loft apartment of Nick Denton, lord of the Gawker Media empire.

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

New York Times hosts ad client dinner at Guy Fieri restaurant it panned earlier in the day — Guy Fieri has responded to Pete Wells' scathing New York Times review of his Times Square restaurant. Fieri told the “Today” show's Savannah Guthrie that he thought the review was “ridiculous” and “overboard.”

Discussion: Gawker, The Braiser, PopWatch, Every Day Forever, Bites, Speakeasy and Eater National

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:
Guy Fieri Responds to Pete Wells: ‘He Had an Agenda’

Discussion: AdAge, Gawker, TVNewser, Eater National and 10,000 Words

Jack Shafer:

The sex scandal as civic lesson — The saturation coverage of the Petraeus sex scandal has yet to annoy many people besides policy wonks, but it won't be long before a full-throated essay attacking the endless column inches and hours of airtime devoted to the salacious story arrives.

Discussion: Poynter, CNN, Daily Dot and Guardian

John Jannarone / Wall Street Journal:

Drop in Ratings for DVR Viewing Mirrors Live TV — Some television executives have blamed use of digital video recorders as a reason for sharp declines in “live” viewing of most major broadcast networks this fall. But data capturing a full week of delayed viewing through DVRs reveals nearly identical audience declines.

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Mark Shapiro is candidate for top job at CNN — Former Dick Clark Productions Chief Executive Mark Shapiro has emerged as a candidate for the top job at the cable news channel CNN, according to people familiar with the matter. — Shapiro, who prior to running Dick Clark Productions …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Election Night Was a Second Screen Extravaganza — If you are reading this there are very good odds that you spent all or part of election night online. Because, why wouldn't you? — Still, here's some data that shows how commonplace that behavior was, beyond your personal filter bubble …

Discussion: Pew Research Center … and Lost Remote

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The New York Times' Chronicle tool explores how language — and journalism — has evolved — It's possible The New York Times is using the word “signature” too much. I'll let Philip Corbett, the paper's standards editor, explain: … As the guy in charge of standards …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Daniel Terdiman / CNET:

Hollywood bigwig Peter Chernin joins Twitter's board — The former News Corp. executive, who also helped launch Hulu, has become the eighth member of Twitter's board of directors. … Twitter said this afternoon that former News Corp. executive Peter Chernin has become the newest member of its board of directors.

Discussion: @twitter, The Verge, Lost Remote and The Next Web

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Brauchli's wife: Washington Post has become 'place where you can't speak truth to power' — Former Los Angeles Times reporter Maggie Farley is married to outgoing Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli. In a public posting on Facebook Tuesday evening, she wrote:

Discussion: CJR and City Desk