Mediagazer: AOL In Talks To Buy Gdgt, The Consumer Electronics Review Site Started By Former Engadget Founders (Colleen Taylor/TechCrunch)

10:05 AM ET, February 5, 2013

Top News:

Doree Shafrir / BuzzFeed:

What's The Real Story Behind The New York Times Buyouts? — No one outside the building really knows — but maybe because no one really cares anymore. — Late Friday afternoon, inside The New York Times building at 40th Street and 8th Avenue, around 100 staffers gathered on the second floor …

Discussion: Melville House Books, @pkafka, @edmundlee, @mlcalderone, @mathewi, @joshsternberg, @learmonth, @megan, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @hamiltonnolan, @alexckaufman, @poniewozik, @moorehn and @brianstelter

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter: Media reporters are missing the story of NYT buyouts, BuzzFeed editor argues

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
A goodbye to teary newsroom scenes? Why Friday's wake at the ‘Times’ was undercovered

Discussion: @poniewozik

Dylan Byers / Politico: Boring old media

Gavin Rodgers / Press Gazette:

Sunday Times tells freelances not to submit photographs from Syria — A British war photographer has been told not to submit his pictures from the Syria war zone to The Sunday Times because they “do not wish to encourage freelancers to take exceptional risks”.

Discussion: @cathjam, @cengizyar, @ronhaviv and @maryfitzger

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

Digital First Media is working on paywalls, even though it really doesn't want to — Plenty of newspapers have been jumping headlong into the paywall business recently, and many of them claim that the introduction of subscription plans has been the best thing that ever happened to them.

John Paxton / Digital First:

The Subscription Project - Or A Paywall By Any Other Name — Paywall. — Even the name is debated so contentious is this subject in the news industry. — The Pros and Cons of some form of online paid access for newspaper websites have been argued in such extremes that nuance and accuracy have been the first victims of the debate.

Discussion: Poynter, The Buttry Diary and NetNewsCheck Latest

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Twitter Makes Big Acquisition, Buys Social TV Analytics Company Bluefin Labs — Twitter has acquired Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company that was founded in 2008, sources say. — Although we don't know the exact acquisition price, we were told this is Twitter's biggest acquisition to date.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Why Twitter Is Buying Bluefin — And Why Bluefin Is Selling

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Lost Remote, GigaOM and Business Insider

Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire:

The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million New Show — With Netflix's foray into original, high quality programming today, the streaming TV network wants to turn into the HBO of Internet TV, but can the network afford it? Putting together a big production with famous actors like House …

Discussion: /Film

Tim Wu / New Yorker: “House of Cards” and the Decline of Cable

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

OC Register, investing heavily in print, also readies paywall — The Orange County Register is preparing to launch a metered paywall this year, News & Tech reports. New Register owner Aaron Kushner has made no secret of his plans to charge for online access to the paper …

Discussion: News & Tech

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Turner Broadcasting Names Giorgio Stock President of EMEA Region — The former Walt Disney consumer products, publishing and retail executive says he sees opportunity to expand brands and franchises across platforms. — Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting said Tuesday that it has hired …

Discussion: Variety, Turner Newsroom and Digital TV Europe

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

AOL In Talks To Buy Gdgt, The Consumer Electronics Review Site Started By Former Engadget Founders — I'm hearing that gdgt (pronounced 'gadget'), the consumer electronics review site founded by Engadget co-founder Peter Rojas and former Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block, is in late-stage acquisition talks with AOL.

Discussion: Fast Company

Mat Honan / Wired:

Why Vine's Going to Grow Into Something Huge — The very best things we make are the things that allow us to make even better things: tools that create connections and empower creativity. The latest of these is Vine, Twitter's remarkable new video sharing app. — Vine lets people shoot and share six-second looped videos.

Discussion: CNET

Kate Holton / Reuters:

Malone eyes Virgin Media in challenge to Murdoch — (Reuters) - John Malone's Liberty Global has opened talks with Britain's Virgin Media over a takeover that would increase the U.S. cable group's dominance in Europe and step up a challenge to media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Discussion: ZDNet, Telegraph, Forbes, DealBook, Hollywood Reporter, Agence France Presse, BBC, Virgin Media, Bloomberg, Sky News, standard.co.uk, broadcastnow.co.uk, Cable UK Blogs and Wall Street Journal

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

Can Jeff Zucker turn CNN's saccharine output into the sweet smell of success? — CNN's new president is shaking up the network, but to win the ratings he needs, he'll have to find a cable news sensibility — The obvious problem with CNN, depressing its ratings for the better part of a decade …

Richard Verrier / Los Angeles Times:

Drive-in theaters get help for digital conversion — “Gangster Squad” is seen playing at the Rubidoux Drive-In Theater in Riverside last month. Hollywood will stop producing 35-mm prints sometime this year, and drive-in theaters must switch to digital projection systems or risk going dark.

Discussion: DCinemaToday and The Verge

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The Super Bowl Gave the Web the Night Off — Yes, you could stream the Super Bowl on the Web yesterday. But most of you didn't. And while a lot of you were tweeting or Facebooking during the game, a lot of you stayed away from the Web during the game, period.