Mediagazer: Former publisher's bill would have compelled newspapers to ID commenters (Andrew Beaujon/Poynter)

12:50 PM ET, February 8, 2013

Top News:

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Tim Marches On: AOL Turns in Solid Q4 Earnings, With First Year-Over-Year Growth in Eight Years — AOL said it earned 41 cents a share, or $35.7 million in net income, in the fourth quarter, which was right on target with what Wall Street analysts had expected.

Discussion: Business Insider, Street Fight, CNET, AdAge, VentureBeat, Forbes, Reuters, FishbowlNY, TechCrunch, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, 24/7 Wall St. and @jeffjohnroberts

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

AOL Earnings: Revenue Turns Positive, But Patch Disappoints. Bad Omen For Hyperlocal? — Here's the good news: AOL managed to boost its total revenues on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter of 2012, the first time in eight years that's happened. And it wasn't a close-run thing, either.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, AdExchanger and Adweek

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

LOL no more: it's time to take AOL seriously as shares soar again — A year ago, AOL was a laughing stock. The one-time internet king was surviving on dial-up dollars from yokels and its media properties were a mess. After it sold its patent portfolio to Facebook, it seemed only a matter of time until AOL dried up altogether.

Discussion: Marketing Land

Bernard Lunn / Emergent Business Networks:
Hyperlocal Slough of Despond. After EveryBlock, Hipster & Patch Will Authentically Local Create The Sustainable Model?

Discussion: Street Fight and Nieman Journalism Lab

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

A Fish, Er, Storm Named Nemo — “We're ready for Nemo,” the Twitter account for the New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote on Thursday before listing all the tools at the city's disposal for the blizzard that is expected to form on Friday. — Wait — Nemo?

Discussion: Poynter, Speakeasy, Forbes, Mediaite, New York Magazine, Hero Complex, PopWatch, Gawker, Tor.com Frontpage Partial, www.wnyc.org and Metropolis

Caity Weaver / Gawker:

Snow Panic Has Driven Weather.com Completely Insane — You know how sometimes the best way to deal with a ranting, screaming maniac is just to leave him alone until he exhausts himself? It's time for us to do that with Weather.com. — Yesterday afternoon, The Weather Channel whipped itself …

Discussion: AccuWeather.com, @mathewi, Quartz and New York Magazine

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Pirated Movies Crop Up Again on YouTube — Google Inc.'s YouTube is facing the return of a pirated-content problem. — Hundreds of full-length feature films including blockbusters from Walt Disney Co. and Sony Corp.'s Columbia and Tristar studios have been illegally uploaded to the world's …

Discussion: SocialTimes, NetNewsCheck Latest and Gizmodo

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Macmillan settles with DOJ, leaving Apple last defendant standing in ebook pricing case — Macmillan, the last remaining publisher holdout in the Department of Justice's ebook pricing antitrust lawsuit against five publishers and Apple, has decided to settle about ten months after the lawsuit was originally filed.

Discussion: Tor.com Frontpage Partial, The Wrap, Reuters, Media Decoder, PublishersWeekly.com, AllThingsD, GalleyCat, CNET, Publishers Lunch, Hillicon Valley, The Week, Digital Book World and Electronista

Filipe Alves / Reuters:

Google must extend payments across Europe for use of content — (Reuters) - Google Inc must extend its offer made last week to pay French publishers for use of their content to all media companies across Europe, the head of the European Publishers Council said on Thursday.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Plagiarism Today, NetNewsCheck Latest, Engadget and bizjournals

Michael Neibauer / Washington Business Journal:

Washington Post polling users on possible paywall packages — The Washington Post Co. is taking a step toward paid Web content, surveying its users on potential packages. — The email survey, we're told by one recipient, includes standard questions about how often readers visit washingtonpost.com …

Discussion: Poynter

Jennifer Van Grove / CNET:

LinkedIn eyes future as professional publishing hub — The company seems set on making business content, not social networking, the focus of the site. — LinkedIn spent much of 2012 transforming itself into a place where workers could stay and play awhile — a strategy that paid off handsomely.

Discussion: Beyond Search, NetNewsCheck Latest, Adweek, SocialTimes, Forbes and VentureBeat

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Former publisher's bill would have compelled newspapers to ID commenters — A panel in Idaho's legislature rejected a bill that would have forced newspapers to disclose the identities of commenters in the event of a lawsuit, Betsy Z. Russell reports in The Spokesman-Review.

Nick Collins / Telegraph:

BBC to launch programmes online first — BBC television programmes are to be broadcast online before reaching TV screens under a new trial as the corporation attempts to rival web services like Netflix. — BBC iPlayer is growing in popularity and last month announced its highest ever number …

Discussion: Electronista and BBC

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

NYT & Mark Thompson's First Report: Unsteady as She Goes — New York Times watchers were looking forward to hearing new CEO Mark Thompson's plummy tones this morning, as he hosted the company's quarterly earnings report for the first time. This report also included full-year, 2012.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, paidContent and The Next Web