Mediagazer: Amazon's Quest for Web Names Draws Foes (Greg Bensinger/Wall Street Journal)

3:55 AM ET, March 12, 2013

Top News:

Bryan Goldberg / PandoDaily:

Gawker admits defeat, tries to replicate Bleacher Report and Huffington Post — I don't cover news for PandoDaily, but I figured that I would give it a shot today. — Gawker has thrown in the towel on their old model. Today, their popular Deadspin blog has announced that they are creating a …

Tommy Craggs / Deadspin:

Welcome To The New Deadspin — Hi. The place looks different, doesn't it? The sofa's over there now, where the Fillmore West '69 poster used to be. We tossed the Yaffa blocks and the lava lamp, and we managed to sell Magary's old futon on Craigslist, even though the mattress was starting to look like the Shroud of Turin.

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

Can anyone turn streaming music into a real business? — After ten years of struggle, nobody has figured out how to make music pay — “The subscription model has failed so far,” Steve Jobs said in April 2007. “People want to own their music.” At that time, Apple had solved the problem …

Committee to Protect Journalists:

China's new leadership faces censorship challenge — China's new leaders will face unprecedented challenges to controlling the media, even as journalists' efforts to test the system continue to carry great risk, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, Committee to Protect …, Economist, Committee to Protect …, Committee to Protect … and Committee to Protect …

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Matt Lauer Finally Talks — The Today host tells Howard Kurtz that NBC mishandled Ann Curry's ouster and describes how the network is rebuilding the show. Plus, his secret talks with Katie Couric. — One day last fall, Matt Lauer walked out of his 30 Rock office and took the elevator …

Discussion: TVNewser, Deadline.com, Gawker, Vanity Fair, Business Insider, PopWatch, Mediaite, Guardian, New York Post, Softpedia News, NY Daily News, Chickaboomer, The Huffington Post, @brianstelter, @bobbymacreports, @moorehn, @steph_griff and @howardkurtz

Sam Thielman / Adweek:

The New CNN Gets Into the Big Data Game — CNN is once again trying its hand at the analytics game in the upfront, only this time it has the backing of a larger partnership. The cable news network is joining forces with Nielsen and Arbitron to create CNN All-Screen, which will measure …

Discussion: TVNewser

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Can E-Books Work for Publishers? — This is the second in a four-part series, “Fixing The Publisher Model,” looking at how publishers are experimenting with new models that can bring in additional revenue. — Publishers across the board are hunting for dollars beyond advertising …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, @tcarmody and @tcarmody

Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:

Spotify Said Expanding Pandora-Like Web Radio Worldwide — Spotify Ltd., the subscription music-streaming service, is close to agreements with record labels to expand its free mobile radio product outside the U.S., said three people with knowledge of the talks.

Discussion: CNET, paidContent, TechCrunch and The Verge

Jennifer Howard / Chronicle of Higher Education:

In the Digital Era, Our Dictionaries Read Us — For Peter Sokolowski, a high-profile event like the 9/11 attacks or the 2012 vice-presidential debate is not just news. It's a “vocabulary event” that sends readers racing to their dictionaries. — Sokolowski is editor at large for Merriam-Webster …

Evan Weiner / The Daily Beast:

Rupert Murdoch Goes All-In on College Sports — News Corp. is about to shower hundreds of millions of dollars on big sports schools in exchange for the right to broadcast the games. Evan Weiner on how the athletes get short-changed. — As college basketball's March Madness approaches …

Erik Wemple:

Boston.com had no control over bogus Krugman post — The Daily Currant makes another round of headlines with its satire. Weeks ago, it bamboozled the Washington Post into believing that Sarah Palin had signed on with Al Jazeera as a commentator. — Now it has hoaxed the journalism world …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Business Insider, msnbc.com, The Week, Slate, Mediaite, The Raw Story, Media Nation, Capital New York and The Huffington Post

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

LinkedIn to Buy Pulse Newsreader for More than $50M — LinkedIn will buy the maker of the newsreader app Pulse, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. — The price of the acquisition is in the tens of millions, they said — between $50 million to $100 million.