Mediagazer: $2 Million for ‘Veronica Mars’ Breaks Kickstarter Records, Gets Greenlight (Josh Dickey/Variety)

5:00 AM ET, March 14, 2013

Top News:

Josh Dickey / Variety:

$2 Million for ‘Veronica Mars’ Breaks Kickstarter Records, Gets Greenlight … Here's a Hollywood success story sure to kickstart a crowd of copycats: The “Veronica Mars” movie is getting made, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign that within hours of launching Wednesday became the fastest …

Discussion: Kickstarter, Inside TV, The Atlantic Wire, @alexisohanian, @awallenstein, @cdixon, @eugenewei, The Wrap, Deadline.com, Washington Post, Hypable, Spoiler TV, @hankgreen, CNNMoney.com, @zeldawilliams, Gawker, TechCrunch and Speakeasy

Anette Novak / INMA:

By helping others become competent communicators, legacy media make themselves stronger — Strengthening community competence and awareness is not only a good deed. It is a great business opportunity. And a relationship builder. No bond is stronger than the one you bind while learning together.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NYT design honcho on redesign: 'We're not going to do things that don't work' — The New York Times lifted the veil on its redesign efforts Tuesday, showing off prototypes of article pages as they might appear on the Web and on tablets. Reached by phone, Times director of digital design Ian Adelman …

Discussion: John Pavlus

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

Inside the New York Times' web redesign — A guided hands-on with the NYT's first design overhaul since 2006, set to go live this fall — On Tuesday, The New York Times announced a complete overhaul of its web presence on all platforms, going live on desktops and tablets this fall.

Discussion: New York Magazine and The Next Web

Fruzsina Eordogh / Motherboard:

In Defense of Reddit: The SXSW Controversy That Just Won't Die — We could have seen this coming. — Last Friday, Adrian Chen of Gawker, Farhad Manjoo of Slate, and Rebecca Watson of Skepchick gave what observers called an unbalanced and negative critique of the web community in their SXSW panel …

Discussion: Businessweek and CyberJournalist.net

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:

Google To Close Google Reader On July 1 — Google Reader user? Say goodbye. Google has announced the service is closing on July 1. — The news came today in a “Spring Cleaning” blog post from Google, where the company said: … I'm pretty amazed to read this.

Discussion: Building Feedly, The Official Google Blog, Official Google Reader Blog, Wired, Mashable!, Search Engine Land, The Next Web, Gizmodo Australia and CNET

Nate Raymond / Reuters:

Apple CEO Cook must testify in e-books antitrust case: judge — (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook must sit for a deposition in the U.S. government's lawsuit against the company over alleged price-fixing in the e-book market, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

Discussion: paidContent, The Verge, PublishersWeekly.com, Melville House Books, AppleInsider, MacRumors, AllThingsD, CNET, App Advice and 9to5Mac

Steven Bird / The Conversation:

Cyberlinguistics: recording the world's vanishing voices — Of the 7,000 languages spoken on the planet, Tembé is at the small end with just 150 speakers left. In a few days, I will head into the Brazilian Amazon to record Tembé - via specially-designed technology - for posterity.

Rory Carroll / Guardian:

Keith Olbermann settles lawsuit with Al Gore's Current TV for $50m — Famously rambunctious broadcaster was fired last year, triggering angry recriminations aimed at former employer — Keith Olbermann may never get another job in television but quite possibly does not need one after settling …

Discussion: Forbes, Deadline.com, Inside TV and The Huffington Post

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

CBS Expands Digital Deals with ‘Good Wife’ Syndie Pact … CBS is diving deeper into the digital licensing arena with syndie pacts for “The Good Wife” with Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus. Pact marks the first time the Eye has made episodes of a current series available for streaming.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Adweek, Cinema Blend Television, AdAge, Los Angeles Times, Newser and Broadcasting & Cable

Ken Kurson / The New York Observer:

Looking Back, Moving Forward — I've been a fan of this newspaper for more than 20 years and its editor for less than three months. One of the things that people keep asking from me—demanding, actually—is that most noxious of modern conventions, “the elevator pitch.”

Discussion: Capital New York

Megan Rose Dickey / Business Insider:

Twitter Is Getting Into The Music Business — Twitter is entering the music business, CNET's Casey Newton reports. — Twitter quietly acquired music-discovery startup We Are Hunted last year, according to CNET. — Since the acquisition, Twitter has been using its technology to develop …

Discussion: CNET, GigaOM, NME, The Music Network, AllThingsD, Gizmodo, The Next Web and TechCrunch

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing:

Print-on-demand: A way to turn digital products into print revenue without the risk? — Could turning digital-only content into print be a viable extra revenue stream? — Digital publishing used to be an adjunct to print - the icing on the cake of print circulation and advertising that was the foundation of a publisher's business.

Discussion: ReadWrite and eMedia Vitals