Mediagazer: New York Times closes another loophole in its digital paywall (Jeff John Roberts/paidContent)

2:50 PM ET, March 26, 2013

Top News:

Hashtags considered #harmful — The noble hashtag is cursed by a problem Yogi Berra could appreciate: Too many people use it, so no one goes there. — Presumably, most Twitter users use hashtags intending to add their tweet to a river of similar information and to expose their own thoughts to a wider, interested audience.

Discussion: @caseymcdermott, @mykola, @marksluckie, @michaelroston, @aschweig, @smalera, @kev097, @jaredbkeller, @pwthornton, @chanders and @digiphile

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Pocket Introduces Publisher Tools And Analytics To Extend Content Life With Its 8.5M-Strong Audience — Pocket, the save-for-later service that evolved from ReadItLater, is introducing new publisher tools today, including a way to see how content saved to the platform is performing …

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

Rachael Daigle / AAN:

Alt-Weeklies Are Dead; Long Live Alt-Weeklies — Yes, the alternative weekly of yesterday is toast. At least it should be if the alt-weekly business is going to survive. — The year 2012 was big in the alternative newsweekly world. — It was the year the country's largest chain of alt-weeklies …

Discussion: Poynter and Beyond Search, Thanks:@altweeklies

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

BBC Study Confirms Tablets' Growing Role In TV Consumption, But Also That TV Remains Supreme — Companies like Google, Twitter and Nielsen — who respectively make money from digital advertising, want to make a lot more from digital ads, and get paid to provide data to justify ads online and offline …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and European Journalism Centre

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

New York Times closes another loophole in its digital paywall — Look out, media cheapskates — the New York Times is losing patience with your skinflint ways. After imposing a metered paywall last year to restrict how many articles non-subscribers can read for free, the Times is clamping …

Discussion: Media Week

Lorraine Murphy / Daily Dot:

How Anonymous gamed Twitter to shed light on a hidden massacre — Genocide in Burma (Myanmar) is, unfortunately, nothing new. The country is consistently featured in Worst Human Rights lists. But with the recent democratic reforms—including the freedom of former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi—there was hope.

Discussion: The Verge, VentureBeat, The Stream and Softpedia News

Aaron Sankin / The Huffington Post:

Major Changes At The San Francisco Chronicle Spark Outrage — SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Chronicle announced over the weekend that the paper would begin charging for a large portion of its online content by imposing a paywall. — Since it became one of the first major newspapers …

Discussion: SF Appeal, The Snitch, KQED Public Media …, KQED News Fix, Pacific Media Workers Guild, SFist, SFBay, FishbowlLA, Pacific Media Workers Guild and CNET

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

The Telegraph goes behind a soft UK paywall, free online access restricted to 20 articles a month — Remember The Telegraph introduced an online paywall and subscription plans last year for non-UK readers? Well, that's now being rolled out for its home-grown readers too.

Discussion: Guardian, Journalism.co.uk, BBC, @timdanaher, @peterwalker99, @psmith, @bkristolballs, @psmith, @peterwalker99, Guido Fawkes and TheMediaBriefing

Bloomberg:

Intel Said Nearing Media Company Deals for Pay-TV Service — Intel Corp. (INTC) is making progress in talks with Time Warner Inc. (TWX), NBC Universal and Viacom Inc. (VIAB) to obtain TV shows and films for a first-of-its kind online pay-TV service, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: Radio & Television … and Deadline.com

Adam Popescu / ReadWrite:

How Online Comments Are Becoming A Big Business — They almost seem like an afterthought, the comments attached to Internet content. These scribblings may seem like the anonymous musings of the masses, but many corporations are viewing them as a high-powered vehicle to drive lead generation …

Kim Masters / Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros.' Kevin Tsujihara on Studio Plans, Digital Critics and Lunch With Clint Eastwood — The new WB chief looks to navigate a hazy outlook as the digital space drives entertainment — but not yet revenue: “We don't want ... to lose focus.” — On the morning of March 5 …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and @fredericg

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“Post Classic”: The Washington Post integrates its print edition into a new iPad app — What if you had an old-school newspaper newsroom where the digital producers were at the core of the operation, and the task of putting together the print newspaper was the side job?

Discussion: MediaShift and Washington Post

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Hulu Isn't for Sale — Yet. But Buyers Are Asking ... Two years ago, Hulu's corporate owners put the video site up for sale — and then took it off the block. — New version of a similar story: Hulu's corporate owners still aren't sure what they want to do with the site.