Top News:
Eric Mark Do / MediaShift:
Toronto Star Tests Monthly E-Book Subscriptions — The Toronto Star is testing the e-book market with a dedicated subscription model. Launched in November 2012, Star Dispatches is the brainchild of the Toronto Star's marketing department. The Star already has more than 20 titles …
Discussion:
@jeffsonderman
Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:
Ebooks made up 23 percent of US publisher sales in 2012, says the AAP — Ebooks accounted for nearly a quarter of the U.S. trade book business in 2012, according to statistics released Thursday by the Association of American Publishers. The ebook industry appears to be maturing, however …
Discussion:
PublishersWeekly.com and Digital Book World
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
AOL Confirms Ned Brody Has Resigned As Head Of AOL Networks, CEO Armstrong Takes Over In The Interim [Memo] — Some turmoil in the management ranks at AOL, with Yahoo, apparently, hoping to profit as part of its ongoing hiring spree. AOL (which owns TechCrunch) has confirmed to us that Ned Brody …
Discussion:
AllThingsD, AdAge, FishbowlNY, MinOnline, Business Insider and SlashGear
Sue Marek / FierceWireless:
Verizon CEO: 50% of our wireless traffic is video — LAS VEGAS—Video accounts for 50 percent of Verizon Wireless' (NYSE:VZ) network traffic today and by 2017 the carrier estimates video will make up two-thirds of all traffic over the network. Speaking at the National Association …
Discussion:
ZDNet, The Verge, App Advice, MacRumors, SlashGear, 9to5Mac, Business Insider, AppleInsider, GigaOM and Softpedia News
Brooke Sutherland / Bloomberg:
Dish Deals Made Possible by Exxon-Like Cash: Real M&A — Dish Network Corp. (DISH) Chairman Charlie Ergen has accumulated a record $10 billion in cash, leaving investors to speculate whether he's setting his sights on a takeover of T-Mobile USA Inc. or a merger with rival DirecTV.
Discussion:
dailywireless.org, Denver Business Journal and FierceWireless
Jackie Spinner / American Journalism Review:
Launching a Startup in Iraq — When ExxonMobil hired a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq as a consultant on its oil business there, an upstart news service broke the story. The February disclosure was the second major scoop involving Exxon for 32-year-old Ben Lando, who founded the Web-based Iraq Oil Report …
Dylan Byers / Politico:
USA Today revises ‘illegal immigrant’ use — On the heels of the Associated Press's decision to drop the term, “illegal immigrant,” USA Today has announced that it too will no longer be using the term, except when it appears within quotation marks. — “Starting tonight, USA TODAY is also changing its style.
Discussion:
JIMROMENESKO.COM and The Huffington Post
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
Sinclair Broadcast Group Adds Station Heft with Fisher Communications Buy … Sinclair Broadcast Group is adding some large-market heft to its station holdings with a $373.3 million deal to acquire Seattle-based Fisher Communications. — The cash buyout will give Sinclair …
Jim Romenesko:
Gawker Media staff told to keep headlines under 70 characters — “Why this drastic measure” of keeping headlines under 70 characters? writes Gawker Media boss Nick Denton. “Google and others truncate headlines at 70 characters. On the Manti Te'o story, Deadspin's scoop fell …
Jack Marshall / Digiday:
The Web's Worst Ad Clutter Offenders — Web advertising is a volume game, an arms race to ward off declining CPM prices. The way to combat that: create more Ms. — Web publishers talk a big game about cleaner, less cluttered sites, but when push comes to shove, they look to cram as many ad pixels as they can on pages.
Discussion:
MarketingVox News & Trends
Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The newsonomics of recycling journalism — There's an important number in his week's first-of-its-kind Newspaper Association of America report — The American Newspaper Media Industry Revenue Profile 2012 — on the evolution of revenue sources. That number: 8 percent.
Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:
Blackstrap will turn your Pocket or Instapaper articles into a $15 print book — A new site called Blackstrap will let you turn the articles you've saved on Instapaper, Pocket or Twitter into a $15 printed book. But does anybody actually need this service?
Loes Witschge / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Getting personal: A Dutch online news platform wants you to subscribe to individual journalists — “It's my own little shop, that's what I like about it. You decide what goes in — like having your own newspaper.” — Arnold Karskens has his own channel on Dutch news startup De Nieuwe Pers (The New Press).
Discussion:
Kirk LaPointe's … and The Dish