Mediagazer: Amazon's success formula: move bits instead of boxes (Reuters)

11:05 AM ET, April 26, 2013

Top News:

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

The next generation of Instapaper — When I launched Instapaper in 2008, it was a very basic web app. It quickly expanded to define the pillars of the read-later market: a one-click “read later” bookmarklet, a web sync service, an adjustable text view optimized for reading, and an iPhone app with offline saving.

Discussion: Wired, The Verge, paidContent, PC Magazine, Good E-Reader, Cult of Mac, eMedia Vitals, The Next Web, App Advice, TidBITS, San Francisco Chronicle, Mashable, paidContent, CNET, VentureBeat, Engadget, MacRumors, MacStories, AppleInsider, Softpedia News and AllThingsD

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
Digg Owner Betaworks Buys Instapaper To Go Big On Social Reading And Discovery

Discussion: WebProNews, FishbowlNY and TUAW

Reuters:

Amazon's success formula: move bits instead of boxes — (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc appears to have figured out the secret to being more profitable: sell less physical stuff. — The company reported slowing revenue growth and offered a disappointing outlook for this quarter on Thursday …

Discussion: New York Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post and Business Insider

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Kindle TV: why does Amazon need a set-top box?

Discussion: ReadWrite, VatorNews, Wall Street Journal and GigaOM

Ken Yeung / The Next Web:
Amazon beats Wall Street estimates with $0.18 EPS, sales at $16.07B in Q1 2013, a 22% growth YoY

Discussion: TechCrunch

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

White House Correspondents' Association dinner isn't costly, but the parties are — Figure on paying big time for a semi-glamorous locale; an embassy will do (but only one for a major country). Then, add in food and booze — about $100 a head. Plus entertainment, security, cleanup, insurance.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Atlantic Wire, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post and Chickaboomer

Tom Lavell / Bloomberg:

Murdoch to Get $28.3 Million Pay When News Corp. Splits — Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire founder of News Corp., will receive $28.3 million in combined compensation next year from the two businesses created by the breakup of his media empire. — Murdoch's base pay in 2014 will amount to $8.1 million …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, FishbowlNY, Reuters and Seeking Alpha

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Why the New York Times has set up a newsroom analytics team — The team was set up by Aron Pilhofer, who already runs the interactive news team, social media team and communities team, to introduce editorial-focused analysis of data — Copyright: By DaveBleasdale on Flickr. Some Rights Reserved.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:
The New York Times Releases Its Headline-Reading Google Glass App

Discussion: MediaShift, CNET, Engadget, Softpedia News, The Next Web and The Verge

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Financial Times faces weak advertising market, says parent company — Pearson predicts difficult first quarter for newspaper, with total group revenues down 1% year on year to £1.2bn — Pearson has said that the Financial Times faced a “weak” advertising market in the first quarter of this year …

Discussion: The Drum

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

YouTube Drops Price for Upfront Packages to Lure TV Dollars — Lessons From Last Year: Be More Flexible — YouTube is taking a novel approach to winning TV ad dollars during this year's Upfront season: lowering prices. — Google's video platform — the world's biggest …

Discussion: AdExchanger and Guardian

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

Time Warner Cable to Squeeze More Profit From Fewer Users — Time Warner Cable Inc. customers should prepare to pay more for the services they want. — The cable company is scaling back its discounts after years of offering low introductory rates on all-encompassing packages of Internet, television and phone service.

Discussion: MarketWatch

Garance Franke-Ruta / The Atlantic Online:

Why Big Cities Make Media Liberal—and Why the Koch Brothers Can't Do Anything About It — On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Koch brothers — yes, those Koch brothers, of dumping mad cash into elections fame — are considering buying the Tribune network of newspapers in a bid …

Discussion: Wonkblog, Nieman Journalism Lab, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Slate and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Thanks:@underoak

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Wavii Shuts Down as It's Officially Acquired by Google — Wavii, which aggregated and summarized news, has been bought by Google. — News of the impending deal and its price ("more than $30 million") had already been widely discussed following Business Insider and TechCrunch reports …

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat and The Next Web

Jon Chesto / Boston Business Journal:

Boston Globe prepares to raise its seven-day delivery prices by nearly 8 percent — The Boston Globe may be on its way out of The New York Times Co.'s fold, but the Globe's strategy to stabilize circulation revenue is still borrowing from the parent company's playbook.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
Times Company sees sale of ‘Boston Globe’ in second half of 2013

Discussion: paidContent, Bloomberg and Capital New York

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

New York Times paywall growth slows — But it remains to be seen whether that's a one-quarter blip or the new normal — The torrid growth in digital-only subscribers to The New York Times slowed sharply in the first quarter. Worse, advertising fell so sharply that the paper's overall revenue declined slightly.

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, The Atlantic Wire, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, AdAge, The New York Times Company, VentureBeat, Guardian and Quartz

Sarah Lyall / New York Times:

New Law Makes Suing for Libel Harder in England — LONDON — London's reputation as the libel capital of the world, “a town called sue,” is poised to end. — A new law enacted Thursday strengthens the position of people sued for libel here and puts an end to most cases of so-called libel tourism …

Free Culture Foundation:

Don't let the myths fool you: the W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal to all Web users. — A handful of myths have become common defenses of the W3C's plan for “Encrypted Media Extensions” (EME), a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) scheme for HTML5, the next version of the markup language upon which the Web is built.