Mediagazer: Music streamer Spotify doubles 2012 revenues after expansion (Mia Shanley/Reuters)

6:35 PM ET, July 31, 2013

Top News:

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’ — • XKeyscore gives ‘widest-reaching’ collection of online data — • NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches — • Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Did the media drop the ball on the Bradley Manning trial? — “The corporate media coverage of this trial, which is arguably one of the most important cases in modern American history, has been utterly shameful,” Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill said on “Democracy Now!”

Discussion: @sulliview, @piratenpartij, @abeaujon, Guardian, Guardian, @niemanlab, Variety, Democracy Now, Committee to Protect … and @lukewearechange

David Carr / New York Times:
Whistle-Blowers in Limbo, Neither Hero Nor Traitor

Discussion: Forbes and Guardian

Brian Fung / The Switch:
Senators lash out at NSA for excessive secrecy

Discussion: ODNI Newsroom Feed and Forbes

Elias Groll / Foreign Policy:
What Does the Manning Verdict Mean for Edward Snowden?

Discussion: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Hit & Run, BBC and The Raw Story

David Batty / Guardian:

Bomb threats made on Twitter to female journalists — Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman and Independent writer Grace Dent among women threatened — Police are investigating bomb threats made on Twitter against several female journalists, including Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman.

Discussion: Jezebel, @lauraslattery, @thestephmerritt, @robmanuel, @mickpuck, @mjrobbins, @kevinbakhurst, @lindasgrant, @dawnhfoster, @ladysnarksalot, @benisdangerous, @saralang, @leftstandingup, @vivelebeeve, @orwellupgraded, @mwilliamsthomas, The Guardian World News and Guardian

Christopher Mims / Quartz:

Google is testing a local news product for Google Now — Google has hatched a plan to boost the visibility of its existing local news product, and in the process is testing a whole new way to get people to pay attention to the news that is geographically most relevant to them.

Discussion: GigaOM, TechCrunch, TechnoBuffalo, The Verge, Search Engine Land, @digiphile, @vincos, SlashGear, Engadget, @mathewi, @tscurrie, @laureni, @jason and @niemanlab

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:

Good Jill, Bad Jill: The queen of The New York Times — April was an unusual, if not the cruelest, month for New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who in September will mark two years on the job. On Monday afternoon, April 15, Abramson—who, at 59, is the first woman to serve …

Discussion: Poynter, The Wrap, @carr2n, Capital New York, The Huffington Post, Jezebel, The Atlantic Wire, FishbowlNY, @moorehn, @amyohconnor, @calflyn, @janinegibson, @nicohines and New York Magazine

Ryan Singel / Wired:

Now That It's in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality — In a dramatic about-face on a key internet issue yesterday, Google told the FCC that the network neutrality rules Google once championed don't give citizens the right to run servers on their home broadband connections …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Mashable, Forbes, @ericmann, @benedictevans, Electronista, Yahoo! News, @benwoz, GigaOM, Gizmodo, @clmazin, @shipilev, The Verge and Boing Boing

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Plain Dealer ‘eliminated the jobs of approximately 50 journalists’ — The Plain Dealer's promised layoffs took place Wednesday morning. About 50 people lost their jobs, one report says. — “Many of those let go will be familiar names to readers - reporters, columnists …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Crain's Cleveland Business, Facebook, Crain's Cleveland Business, Talking Biz News, @robcurley, @ericsandy, Erik Wemple, @frickmeghan, @alexandervision, @bobsegallwthr, @lew_jetton and @banditelli

Reuters:

CBS Earnings Beat Expectations, Sumner Redstone Endorses Les Moonves — CBS Corp. reported a greater-than-expected 14 percent rise in quarterly earnings on Tuesday, helped by healthier results from its television business, and boosted its dividend. — The first-quarter report sent CBS shares …

Discussion: Deadline.com, Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter, @jboorstin, @dana_mcclintock, @megjameslat, @dana_mcclintock, @jlafayette and @jboorstin

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

CBS President On ‘Illegal’ Aereo: 'We Don't Think It's Catching On At All' — Considering how hard his company has been trying to obtain a legal death warrant for Aereo, CBS president Les Moonves affected a suspiciously nonchalant air when talking about the streaming TV service on Wednesday's earnings call.

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Social Video Startup NowThis News Launches The First-Ever News Channel On Instagram — A few weeks ago, Instagram announced Video, a way to share 15 second clips as well as photos with followers. Social web video startup NowThis News is taking advantage of it and launching the first-ever Instagram news channel.

Discussion: @nickidems, @julianxbrand, NewscastStudio, WebProNews, PYMNTS.com and Beet.TV

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Guardian's editor opens up on Reddit — Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, answered questions in an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit today. Most of the conversation focused on the NSA PRISM leak, but he also goes into detail about his understanding of the paper's business model and strategy.

Discussion: GigaOM, Poynter and @dangillmor

Mia Shanley / Reuters:

Music streamer Spotify doubles 2012 revenues after expansion — (Reuters) - Music streaming web service Spotify more than doubled revenues in 2012 to 435 million euros ($577 million) as it expanded to new markets and almost doubled its users, documents showed on Wednesday.

Discussion: VentureBeat, TechCrunch and hypebot

Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
Spotify in 2012: revenues of $577.1m and a net loss of $77.9m

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @stuartdredge and Financial Times

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

Facebook Draws More Young Prime-Time Viewers Than Major Networks — Facebook Inc. (FB), the largest social-networking company, attracts more 18- to 24-year-old people during prime-time viewing hours than any of four major television networks, a study from Nielsen found.

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:
Facebook Said to Plan to Sell TV-Style Ads for $2.5M Each

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Making TVs smart: why most smart TVs still feel pretty dumb — Making TVs smart is a three-part series that looks at why smart TVs have failed to take off — and what needs to happen for these devices to realize their vast potential. Look for parts two and three on Thursday and Friday.

Discussion: @codeandtheory

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google Launches New Ad Unit For Responsive Sites — Google today launched a new responsive AdSense unit in beta that is specifically designed to run on sites that automatically adapt to different screen sizes. Now that responsive design has moved from being just a buzzword to something …

Discussion: support.google.com, Inside AdSense, @yinkawrites, @niemanlab and Marketing Land

James Chapman / Daily Mail:

BBC could be curbed under government plans to rein in dominance of media giants — The BBC could be included in a move to limit media ownership, the Government announced yesterday. — Culture Secretary Maria Miller launched a consultation on rules governing media plurality …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, TBI Vision, The Australian, @democracyfail, Guardian and broadcastnow.co.uk

USA Today:

How the digital age has reshaped the ad game — Madison Avenue is quickly morphing into Digital Drive. — Technological advances have changed everything from where consumers watch TV to how they buy holiday gifts. In turn, ad agencies have revamped their hiring practices …

Discussion: PSFK and eMedia Vitals

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:
Should Publishers Fear Publicis Omnicom?

Discussion: @thebaltogroup, @joshsternberg and @rickjwaghorn

Spencer E. Ante / Wall Street Journal:

Report Finds MIT Didn't Push Aaron Swartz Prosecution but Says It Failed to Lead — A Massachusetts Institute of Technology report concluded the university acted prudently in the way it handled its involvement with the government's prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz …

Discussion: Salon, TarenSK, Wired, Chicago Sun Times, @semanticwill, TIME and Digits

Chris Trotter / The Daily Blog:

Lone Wolf: Jon Stephenson and his Search for the Truth — A person who continues to believe that one's honour is worth defending; one's reputation is worth preserving; and that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is still worth risking everything to find.

Discussion: @jmnicholls, @maxdcoyle and @feyhag