Mediagazer: MPAA: Piracy Hub Hotfile Found Liable for Copyright Infringement (Ted Johnson/Variety)

4:10 AM ET, August 29, 2013

Top News:

New York Times website restored after hacker attack — The popular New York Times website returned to service on Wednesday after hackers forced it down for nearly a day, with a group backing Syria's government claiming responsibility. — The website nytimes.com, one of the most influential sources …

Simon Rogers / Twitter Blog:
The New York Times tests a new Tweet feature

Discussion: Softpedia News, The Drum, Mashable, The Next Web, New York Times, eMedia Vitals, @lowresolution and @robertcaruso

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Press+ Launches a Service to Make Online Video Profitable (Exclusive) — You can start by watching the Microsoft anti-trust trial, but shows from major entertainment companies could be next — Press+, which provides paywalls for the websites of several top newspaper chains …

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Twitter Acquires Social TV Tracker Trendrr — Twitter has acquired Trendrr, a social tracking TV service that until today competed with Twitter's own in-house analytics products. — After Wednesday's acquisition, the three dominant, stand-alone players in the social TV chatter space are gone.

Ted Johnson / Variety:

MPAA: Piracy Hub Hotfile Found Liable for Copyright Infringement — Cyberlocker Hotfile has been found liable for copyright infringement for housing movies and TV shows on its site, the MPAA said on Wednesday. — The decision from the U.S. District Court in Florida was the first such ruling …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Techdirt, Hillicon Valley, Home Media Magazine and Broadcasting & Cable

Cameron Tung / The New Yorker Blog:

How Podcasts Conquered Comedy — When Marc Maron recorded his third comedy album, in the summer of 2008, he was a respected standup performer whose commercial prospects were so grim that he was bracing himself for the sputtering end of a twenty-five-year career. In his bleakest moments, he mulled suicide.

Kelly McBride / Poynter:

What the ESPN/Frontline breakup teaches us about investigative reporting — As we put the pieces together in this week's ESPN/Frontline breakup, we've learned something about investigative journalism: it's incredibly difficult for a news organization to hold its own partners accountable.

Discussion: @kellymcb

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

BuzzFeed has a Medium problem — BuzzFeed ought to thank anti-abortion group Personhood USA, which has exposed a serious flaw in the upstart publication's system. With a BuzzFeedalicious listicle detailing why Planned Parenthood is the work of a promiscuous, condomless Satan …

Discussion: @hamishmckenzie, @charessespieces, @amoussako and National Review

David Ford / ABC News:

ABC News Reopens Bureau in Beirut — ABC News has reopened a bureau in Beirut, Lebanon. Alexander Marquardt who covers the region for the network will be based there. The Beirut bureau is in addition to ABC's long-standing base in Jerusalem. ABC's first Beirut bureau was opened 45 years ago by a young Peter Jennings.

Discussion: @simonmarksfsn, @meekwire, The Huffington Post, Politico, @williamsjon and @marquardta

Reporters Without Borders:
News providers targeted by both government and opposition forces

Discussion: Poynter

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
As Syria Attack Looms, Few U.S. News Outlets Report From Damascus

Discussion: NBCNews, @jpeyron, Lawfare and The Daily Caller

stdout.be:

Cargo cult analytics — This is a talk I gave at a Hacks/Hackers meetup in Berlin on August 21, 2013. — Thanks for inviting me to speak at this Hacks/Hackers meetup. My name is Stijn Debrouwere. I'm a Knight-Mozilla OpenNews fellow and I'm loosely affiliated with the Guardian's data science team in London.

Discussion: @ajdant, @mattwaite, @greglinch, @yurivictor, @nowthis, @stdbrouw, @andymboyle and @yelvington

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Arianna Goes (Even More) Global: HuffPost Live Launches WorldPost in Berggruen Institute Partnership — HuffPost Live Host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin speaking with Mehdi Hasan, political director of HuffPost U.K. — HuffPost Live, the Huffington Post's live-streaming network …

Discussion: @blakehounshell, @huffpostlive and @ase

Jeremy Thompson / Press Gazette:

Mick Deane: 'We can't let the bad guys win, the people rely on us to be their voice' — Mick Deane died as he lived, doing his best. Doing his best to open the eyes of the world to injustice. Doing his best for his mates. And he never did less than his best.

Discussion: Sky News, TV Newsroom, @fieldproducer, @skyorla and @domponsford

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

AOL Hires Associated Content's Luke Beatty in Key Strategy Role — Luke Beatty — the well-known entrepreneur who created Associated Content and later sold it to Yahoo for $90 million — will be taking a key job at AOL as its head of strategic partnerships.

Discussion: @rosslevinsohn, @savvysarahjane and Softpedia News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:

Verizon Wireless again working on deal to break free of Vodafone, says WSJ — We haven't heard much about Verizon's rumored plans to buy out Vodafone's stake in the company for $100 billion for a few months now, but according to the Wall Street Journal those talks have been “rekindled.”

Discussion: The Next Web, Wall Street Journal and MoneyBeat