Mediagazer: Sponsored-Content Spending Growing Faster Than Predicted (Michael Sebastian/AdAge)

10:45 AM ET, November 21, 2013

Top News:

Politico's Mike Allen, native advertising pioneer — Introducing: The “Playbook” game! — Politico Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen writes “Playbook,” a daily e-mail newsletter featuring stories from Politico and other outlets, various “exclusives,” tips and birthday notices.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
New York Times Trying To ‘Win The Morning’ From Politico

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Daily Caller and Capital New York

Dylan Byers / Politico:
N.Y. Times D.C. shakeup: David Leonhardt out, Carolyn Ryan in as bureau chief

Discussion: The Monkey Cage, Adweek, The New Republic, New York Times, @lpolgreen, @thestalwart, NetNewsCheck Latest, @kwcollins, FishbowlDC, New York Magazine, Poynter, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, @poynter, @fmanjoo and Capital New York

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

In Case You Thought BuzzFeed Needed More GIFs, The Site Launches A GIF Feed Sponsored By Google+ — Do you sometimes read BuzzFeed and think, “This is great, but why is all this text getting in the way of the funny GIFs?” If so, there's a perfect new section for you, called the GIF Feed.

Leila Abboud / Reuters:

Cable group Liberty Global not sure mobile ‘a must-have’ — (Reuters) - Liberty Global, Europe's biggest cable group will sell mobile services as part of all-inclusive bundles across its 12 markets in the coming years but is not yet convinced that such so-called quadruple-play offers are a big attraction.

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Pinterest Launches Tools To Help Users Plan Trips — Posted 12 seconds ago by Ryan Lawler (@ryanlawler) — Meet Mobile Incubator Tandem's New Class Of Startups — Or Rather, Two Thirds Of It — Pinterest took its biggest step toward monetization yet tonight, as the company released …

Discussion: Oh, How Pinteresting!, Street Fight, WebProNews, AllThingsD, SocialTimes, The Next Web, @jguynn, @rafat, @skift, @johnnyjet, @jguynn, @pinterest, @hannahkuchler, @skift and CNET

Gideon Spanier / The Independent:

Murdoch family tighten their grip on Vice — Everybody is talking about the youth media company since Rupert bought a stake. Now, James is set to join the board — James Murdoch is being lined up as a director of Vice Media in what would be his second significant boardroom job since …

Discussion: Evening Standard, @rupertmurdochpr, @gracedent and UK - The Huffington Post

Caroline Davies / Guardian:

News of the World royal editor warned of jail over payments, court hears — Phone-hacking trial hears of email telling managing editor that if cash payments to sources were traced, they would all be jailed — The former royal editor of the News of the World warned the newspaper's managing editor that he …

Ben Miller / Puget Sound Business Journal:

Amazon makes deal with A24 film studio — Amazon.com Inc. said it's made a deal with the A24 film studio, which made movies including “Spring Breakers” and “The Bling Ring,” with the studio's future productions heading first to Amazon Prime Instant Video upon their release to DVD and Blu-Ray.

Discussion: Amazon.com and The Next Web

Alex Pham / Billboard:

TuneCore Taps INDmusic to Monetize YouTube — TuneCore Inc., one of the world's largest digital music distribution companies, on Wednesday announced it has signed an agreement with INDmusic to better monetize its artists' music on YouTube. The deal calls for INDmusic to adminster …

Discussion: Digital Music News, BroadwayWorld.com, hypebot and Los Angeles Times

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Songkick hits 8.5m users and starts selling tickets within its iPhone app — ‘We can get to a place where the concert industry is twice the size it is today,’ says CEO Ian Hogarth — Songkick Concerts 3.0 is launching on iPhone first, with Android to follow.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Next Web and hypebot

Katherine Fung / The Huffington Post:

Bob Woodward: Edward Snowden Should Have Come To Me Instead — Edward Snowden may have helped blow the lid on the NSA's secret surveillance programs, but Bob Woodward has one complaint: that Snowden should have come to him with the leaks. — “I wish [Snowden] had come to me instead of others …

Discussion: Poynter, TheBlaze.com, Talking Points Memo and Mediaite

Michael P. Hill / NewscastStudio:

Gannett stations switch to USA Today look online — A select number of Gannett stations have debuted new websites that use the same look and feel as its parent company's flagship newspaper USA Today. — NewscastStudio noted back in October that Gannett switched its Rochester …

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

NAMG Confirms It Has Bought Scout From Fox Networks Group in Dude-Focused Content Roll-Up Bid — The North American Membership Group has confirmed a previous report by Business Insider that it had bought sports site Scout.com from the Fox Networks Group. — The price of the deal was not disclosed …

Discussion: GeekWire

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Mail Online targets £60m revenues in 2014 — Publisher aims to continue 2013's 50% growth to hit point at which website's income would exceed newspapers' decline — Mail Online has set a target of making more than £60m in revenues in 2014, with executives saying it is close …

Discussion: @jonathanhaynes, @mediaguardian and @felixsalmon

Andy / TorrentFreak:

Amazon to Lawmakers: Keep the Internet Open & Limit Copyright Excesses — A hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet has heard opinions from leading content providers and technology advocates on how best to progress online digital distribution.

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Sponsored-Content Spending Growing Faster Than Predicted — Ad spending on sponsored content is growing at a faster clip than originally thought, according to a new forecast from eMarketer. — In June, eMarketer said advertisers would spend $1.88 billion on sponsored content this year …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Comcast Opens Digital Storefront to Sell Movies and TV Shows — Comcast has launched the Xfinity TV Store — offering subscribers select movies for purchase several weeks ahead of DVD release - marking the cable giant's entry into the electronic sell-through market to compete with iTunes, Amazon.com, Walmart's Vudu and others.

Discussion: Multichannel.com, bizjournals, Hollywood Reporter, The Verge, Electronista, Home Media Magazine and Engadget

Kristin Bergman / Digital Media Law Project:

Cyborg Journalists: How Google Glass Can Change Journalism — in - United States - Newsgathering - Recording Others — Wearable technology is creeping into society, gradually finding its way onto the street and into the gym, offices, classrooms, and more.

Discussion: ReadWrite, @niemanlab and VatorNews

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Maxim Sale Is in Big Trouble — Alpha Media Group's sale of Maxim appears to be headed for the rocks, knowledgeable sources told Adweek. — Cerberus Capital Management-controlled Alpha officially put the laddie magazine on the market in March. In September, it announced that it had found …

Discussion: Business Insider

Clifford Coonan / Hollywood Reporter:

China State Broadcaster Mum About Ad Haul as Web Giants Eat Into Revenue — CCTV says it hit a record in up-front ad sales for 2014, but analysts say it didn't disclose a figure because it has surrendered its dominant position to search firm Baidu. — The annual sale of primetime advertising slots …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and China Real Time Report

Marc Ramirez / Dallas Morning News:

Journalists from around world descend on Dallas for JFK ceremony — Karen Blessen, executive director of the Dallas Love Project, visits with Alan Fisher of Al Jazeera English about the project's efforts to counter the “City of Hate” image. Tens of thousands of art pieces are displayed throughout the city.

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Mark Glaser / Mediashift:

George Brock Looks Toward a Bright Future of News Beyond Print — Now is a good time to be both a pessimist and optimist about journalism. Old ways and institutions are struggling, while new platforms and business models offer hope for change. George Brock, a writer and editor at the Times …

Discussion: @pbsidealab

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

Is Google Play Newsstand a viable alternative to standalone Android apps? — Google introduced its latest platform for consuming news on Android devices today, suggesting that news organizations' native apps aren't serving readers well — even as those apps continue to be offered in the Google Play Store.

Discussion: Variety, Gigaom, Mashable, Softpedia News and VentureBeat

Pew Research Center:

Obamacare v. Philippines typhoon: How cable covered two big stories — In a week dominated by two mega-stories—the continuing travails of Obamacare and the devastating typhoon in the Philippines—America's hypercompetitive cable news outlets exercised very different news judgments.