Mediagazer: Vice Media Buys a Tech Company to Experiment With Content Distribution (Ravi Somaiya/New York Times)

12:35 PM ET, December 11, 2013

Top News:

Turning the Page on Anonymity: The Future of HuffPost Comments — Maintaining a civil environment for real conversation and community has always been key to The Huffington Post. From day one, our comments were pre-moderated, and we invested in the most advanced moderation technology along with human moderators.

Discussion: Poynter, @dangillmor, @niemanlab, @adrianshort and @jayrosen_nyu

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Vice Media Buys a Tech Company to Experiment With Content Distribution — ADVERTISING, journalism and technology continue to converge. The latest example: Vice Media's acquisition of Carrot Creative, a digital agency that creates apps, websites and games for media companies and brands.

Discussion: @rafat, @jamesnord and Capital New York

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

Why Twitter Just Joined The Backchannel Wars — Direct messages to the forefront, big photos in tow. Twitter knows: The service that controls messaging controls the world. — Another day, another new messaging app. The only difference: This one is already installed on your phone.

Discussion: Mashable

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Twitter's new head of news explains why she left NBC

Discussion: LinkedIn Pulse

Jeremy Gordon / The Twitter Blog:
Photos in direct messages and swipe between timelines

Discussion: Business Insider, Marketing Pilgrim, SocialTimes, AppNewser, TechCrunch, The Atlantic Online, The Next Web, Digits, Mashable, Electronista, ReadWrite, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Wired, VentureBeat, The Verge, MacRumors, Pocket-lint, CNET, App Advice, Newsy and Yahoo! News

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Warner Takes Netflix-Style Service for Old Movies to iPads — Studio says Warner Instant Archive now supports closed captioning — Warner Bros. has launched an iPad tablet app for its subscription-streaming service for classic film and TV titles, a sign the premium-priced offering …

Discussion: @willmckinley

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Time Warner CEO Bewkes: Only Comcast and Verizon Do VOD Right

Discussion: The Wrap, Media Money …, Home Media Magazine, Deadline.com, Capital New York, AdAge and MediaPost

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Time Criticized For Choosing Pope Francis Over Edward Snowden As Person Of The Year — Time chose the widely popular Pope Francis as its Person of the Year for 2013, sparking criticism from many who thought that the magazine's choice for runner-up, Edward Snowden, deserved the top prize.

Discussion: TIME, TIME, Capital New York, Forbes, Latest News & Headlines, PRNewser, The Week, Talking Points Memo, The Switch, Gothamist and Softpedia News

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

News organisations plead with Syrian rebels to stop abducting journalists — Thirteen news organisations, including The Guardian, have signed a letter calling on rebel groups in Syria to desist from kidnapping journalists and asking for the release of those currently being held hostage.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, New York Times, Capital New York, New York Times, The Huffington Post, Online NewsHour, The Atlantic Online and euronews

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

New York Times Expects Digital Ad Growth in 2014 — New York Times CEO Mark Thompson intends to restore growth to the company's digital advertising revenue next year after recent declines, he told a meeting of investors Tuesday. — To spur growth, the Times is introducing branded content solutions …

Discussion: @laureni and @adage

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York: NYT CEO Mark Thompson aims to create global news brand, says international audiences are key

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Gannett to Add USA Today to Local Papers — Gannett Company, one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, will try to expand its advertising and circulation revenue by inserting parts of its flagship newspaper, USA Today, into its local newspapers. — The company is expected to announce …

Discussion: Gannett Blog and @susanpage

Guardian:

BBC to axe more than half of its management boards — Review of corporation's governance also includes appointment of two new non-executive directors and changes to trust's remit — The BBC will on Wednesday announce a series of changes to its system of governance and the appointment …

Discussion: @uk_radio and Financial Times

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Beastie Boys countersue as fair use fight over “Girls” song escalates — A copyright case between the Beastie Boys and toy maker GoldieBlox just got nastier: the rap group claims in a court filing that rewriting its “Girls” song for a video commercial does not count as “fair use,” …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, TeleRead, Techdirt, Gothamist, @rga and The Verge

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

Spotify brings free music to all devices (with caveats); snags Led Zeppelin — NEW YORK CITY — In its quest to entice more users, Spotify is finally bringing its free music service to more devices — though they won't all get the same free content. — A new ad-supported offering …

Discussion: New York Times, Media & Entertainment, Betabeat, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Bloomberg, Variety, App Advice, CNET, Hollywood Reporter, Mashable, The Verge, Softpedia News, Telegraph and Pocket-lint

Erik Wemple:

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to write Washington Post column — The journalistic bond between The Post and MSNBC just grew a bit stronger, as the paper's opinion section announced that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will be writing a monthly column. “We expect that she will bring to Post readers the strong arguments …

Discussion: WashPost PR and Poynter

Lauren Kirchner / Columbia Journalism Review:

Jana Winter's victory — On Tuesday, The New York Court of Appeals overturned a subpoena that's been hanging over investigative reporter Jana Winter's head since March, and resolved a legal battle that lasted over a year. The subpoena had called on Winter to appear in the James Holmes criminal trial …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Wrap and The Desk

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

NimbleTV Brings TV Everywhere to New York, Without Permission From the TV Industrial Complex — Want to watch the TV you've already paid for, anywhere you want to watch it, whenever you want to watch it? — You can't. * But NimbleTV says it can change that.

Discussion: Poynter, Mashable, VentureBeat, Los Angeles Times, Business Insider and Variety

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Digital Magazine Startup Magzter Raises $10M To Fuel Global Growth — New York-based Magzter, a startup founded in 2011 to help magazine publishers get their pubs in the hands of digital readers, regardless of which platform they choose to use to read. In two years of operation …

Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:

YouTube Channels Crippled By Copyright Claims — Numerous video game-related YouTube personalities have spent the last day digging through piles of copyright claims suddenly filling their inboxes, claims that they say are messing with their ability to produce and profit from videos they post online.

Discussion: Forbes, Tubefilter, VentureBeat and Plagiarism Today

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Conservative consolidation: New ‘Twitchy’ owner in talks to buy RedState, Regnery — Salem Communications, the parent company of right-wing sites HotAir.com and Townhall.com, is considering a series of acquisitions that would consolidate several of the conservative blogosphere's …

Discussion: @johntabin

Benny Johnson / BuzzFeed:
Twitchy Sold To Owners Of Townhall And Hotair

Discussion: The Wire, Mediaite, @guypbenson, Townhall.com, @gatewaypundit, @katiepavlich and @seanagnew

Press Gazette:

Leaked tape reveals Pollard discussing exclusion of Savile review evidence about what Thompson knew — In the phone recording he talks about why he did not include a claim by the BBC's former director of news Helen Boaden that she had informed then-director-general Mark Thompson …

Discussion: Guardian

Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:

Twitter TV ratings heading to Japan next year in move to attract more advertisers — Twitter TV ratings are landing in Japan, the company announced today, as it seeks to provide further statistics that can persuade advertisers to place its money on the social networking service.

Discussion: Softpedia News