Mediagazer: Obama's Orwellian Image Control (Santiago Lyon/New York Times)

12:15 AM ET, December 12, 2013

Top News:

Colin Campbell / Polygon:

YouTube defends copyright crackdown — Google has responded to widespread outrage at its recent crackdown on game videos on YouTube. — In recent days the company has sent out thousands of copyright infringement notices to video producers of game walk-throughs and Let's Plays.

Discussion: @ghostrobo, @davidsgallant, The Daily Caller and @pkollar

Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:
YouTube Channels Crippled By Copyright Claims

Discussion: Forbes, Polygon, Tubefilter, @levelsio, @simonhoupt, @jerryandharry, Plagiarism Today, VentureBeat and Marketing Pilgrim

Santiago Lyon / New York Times:

Obama's Orwellian Image Control — THE Internet has been abuzz over the spectacle of President Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and Denmark snapping a photo of themselves — a “selfie,” to use the mot du jour — with a smartphone at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in South Africa on Tuesday.

Discussion: LA Observed, New York Magazine, Mediaite, Erik Wemple, Business Insider, @majorcbs, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, @stevekrak, @amyjo_brown, @ralstonreports, @donaldrwinslow and Guardian

Don Reisinger / CNET:

Apple TV gets content boost with Crackle, Watch ABC — Apple has been bulking up its content lineup on the Apple TV, and Wednesday, the company announced still more updates. — Time Warner Cable to add another app platform: Apple TV? — Apple TV a no-show, in any respect, at iPhone event

Discussion: AllThingsD and The Verge

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:
Apple TV gets live news programming with Bloomberg TV

Discussion: TechCrunch, 9to5Mac and @brianstelter

Bryan Bishop / The Verge:

Twitter becomes a better TV remote control as ABC, AMC, and Fox sign up for See It — It's been obvious for some time that Twitter sees television as a major way in which it can participate in, drive, and profit from the broader cultural conversation. It's about to become an even more useful tool …

Discussion: AdAge and Hollywood Reporter

Comcast:
Comcast Plans to Add New Networks and Distributors to SEEiT Platform

Discussion: Engadget, @awallenstein and @thefoaguy

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

News sites could protect your privacy with encryption. Here's why they probably won't. — “I've basically been trying to bribe media organizations at this point to turn on SSL,” jokes Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist and a senior policy analyst at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Discussion: Techdirt, @mathewi, @arstechnica, @jcstearns, @csoghoian, Wired, @aurich, Electronista, @freedomofpress, PandoDaily, ZDNet, The Verge, Engadget and CNET

Businessweek:

Modern Farmer Combines Serious Coverage With LambCam, Hits Jackpot — As mainstream media outlets struggle to balance a commitment to serious journalism with the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for cute animals, Modern Farmer and ModernFarmer.com are in an enviable position.

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Swedish journalists appear to use weakness in comment system to expose public figures — Crypto weakness in Web comment system exposes hate-mongering politicians — Journalists exploit weakness in Gravatar to identify extremist forum members. — Investigative journalists have exploited …

Discussion: ITworld.com, help.disqus.com and @nzkoz

Tim McDonald / The Huffington Post:

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: 10,000 Words, FishbowlNY, Poynter, @dangillmor, @niemanlab, @adrianshort and @jayrosen_nyu

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

The new television: How is NimbleTV different from Aereo? — This morning, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia was in Baltimore to mark the TV-over-the-Internet service's launch in the city, its 10th of 22 cities that it had planned to reach by the end of 2013. (Kanojia now says the company will hit that goal by early 2014.)

Discussion: CNET and Ars Technica

Kate Tummarello / TheHill:

Privacy groups want AT&T punished for selling data to CIA — Privacy groups are asking regulators to come down on phone companies that sell subscriber information to third parties, including the CIA. — The groups are petitioning the Federal Communications Commission in response to reports …

Discussion: Public Knowledge, Policy Blog and Free Press Blog

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, NewsBusters blogs, TheBlaze.com and The Huffington Post

Houston Chronicle:

Chronicle names managing editor — Award-winning editor Vernon Loeb, who most recently worked as metro editor of the Washington Post, has been named managing editor of the Houston Chronicle. The announcement was made Wednesday by Hearst Newspapers President Mark Aldam and Nancy Barnes …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The U.K.'s Ampp3d thinks it knows why you want to click on charts, images, and memes — Data-driven storytelling and web-native, sharable journalism are two of the biggest trends in media at the moment. If you locked the two together in a room, Ampp3d might be what would walk out the door.

Discussion: Martin Belam and @niemanlab

Tyler Hayes / Co.Labs:

The Revolutionary New Music Apps You Missed In 2013 — A lot of new music services continue to pop up each year, despite most consumer's unwillingness to financially support artists directly. This is why most music services practice the balancing act of end user visibility and technical improvements …

Discussion: hypebot

Josh Horwitz / Tech in Asia:

Marcus Brauchli, once of WSJ and Washington Post, invests in Taipei startup The News Lens — The News Lens, the startup that wants to disrupt traditional media in Asia, just received its first round of funding — Mario Yang (left), co-founder and editor-in-chief at The News Lens …

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop Alum Tom Ascheim Named President of ABC Family — Exec worked with Disney-ABC TV Group chief Anne Sweeney early in his career — Former Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop exec Tom Ascheim has been tapped as president of ABC Family.

Discussion: The Wrap

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Web Video Startup Ooyala Raises $43 Million — We saw a smattering of ad tech IPOs this year, and there are a bunch of companies that are supposedly lined up for next year. — Here's one you likely won't see going public in 2014 — at least not in the beginning of the year: Ooyala, the Web video startup.

Discussion: VentureBeat, AdExchanger, TechCrunch, The Wrap, Mashable and Variety

Angela Haggerty / The Drum:

YouTube 2013 ad revenues estimated to jump more than 50% to $5.6bn — YouTube's projected advertising revenue for this year will have jumped by more than 50 per cent to $5.6bn, according to a report. — The report from media research firm eMarketer projects that YouTube's net revenues once partners …

Discussion: Gigaom, Guardian, Variety, AdAge and Digits

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, bookforum.com, The Atlantic Online, FishbowlNY, Associated Press, Capital New York, The Huffington Post, New York Times, Online NewsHour and euronews

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, The Switch, CNN, Guardian, Business Insider, PRNewser, The Week, Talking Points Memo, Gothamist, Softpedia News, Latest News & Headlines and Newsy

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 …