Mediagazer: Modern Farmer Combines Serious Coverage With LambCam, Hits Jackpot (Businessweek)

11:25 AM ET, December 12, 2013

Top News:

Ann Curry's Options Dwindle as $12 Million NBC News Contract Nears Window — UPDATED: The former “Today” host is testing the waters as her NBC deal ends, but a high-profile gig at a place like Al Jazeera could prove elusive. — What will Ann Curry do next?

Discussion: FishbowlNY, TVNewser, @brianstelter and The Huffington Post

James Doleman / The Drum:

Ian Edmondson removed from phone-hacking trial — In a surprise development in the Old Bailey phone-hacking trial, one of the defendants, Ian Edmondson, has been removed from the case due to ill health. — Edmondson, a former news editor at the now defunct News of the World …

Discussion: Reuters, National Updates and Guardian

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Rebekah Brooks and Piers Morgan ‘accused each other of hacking at party’

Discussion: The Daily Beast

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.

Yoree Koh / Digits:

Twitter MoPub Opens Up Native Advertising to Publishers — Twitter pulled the covers back on how it plans to make money off mobile apps besides its own. The strategy: take its native advertising playbook to the wider mobile world. — MoPub - a Twitter-owned mobile-advertising exchange …

Discussion: MoPub, MediaPost, Bloomberg, @scottthurm, blog.twitter.com and Venture Capital Dispatch

Peter Osnos / The Atlantic Online:

Can Print Magazines Save Themselves? — Appearing on Charlie Rose in October to promote a celebratory coffee table book, Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age, Graydon Carter, who has been the magazine's editor for a successful run of 21 years, paid eloquent tribute to print magazines …

Discussion: @mathewi

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Martha Stewart to ax 100 staffers — The June 2011 issue of Martha Stewart Living — Merry Christmas — you're fired! — Slumping Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is expected to fire up to 100 people on Thursday, in a massive downsizing that is expected to hit the flagship magazine particularly hard.

Discussion: @alexweprin and @norabarak

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.

Discussion: @jakeswearingen, @bw and @niemanlab

Sam Kirkland / Poynter:

Do mobile-friendly redesigns run the risk of frustrating desktop users? — Pardon my contrarianism, but I don't do most of my web browsing via mobile on the toilet or in bed yet. I do most of my web browsing on a computer — a machine with a keyboard, mouse and no multi-touch display.

Discussion: @mattwaite and @a_l

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

Infogr.am to launch video creation tool for data visualisations — The team behind a free tool to create infographics revealed a prototype of the new software at LeWeb Paris conference yesterday, with a release planned for the new year — Credit: By Jorge Franganillo on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Discussion: The Next Web

Allan Kozinn / New York Times:

European Copyright Laws Lead to Rare Music Releases — Thanks to a provision in the European Union's new copyright law, fans of some musicians who made recordings in the 1960s are likely to be treated, for the foreseeable future, to annual batches of previously unissued material.

Discussion: @stevemarinucci

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Mail Online passes 10m daily browsers — Daily Mail website continues spectacular growth, also attracting a record 168 million monthly unique browsers in November — Mail Online continues to break traffic records, topping 10 million daily average unique browsers for the first time in November.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

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: Hollywood Reporter and AdAge

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

Discussion: Engadget, @awallenstein and @thefoaguy

Stephen Shankland / CNET:

CNN outgrows its TV roots — PARIS — CNN is a TV network, right? Wrong. — The Cable News Network did indeed get its start on cable TV, but now the news service operates on 20 different platforms ranging from the Web to Android phones to iPads, said CNN.com General Manager Kenneth …

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

Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:
YouTube Channels Crippled By Copyright Claims

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

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Spotify's Daniel Ek on Competition, Controversy and Crossing Over Into the Mainstream — Spotify has more than 24 million users, and it has converted more than six million of them into paying subscribers. The biggest selling point for the music service: If you pay up, you can listen to us on the go.

Discussion: AdAge, Spotify Blog, @pkafka, Reuters, VentureBeat, Newsy, TechCrunch and VentureBeat

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