Mediagazer: Simon & Schuster Expands Library E-Book Program (Publishers Weekly)

10:40 AM ET, January 16, 2014

Top News:

Chris Elliott / Guardian:

Open door: Why an article on Lisa Bonchek Adams was removed from the Guardian site — I don't think it is wrong to frame a question about how those with incurable illnesses use social media, but the Guardian was wrong in the way it went about it — Lisa Bonchek Adams is a woman …

Discussion: Poynter, Capital New York, The Daily Caller, @johnmcquaid, @jenseniorny, @jayrosen_nyu, @poniewozik, @scottros, @mathewi, @stuartmillar159, SocialTimes and New York Magazine

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

The Independent seeks buyer — The Independent is up for sale. The paper's founder, and current chairman of its publishing company, Andreas Whittam Smith, has been authorised to seek out a buyer. — The owners, Alexander Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, have been indicating …

Discussion: BuzzFeed, @samirashackle, Management Today, @adambienkov, @raju, @bounder, @scottygb and The Drum

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Independent owners decline to comment on report that title is again up for sale — The publishers of The Independent declined to comment this morning on a report that the title is again up for sale - nearly four years after it was sold by Independent News and Media to Alexander Lebedev.

Mark Stencel / Poynter:

Tech reporter Brian Krebs hacks it on his own, one scoop at a time … Few news stories in the past month landed on homepages and front pages with a louder thud than the theft of credit and debit card information from millions of Target customers. — The Target break-in was the latest scoop …

Discussion: @amzam, @ktoughill, @ezraklein, @poynter, @jayrosen_nyu and Talking Biz News

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro, Mayer's No. 2, to depart after failing to move lagging ad business — “Dead Man Walking” Walks: COO Henrique De Castro Out at Yahoo — As has long been rumored, Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro is departing Yahoo. — I had reported last week that he was in big trouble …

Discussion: Forbes, Business Insider, TechCrunch, Adweek, Los Angeles Times, Media Wire Daily, GeekWire, CNET, Wall Street Journal, Valleywag, Fortune, Quartz and The Wrap

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

He Was Fired: Here's Marissa Mayer's De Castro Buh-Bye Memo to Yahoo Staff — Here it is, the internal memo to Yahoo staff about the sudden — though it was not sudden, by any means — leave-taking today of its COO, Henrique De Castro, courtesy of one of my 10,563 sources left at Yahoo!

Discussion: Capital New York, @alexia, Softpedia News, AdAge, VentureBeat, Business Insider, @danprimack, @moorehn and @ashleymayer

Josh Stearns / Free Press Blog:

Net Neutrality and the Future of Journalism — Tuesday's court decision, which struck down the FCC's Open Internet Order and threatened the future of Net Neutrality, has huge implications for the future of journalism and press freedom. — According to the Pew Research Center …

Discussion: @jcstearns, Gigaom and Consumerist

Tim Wu / The New Yorker Blog:
FCC's Wheeler can preserve net neutrality by taking back its authority over broadband

Discussion: Gigaom, @somebadideas, The Switch, The Huffington Post, Crikey, Forbes, The New Republic, Globe and Mail, Free Press Blog, Ars Technica, TheHill, @superwuster, NYT Bits, @mathewi, Home Media Magazine, Kirk LaPointe's …, Official FCC Blog and ABC

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Top editors at Washington Post, Politico talk after Wemple scrutinizes Mike Allen's Playbook — Washington Post and Politico Talk About a Rift — Top editors at The Washington Post and Politico tried on Wednesday to mend a rift between the two news organizations.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @jayrosen_nyu, @buzzfeedandrew, @romenesko, @ravisomaiya, @ericboehlert, @erik_hayden, Poynter and The Dish

Joan E. Solsman / CNET:

Netflix ‘original’ documentary lands Oscar nomination — “The Square,” a Netflix-backed film about the Egyptian revolution, secured an Oscar nomination for documentary feature Thursday, fulfilling the Academy Awards buzz it drummed up at film festivals. — “The Square,” which profiles …

Discussion: Forbes, The Next Web, The Verge and UPROXX

Helienne Lindvall / Guardian:

Will Beats Music trump Spotify with its artist charm offensive? — Dr Dre and Trent Reznor are launching a US streaming service - but artists are likely to lose out again due to labels' royalty deals — The music streaming market is becoming a crowded place, but that hasn't stopped Beats Music getting in on the game.

Discussion: Pocket-lint

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Spotify introduces unlimited free music on the web just days before Beats Music launch

Discussion: Gigaom, Spotify Blog, TechCrunch, Mashable, @gighub_, @vanessa_lgd, Gizmodo and The Next Web

Pew Internet:

E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps — The proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions. — The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012.

Discussion: The Next Web and @pewresearch

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Capital New York to Introduce Monthly Print Magazine — Capital New York, the Politico sibling that covers politics and media in New York, is rolling out a small monthly print magazine starting this month, according to parent company Allbritton Communications.

Discussion: @joepompeo

Susan Currie Sivek / Mediashift:

Digital Technology Remodels Women's Magazines — Women's magazines are full of fashion, beauty and relationship tips. However, studying them has also taught one researcher a lot about their future, and about the future of the magazine industry as a whole.

Discussion: @pbsmediashift and @brookeerinduffy

Brian Braiker / Digiday:

A Tale of Two Daily Mails — Online readers of the Charleston Daily Mail received a bit of a surprise this week when they went to the West Virginia paper's homepage. The paper's address, dailymail.com, took readers to a letter announcing that the Daily Mail had changed its Web address to the somewhat clunkier charlestondailymail.com.

Discussion: @michaelroston

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

AOL hands over control of Patch to investment fund Hale Global, keeps small stake — AOL Finds a Home — Off Its Books — For Patch — Patch isn't dead, and AOL isn't officially done with it. But Tim Armstrong's big bet on local news has come to an end: The AOL CEO is handing over Patch …

Discussion: New York Times, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Forbes, Poynter, Business Wire, AdExchanger, @pkafka, @poynter, @edmundlee, Capital New York, CNET, Reuters and Wall Street Journal

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
THE END OF AN ERROR: AOL Just Disposed Of Controlling Interest In Patch

Discussion: @jeffjarvis

Publishers Weekly:

Simon & Schuster Expands Library E-Book Program — After jumping into the library e-book market last April with a limited pilot, Simon & Schuster is expanding its program to more libraries, and adding OverDrive to its list of vendors. The publisher and OverDrive today announced …

Discussion: GalleyCat and Digital Book World

Bloomberg:

Charter's Time Warner Cable Bid Puts Rutledge in Dealmaker Role — For Tom Rutledge, the man orchestrating a $61 billion takeover battle for Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC), the role of dealmaker came late in his career. — In his almost four decades in the cable business …

Ben Woods / The Next Web:

Instafax: The BBC's experiment with short-form video news delivered by Instagram — The BBC is testing a new way of distributing short news items via a new service called Instafax which uses Instagram to share videos and other information about news events, in a bid that they can be easily consumed by people on the go.

Lauren Kirchner / Columbia Journalism Review:

FOIA fight for NSA documents continues — The government has released some heavily-redacted legal opinions, but ProPublica, the ACLU, and others say that's not enough — This past November, ProPublica attempted to open up “the smallest nesting doll” of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance …

Ed Christman / Billboard:

FCC Shelves Pandora's Bid For South Dakota Radio Station … Questions? Comments? Let us know: @billboardbiz

Discussion: Radio Ink Magazine, Billboard and Music Week

Anna Dolgov / The Moscow Times:

Former Siberian Official Given Probation for Journalist's Killing — A court in the Irkutsk region has sentenced a former local official to a 22-month probation for killing a journalist who had published critical reports about corruption in the local government.

Discussion: @miriamelder

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Academic Research Platform Sciencescape Raises $2.5M, Partners With Educational Publisher Elsevier — Canadian startup Sciencescape has just closed a $2.5 million round of funding, and is considering extending it into a $3 million round since it was oversubscribed, co-founder Sam Molyneux revealed …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

News Corp. freezes pensions in cost-control measure — News Corp. employees were told Wednesday that their pensions are being frozen, Capital has learned. — The change in the company's retirement-plan contribution scheme applies to certain employees at the New York Post …