Mediagazer: Publishers Must Offer Services, Not Just Books, to Make Subscriptions Work (Rich Bellis/Digital Book World)

4:55 AM ET, January 17, 2014

Top News:

Yahoo Seeks to Regain Its Touch — SAN FRANCISCO — It looks as if the Google pixie dust isn't so easy to spread around. — Marissa Mayer's arrival at Yahoo as chief executive a year and a half ago was widely hailed as an opportunity to infuse the struggling Internet pioneer with the smarts …

Discussion: @deanemurphy

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Exclusive: Yahoo's Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh Departs Company — According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo's Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh has quit the company, a major departure which comes in the wake of changes made to its media unit after the firing of COO Henrique De Castro yesterday.

Discussion: VatorNews, TechCrunch, @rafat, @karaswisher, @awallenstein, Business Insider, @mathewi, DealBook, Beyond Search and WebProNews

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Fired Yahoo Exec's $109M Golden Parachute Was One Of The Biggest Ever — There are a lot of different ways to express just how massive is the payout Yahoo is bestowing upon Henrique De Castro, the chief operations officer fired this week by CEO Marissa Mayer after only 15 months on the job.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Business Insider, @adater, @mmasnick, @gitagovinda, @bupbin, Re/code and Valleywag

Kevin Roderick / LA Observed:

Kushner announces new team at Register, explains ‘restructuring’ * — The Orange County Register shed more than 30 newsroom staffers today via layoffs, buyouts and retirement. The departing include editor Ken Brusic, as we noted earlier. It's all about restructuring for the future …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and Orange County Register

Ken Bensinger / Los Angeles Times:

Layoffs come at OC Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise — Newsroom layoffs hit the Orange Country Register and Riverside Press-Enterprise on Thursday, a troubling sign for the papers. Above, the Register's Santa Ana headquarters. (Karen Tapia Andersen / Los Angeles Times / January 16, 2014)

Discussion: Navel Gazing, @thegarywarner, @antonprtweets, @mtdukes, @registertravel, @genepark, @jeichelberger84, @frumpymom, @medodif, @jbenton, @haileyerin, Talking Biz News, @dlboardman, @ricksforza, @jbenton and @mjenkins

Mary Ann Milbourn / Orange County Register:
Register names new newsroom leadership

Discussion: Poynter and LA Observed

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Farhad Manjoo heads to NYT after 4 months at WSJ to replace David Pogue — The New York Times Gets Its David Pogue Replacement From the Wall Street Journal — The New York Times has found a replacement for David Pogue, its high-profile tech reviewer: Sources say the Times is filling …

Discussion: New York Times, LinkedIn Pulse, @deanemurphy, @deanemurphy, @fmanjoo, @felixsalmon, @stefanjbecket, @gaberivera and Talking Biz News

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Financial documents being shown to potential buyers raise questions about its future growth. Has Forbes peaked? And can it justify the high price it's seeking — The newsonomics of Forbes' real performance and price potential — The bidding for Forbes is now moving into round two, with a sale expected within a month.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @raju, Gigaom, @bobbymacreports, PandoDaily, Bloomberg, @eamonn, @rafat, @carr2n, @foxjust, @jeffjohnroberts, @pkafka and @niemanlab

Rehema Figueiredo / Guardian:

Al-Jazeera journalists held in Egypt accused of harming national security — Prosecutors say three are still being investigated on suspicion of joining the Muslim Brotherhood — Egyptian prosecutors have said three journalists working for al-Jazeera English are being interrogated on suspicion …

Discussion: Latest News & Headlines, CityNews, CBC News, Daily News Egypt, @monaeltahawy, @bbcworld, @evanchill and BBC

Al Jazeera English:
Al Jazeera says journalists did not confess

Discussion: Montreal Gazette and @aljazeera

Robert Mackey / New York Times:
A.P. Cameraman Detained in Egypt After His Images Appear on Al Jazeera

Discussion: The Huffington Post, CNN and Mediaite

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Noah Shachtman, formerly of Foreign Policy and Wired, joins Daily Beast as executive editor — After Tina Brown's Exit, Daily Beast Brings In Editing Help — The Daily Beast has hired Noah Shachtman, a former editor at Foreign Policy and Wired, as its new executive editor …

Discussion: @johnavlon, @noahshachtman, @erikmal and @miriamelder

Stan Alcorn / Digg:

Why Audio Never Goes Viral — With a community of creators uncomfortable with the value of virality, an audience content to watch grainy dashcam videos, and platforms that discourage sharing, is a hit-machine for audio possible? And is it something anyone even wants?

Discussion: TechCrunch and MetaFilter

Georgia Wells / Wall Street Journal:

Paul Berry Creates Web Megaphone Called RebelMouse — Startup Helps Users Combine Their Web Content on Home Page — While working as chief technical officer at the online-news publication the Huffington Post in 2011, Paul Berry focused on making the news site's content go viral …

Rich Bellis / Digital Book World:

Publishers Must Offer Services, Not Just Books, to Make Subscriptions Work — For subscription ebook models to work, publishers must provide services to customers, not just content, according to panelists speaking this afternoon at the third day of Digital Book World 2014 in New York.

Jordan Chariton / Lost Remote:

Facebook and Instagram Teaming Up With NBC for Sochi Olympics — After teaming up during the 2012 London Olympics, NBC and Facebook/Instagram are joining forces again for the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Russia. — “Building off of our successful collaboration for the London Olympics …

Discussion: TVNewser, Broadcasting & Cable, FierceCable, FishbowlNY, GalleyCat and FishbowlDC

Patrick Brzeski / Hollywood Reporter:

Metan Launches Hollywood-Focused Channels on China's Tudou — The U.S.-Chinese media firm headed by E! founder Larry Namer will produce a suite of shows covering the global entertainment industry for the Internet video giant. — U.S.-Chinese media firm Metan Development Group has partnered …

Discussion: Asia Media Journal, Rapid TV News and C21Media

Michael Rondon / Folio:

SI Golf Group to Integrate Ecommerce — Also launches weekly digital magazine. — Ecommerce has become an oasis for many publishers looking to diversify revenue streams in a downward ad market. — And while Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated Golf Group has outperformed the industry in advertising …

Abigail Edge / Journalism.co.uk:

Web comments ‘more civil’ when journalists interact, study shows - Could Google Glass change the face of journalism?

Mark Potts / Recovering Journalist:

Introducing Newspeg — A New Way to Look at News — Do you get the feeling you're awash in a flood of news? — The internet has unleashed a torrent of news sources, old and new, that we're all scrambling to make sense of and sort out. The old convenient package of news that landed …

Discussion: @mathewi and @jeffjarvis

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Smartphone Users Gobbling Up More Data Amid Growing Use of Streaming Music — The increased use of music services such as Pandora and Spotify has led to a significant rise in the amount of data being used by the average smartphone. — According to a new NPD study, consumers' average data use …

Matthew Lynch / Capital New York:

Memo: Condé Nast ad pages flat in Q1 — Condé Nast Media Group president Lou Cona said ad pages were flat across the company's magazines in its first quarter in a memo to staffers sent Thursday. — Though pages were up in January and March, a “flagging” February contributed to the results …

Discussion: WWD Media Headlines

NBC New York:

Wall Street Journal Reporter Goes Missing in New Jersey, Credit Card Mysteriously Used in Mexico — Hundreds of people are searching for a missing 55-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter who left his New Jersey home for a walk on Saturday and never came back.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Poynter, Gothamist, @loriekonish, NBCNews, Mediaite, Politico, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Newspaper Guild and Talking Biz News

Lisa Williams / Investigative News Network:

Omidyar Network's Democracy Fund grants $500k over two years to Investigative News Network — The Democracy Fund Makes Investment in the Investigative News Network and the Nonprofit News Sector — The Investigative News Network (INN) is happy to announce that the Democracy Fund has approved …

Discussion: @democracyfund, DemocracyFund and @inn

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Brendan Ripp Named Sports Illustrated Publisher — Brendan Ripp has been named publisher of Sports Illustrated. Ripp moves to the magazine from Fortune, where he served as VP of sales and marketing. Prior to that, Ripp — the son of Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp — was publisher of Money and Time.

Discussion: AdAge

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

FCC Chairman intends to fight network neutrality defeat, but how? — In a speech today the FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said he “intends to fight” the court ruling that on Tuesday gutted most of the FCC's Open Internet Order governing network neutrality. Speaking at a Washington DC event he said …

Discussion: The Verge, Deseret News and Free Press Blog

Bloomberg:
Tallying the Cost to Netflix in Verizon's Victory Over FCC

Discussion: @harrisj and @harrisj

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

The Week Picks Up a New Digital Boss From Patch — The Week, Dennis Publishing's online/offline news aggregator, has brought on a new digital boss. Rachel Fishman Feddersen will run TheWeek.com, and will “lead a relaunch and reconception” of the site, the publisher says.

Discussion: @romenesko