Mediagazer: Sony Pictures lays off employees in technology group, including leader (Los Angeles Times)

10:25 PM ET, January 22, 2014

Top News:

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Netflix's momentum continues with 2.33 million new US customers in Q4 — Netflix revealed its fourth quarter earnings today, capping off a banner year that saw the streaming service surpass HBO in subscriber count and earn critical acclaim for its original programming.

Discussion: Guardian, Bloomberg, The Wrap, Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Hollywood Reporter, @timjhanrahan, Mashable, @microfundy and @ceciliakang

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Netflix Beats Analyst Expectations With 2.3M New Domestic Subscribers, Earnings Of 79 Cents A Share — Netflix just announced its fourth-quarter financial results, with the company beating analyst expectations. For the last three months, Netflix reported earnings of 79 cents per share on revenues of $1.175 billion.

Discussion: Forbes, Home Media Magazine, The Wrap, CNET, ZDNet and Reuters

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
Netflix Says It Will Be Fine Without Net Neutrality Rules

Discussion: Forbes, CNNMoney.com, TechCrunch, Quartz and ReadWrite

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix Plans ‘Substantial’ European Expansion in 2014

Discussion: Pocket-lint

Marina Walker Guevara / The Global Muckraker:

How a multinational journalism team investigated the offshore holdings of China's elite — How we did Offshore Leaks China — A multinational team of journalists spent months combing through secret tax haven records revealing offshore holdings of China's rich and powerful.

Discussion: Media Channel, @icijorg, Guardian, Poynter, New York Times and BBC

Tania Branigan / Guardian:

Guardian blocked in China after story about leadership's offshore wealth — Access to the front page of newspaper's website blocked and availability of other stories intermittent — The Guardian appeared to be partially blocked in China on Wednesday after revealing that relatives …

Discussion: New York Times, The Independent, The Global Muckraker, The Huffington Post, Kirk LaPointe's …, The Next Web, Tech in Asia and @mlcalderone

Mike Isaac / Re/code:

With Trove, Ex-WaPo Labs Team Takes Another Try at Social Reading — How do you get your daily news? — It's a question that any 21st century news organization is asking itself — a question all too familiar for a guy like Vijay Ravindran. As the chief digital officer of Graham Holdings …

Discussion: cnbc.com and Washington Post

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:
The news curation game gets another entrant as the WaPo's former owner relaunches Trove

Discussion: NYT Bits, Business Insider, Mashable, @niemanlab, PandoDaily, The Verge, TechCrunch, @lheron and @mims, Thanks:@mathewi

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer banned by AP after photo alteration — The Associated Press announced Wednesday that it has ended its relationship with Narciso Contreras, a Pulitzer Prize-winning freelance photographer who altered a photo that he took last September in Syria.

Discussion: THE DEFINITIVE SOURCE, Guardian and BuzzFeed

John Cassidy / The New Yorker Blog:

Maybe Ezra Klein and Jeff Bezos Are Both Right — The rumors were true: Ezra Klein, the creator of the Washington Post's Wonkblog, is leaving the paper to start a new venture with a couple of his colleagues. In my bit of the Twitterverse, the general reaction appears to be that Jeff Bezos …

Discussion: @murraymatt, Mediaite, @gregorydjohnsen, @jtes, @joshuafoust, @tnyjohncassidy, Columbia Journalism Review, Capital New York, JackFlack.com, New York Times, American Spectator, LA Observed, The Huffington Post, Politico and The Daily Caller

Dean Starkman / Columbia Journalism Review:
Ezra Klein and the early-mover disadvantage

Discussion: Mediawire Daily and Gigaom

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Grantland's editorial failure with Dr. V story is best argument yet for diversity in newsrooms — Joy's Law for journalism — “Events by which 'Dr. V's Magical Putter' came to be published are now the best argument I have for you on diversity in the newsroom. Here is what can happen when you are not diverse enough.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Gawker, The Atlantic Online, @stevesilberman, @zeynep, @jayrosen_nyu and Poynter

Maria Konnikova / The New Yorker Blog:

The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You — When Jonah Berger was a graduate student at Stanford, in the early aughts, he would make a habit of reading page A2 of the Wall Street Journal, which included a list of the five most-read and the five most-shared articles of the day.

Discussion: @actualkris, @millie, Gothamist, @10000words, @alisonhallett, @brainpicker, @mathewi and @utlibraries

Reuters:

Massive Internet mishap sparks Great Firewall scrutiny in China — (Reuters) - Human error likely caused a glitch in China's Great Firewall that saw millions of Internet users ironically rerouted to the homepage of a U.S.-based company which helps people evade Beijing's web censorship, sources told Reuters.

Discussion: NYT Bits, NBCNews, CNN, @jonrussell, @adampasick and CNET

Roberto Baldwin / Wired:

Tivo Lays Off Most of Its Design Team, As It Transitions to the Cloud — Update: TiVo has informed WIRED that it will be using more third-party designers for hardware hardware. TiVo vice president of corporate communications told WIRED that in addition to in-house designers third-party partners will be …

Discussion: TIME, Gigaom, The Verge, Engadget, Business Insider, @mccarron and SlashGear

Rebecca Bowe / sfbg.com:

San Francisco Bay Guardian launches tool for anonymous submissions powered by SecureDrop — Hey whistleblowers — We want your leaks! — rebecca@sfbg.com — The San Francisco Bay Guardian newsroom is tapping some high-tech tools to continue its journalistic mission.

Discussion: @xor

Los Angeles Times:

Sony Pictures lays off employees in technology group, including leader — Sony Pictures Entertainment headquarters. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) — Sony Pictures Entertainment has laid off an undisclosed number of people from its Sony Pictures Technologies group, including the unit's president, Chris Cookson.

Discussion: Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg

Robert Andrews / Beet.TV:

BBC.com Opens Its Doors To Native Advertising — The BBC is known for its editorial integrity and, at least in the UK, its aversion to advertising. These facts would seem to make an embrace of the current “native advertising” trend difficult. But that's just what BBC Worldwide …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and @beet_tv

John Paul Titlow / Co.Labs:

Under The Hood Of The New NYTimes.com — For media companies, the pace of technological change can be unforgiving. The New York Times, well-staffed as it may be, is no exception. To meet rapidly changing business goals and reader expectations, the tech team there recently pulled off …

Discussion: @remmons

Sam Thielman / Adweek:

Viacom's Branded Content Play Is the Latest Among Cable Giants — Viacom is doing at scale something that TV entertainment companies—especially those with a wide footprint in the unscripted world—are treating like the advertising success of the future: It's creating a full division devoted to branded content.

Discussion: Variety and Broadcasting & Cable

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fox Will Stream Super Bowl XLVIII Free to Computers and iPads — Broadcaster to offer a ‘special preview’ of Fox Sports Go authenticated service for the NFL championship game on Feb. 2 — Fox Sports will use Super Bowl XLVIII as a showcase for its online and mobile authentication service …

Discussion: Forbes, The Wrap, Mediaite, AdAge, InvestorPlace, NetNewsCheck Latest and CNET

Heather Murphy / The Lede:

Targeted text message sends chills to protesters and journalists in Ukraine — Ominous Text Message Sent to Protesters in Kiev Sends Chills Around the Internet — As my colleague Andrew Kramer reported, protesters and journalists standing in the vicinity of fighting between the riot police …

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Independent, @crimethinc, Gawker, Techdirt and The Verge

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Weather Channel: DirecTV Subscribers Should Be Able to Switch, Without Penalty — The Weather Channel is ratcheting up the rhetoric in its fight to get back on DirecTV. — The leading weather TV channel, which begins a ninth day off the nation's second-largest pay TV service …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Deadline.com, AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable and FishbowlNY

Jasper Jackson / TheMediaBriefing.com:

News UK CEO: “A big bundle is a very efficient mechanism which works remarkably well” — News UK is unusual among newspaper groups in taking a hardline approach to digital subscriptions, eschewing metered models for an offer that provides online access to the whole bundle, or none of it.

Discussion: @raju and @hobbb, Thanks:@henryctaylor

Kristen Hare / Poynter:

Radio Free Europe journalists beaten, detained in Kiev protests — On Wednesday, UPI reported that two journalists have been beaten and detained in the ongoing protests in Kiev. … In a video for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty posted Wednesday, the two badly beaten men, Dmytro Barkar and Ihor Iskhakov, talk about what happened.

Discussion: UPI, Committee to Protect …, The Week and Radio Free Europe/Radio …

Sarah Marshall:

News in your pocket: Mobile-first journalism at WSJ — In one of the sessions at DJ@DJ, a Wall Street Journal training course which I dropped into when I was at head office in New York last week, Neal Mann talked through developments in mobile at the Journal and beyond. — Mobile video

Sarah Kendzior / Al Jazeera English:

When mainstream media is the lunatic fringe — Digital media gives cruelty, new visibility, but does the prestige of old media give bigoted ranting respectability? — On January 8, 2014, Emma Keller, a journalist for The Guardian, wrote a column about a woman named Lisa Bonchek Adams.

Discussion: @sarahkendzior, @zeynep, @graceishuman, @melissagira, @kurafire, @derrelldurrett, @allisonkilkenny, @redlightvoices and @pankisseskafka

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

UK sports show bans mentions of Twitter in protest over abusive tweets directed at presenter — Talksport bans Twitter in protest at racist taunts and death threats for Stan Collymore — Talksport has banned mentions of Twitter from its radio station and from Sport magazine until …