Mediagazer: Twitter's Big Battle Is Indifference (Yoree Koh/Wall Street Journal)

3:25 AM ET, February 11, 2014

Top News:

Glenn Greenwald and the U.S. ‘assassination’ program — Journalist Glenn Greenwald promised that the Pierre Omidyar-bankrolled First Look Media Web site would take it to vested interests in Washington. The debut edition of First Look's first digital magazine began delivering on the pledge …

Discussion: @the_intercept, @gwot_hipster, Daily Dot, Boing Boing, The Raw Story, Softpedia News, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

The Intercept:

First Look Media announces new magazine, The Intercept — Welcome to The Intercept — We are very excited to welcome everyone to The Intercept, a publication of First Look Media (FLM). The Intercept, which the three of us created, is the first of what will be numerous digital magazines published by FLM.

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:
Welcome to Glenn Greenwald, Inc.?

Discussion: @thedailybeast, The Intercept, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Techdirt, The Raw Story, Hit & Run and @justinjm1

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Google strikes big ad measurement deal with comScore — Partnership may change how billions of online ads a day are measured, covering display, video, mobile and any future areas Google moves into. — SAN FRANCISCO — Google signed a major advertising deal with comScore to help …

Discussion: comScore, Inc.

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Bill Keller, The Marshall Project, and making single-focus nonprofit news sites work — “When you have a startup, one of the most challenging things is to establish yourself as a credible news organization,” Neil Barsky, founder of a new news nonprofit focused on criminal justice issues, told me.

Discussion: Poynter, USA Today, The New Yorker Blog, @jbenton, Mediaite, Gawker, @niemanlab, Politico and FishbowlNY

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:

Facebook Changed How The News Feed Works — And Huge Website Upworthy Suddenly Shrank In Half — In a blog post, Facebook said it wanted to feature more “high quality” content and fewer “meme photos.” — That same month, — That's a 46% traffic decline in two months. — The drop raises a few questions.

Discussion: @petersterne, @antderosa, @dannysullivan and @cschweitz

Julia Ioffe / The New Republic:

The Only People Harassing the Gays of Sochi are the Foreign Journalists — Sochi has one gay club. It is called Mayak, or “light house,” and it is located behind an unmarked door right off one of the city's lush parks. You have to buzz to be let in. — Once you're in, though …

Discussion: @t_mcconnell, @davidfolkenflik, @chrishughes, @ianbirrell, @giantpandinha and @lbennett

Mario Anzuoni / Reuters:

Barnes & Noble shares rise on news of job cuts among Nook staff — (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N) shares rose by as much as 9.6 percent on Monday after news that the bookseller cut jobs from its team of hardware engineers working on its money-losing Nook digital books and e-reader business.

Discussion: Melville House Books and New York Times

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:
Barnes & Noble Fired Its Nook Hardware Engineering Staff

Discussion: TechCrunch, @sai, VatorNews, Pocket-lint, GeekWire, The Verge, SlashGear and Deadline.com

George Packer / New Yorker:

Is Amazon bad for books? — Amazon is a global superstore, like Walmart. It's also a hardware manufacturer, like Apple, and a utility, like Con Edison, and a video distributor, like Netflix, and a book publisher, like Random House, and a production studio, like Paramount, and a literary magazine …

Discussion: Forbes, Amazon.com, GeekWire, Business Insider and The Awl

Peter Kafka / Re/code:
The Time That Jeff Bezos Had Henry Blodget Explain the Web to the Washington Post

Discussion: @mike_orcutt and Politico

Joel Mathis / Philadelphia Magazine:

Can Philly Newspapers Be Saved? — Writer Steve Volk is a longtime observer of the Philadelphia media scene — so he brings a substantial foundation to this month's Philly Mag print story that takes readers inside the furious battle for control of the city's two major daily newspapers.

Discussion: Poynter, @phillymag, @dustinslaughter, @tommyrowan and @mollyeichel

Stacey Higginbotham / Gigaom:

Netflix ISP rankings show Verizon and Comcast speeds falling — Netflix updated its list of ISP rankings Monday, and the online video provider shows that Comcast and Verizon are continuing to fall in its custom rankings. That's possibly because of peering practices put in place by those ISP's …

Discussion: Netflix US & Canada Blog and Broadcasting & Cable

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

FOIA lessons from Gawker Editor John Cook — Last January, Ann Coulter expressed her anger about The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal-News' gun-permit map, which it assembled from public records. “I want them for Manhattan!” Coulter told Sean Hannity.

Discussion: @poynter, @erikwemple, @johnmcquaid and @digiphile

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Building a business news aggrefilter — This February 10, Les Echos launches its business news aggrefilter. For the French business media group, this is a way to gain critical working knowledge of the semantic web. Here is how we did it. An why. — The site is called Les Echos 360 …

Discussion: Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day, @edadams and @148

Angela Doland / AdAge:

IAB Launches China Chapter to Build Industry Standards — The Interactive Advertising Bureau is adding China to the global IAB network. The new group will help build industry standards in the country with the world's biggest online population 618 million.

Discussion: IAB

Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:

Twitter's Big Battle Is Indifference — Social Network Leaves Many Individual Users Cold — Twitter Inc. 's pitch to people like Christine Harsono isn't hitting its target. — The 21-year-old Los Angeles waitress has yet to give into years of nudging by Twitter to sign up.

Discussion: @wsjd and Business Insider

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

4 Headlines that Will Restore Your Flagging Faith in Journalism — Editor's note: The new issue of our sister publication Nieman Reports is out and ready for you to read. — Lots of great stuff in there as usual; the main theme of the issue is the state of journalism in China …

Discussion: @niemanlab

Megan Geuss / Ars Technica:

French journalist “hacks” govt by inputting correct URL, later fined $4,000+ — A Google search turned up public files that Olivier Laurelli is accused of publishing. — In 2012, French blogger, activist, and businessman Olivier Laurelli sat down at his computer.

Discussion: Techdirt