Mediagazer: Next-Gen Cable Startup Layer3 TV Raises $21 Million (Natalie Jarvey/Hollywood Reporter)

9:45 PM ET, March 13, 2014

Top News:

Max Seddon / BuzzFeed:

Russia Wipes Opposition Sites From The Internet — “I don't even know if anyone is reading this anymore.” — Via blackhole.beeline.ru — Russia has all but eliminated the free media as it fights an information war against the West over Ukraine, with prosecutors blocking independent websites …

Discussion: TechCrunch, @kasparov63, Reporters Without Borders, Global Voices, @jeremyduns and Committee to Protect …

David Remnick / The New Yorker Blog:

Putin Moves Against the Press — One of the most riveting and liberating events of postwar life was the Soviet policy of glasnost, the Gorbachev-era explosion of media. The euphoria came not from the means of transmission but, rather, from what was being transmitted—and read, and heard, and seen.

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Alec Luhn / Guardian:
Editor of independent Russian news site replaced with pro-Kremlin figure

Discussion: The Moscow Times, Kirk LaPointe's …, Hollywood Reporter, Associated Press, New York Times, Trust.org, @asluhn, ITAR-TASS, The Malay Mail Online, kyivpost.com, Reuters, @jbenton, @emilydparker and The Moscow Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Sulzberger: The family won't sell the Times; succession plan in the works — Last fall, when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post from the legendary Graham family, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times and patriarch of one of America's last surviving newspaper dynasties …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Media & Entertainment, AdAge, @niemanlab and @adamnagourney

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Survey of nearly a thousand web pages looks at interactive features for news … The Engaging News Project at the University of Texas at Austin has a new report out today called Interactive Features in Online News. In order to get a sense of how features like polls and various share buttons …

Discussion: Engaging News Project

John Kell / Wall Street Journal:

Liberty Media Drops Proposal to Fully Acquire Sirius XM — The Plan Now Is to Create Two New Tracking Stocks — Liberty Media Corp. dropped its proposal to acquire the rest of satellite-radio provider Sirius XM Holdings Inc. that the media-investment company doesn't already own.

Discussion: Variety, New York Times, Bloomberg, Reuters and Hollywood Reporter

David Gelles / New York Times: Charter Still Hanging Around Time Warner Cable

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Edward Snowden looms over Pulitzer Prizes — Next month, the trustees who oversee America's most distinguished journalistic award could face their toughest decision in at least four decades. — The issue before the Pulitzer Prize Board: Does it honor reporting by the Washington Post …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Mediaite, @jeffjarvis, @erikwemple, @jackshafer, @jayrosen_nyu, @mlcalderone and @dylanbyers

Bloomberg:

Facebook Unveils Video Ads to Court TV's Market — Facebook Inc. (FB) is releasing its long-awaited video-advertising product today, as the world's largest social network moves to diversify its revenue by tapping into television-marketing budgets. — The 15-second spots …

Discussion: Forbes, Gigaom, TechCrunch, Mashable, Reuters, The Wrap, Business Insider, Variety and AdAge

Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:

The rise of the mobile editor — CNN readers following the news of yesterday's explosion in Harlem via their phones owe a lot to Etan Horowitz, CNN's mobile editor. — From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Horowitz and CNN sent out four push alerts to app users with the latest developments about the blast.

Discussion: @robynpeterson

Laura Hazard Owen / Gigaom:

Amazon raises the price of Prime to $99/year, citing increased fuel and transportation costs — OK, it's official: The price of Amazon Prime, which offers unlimited two-day shipping and other perks for $79, is increasing to $99 per year. Amazon's stock was up over 2 percent on Thursday morning.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The Wrap, VentureBeat, Globe and Mail, Variety, Refinery29, Re/code, ZDNet and Forbes

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:

Next-Gen Cable Startup Layer3 TV Raises $21 Million — The Boston-based startup has snagged Eric Kuhn, formerly head of social media at United Talent Agency, to run marketing. — Boston startup Layer3 TV has raised $21 million to make waves in the cable industry.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Broadcasting & Cable and Re/code

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Drone flight over Harlem disaster shows messy state of FAA rules — After a gas explosion destroyed two buildings in New York on Wednesday morning, a local man launched a DJI Phantom II to film the action. The 3-pound, 4-blade drone captured 30 minutes of footage; here's a screenshot …

Discussion: NY Daily News, TVNewser, Poynter and Bloomberg

Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing:

A digital only Lloyds List: How's one of the world's oldest papers coping without print? — Lloyd's List announcing last September it was going digital-only was seen as a symbolic changing of the guard. It was said to be the world's oldest continuously published newspaper before dropping its print shackles.

New York Times:

Questions About News Photographers in Syria Arise After Freelancer's Death — Late last December, Ahmad Barakat, a tailor turned rebel commander in Aleppo, Syria, buried two sons who died together during a battle with Syrian government troops. The elder son, Mustafa, fought for the Tawhid rebels.

Discussion: @jswatz, Foreign Policy, @donaldrwinslow and Corey Pein

Sherwin Siy / Wired:

Everyone Wins With Copyright Takedown Notices — Except the Public — The notice-and-takedown system created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides an essential safe harbor for online services to innovate. This system is the result of an intense series of negotiations between content …

Discussion: Daily Dot

David Leonhardt / Facebook:

How The Upshot Will Help Navigate the News — Imagine that you were sitting down with a journalist and could ask any question about the news. — Which parts of Obamacare are working, and which parts are not? Is Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, really in danger of losing his seat this year?

Discussion: Poynter, @neil_irwin and @venohr

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Plex opens up Chromecast to everyone, adds automatic camera upload — Media center app maker Plex followed through on a promise Thursday to remove restrictions around its Chromecast implementations, opening up the feature to all of its users including non-subscribers.

Discussion: blog.plex.tv, TechCrunch and 9to5Mac