Mediagazer: Amazon planning free ad-supported TV and music streaming service, no Prime subscription required (Greg Bensinger/Wall Street Journal)

4:15 AM ET, March 28, 2014

Top News:

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Amazon Says It Has No Plans to Offer a Free TV and Music-Video Streaming Service — Here we go again: Amazon.com denied a Wall Street Journal report Thursday that the Internet retailing giant is working up a free, ad-supported TV and music-video service. — “We're often experimenting …

Discussion: BGR, CNNMoney.com, AppleInsider, Deadline.com, @sassy_spy, USA Today, The Wrap, The Verge, Business Insider, Pocket-lint, Radio & Television …, Gigaom and Wall Street Journal

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Amazon Launching Video Box Next Week — Amazon's entry into the set-top box world, which has been delayed for months, is coming next week, according to people familiar with the company's plans. — The e-commerce giant has invited reporters to gather for an “update on our video business” in New York next Wednesday, April 2.

Discussion: Business Insider, The Verge, Forbes, AdAge, WebProNews, Electronista, BuzzFeed, Daily Mail, Reuters, Mashable, Pocket-lint, Los Angeles Times, TechCrunch, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Gigaom, AppleInsider, The Huffington Post, BGR, App Advice, @seanbesser and @zseward

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon planning free ad-supported TV and music streaming service, no Prime subscription required — Amazon Plans Free Streaming Media Service — Website Said to Drop Strategy of Only Offering Video to Users of Its Prime Service — Amazon.com Inc. plans a free, advertising-supported streaming television …

Discussion: Globe and Mail, TechCrunch, Engadget, App Advice, @jackmarshall, Business Insider Australia and Pocket-lint

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

NBCUniversal-Owned DailyCandy and Television Without Pity Will Be Shut Down — DailyCandy and Television Without Pity, two high-profile Internet content properties owned by NBCUniversal, are being shuttered, a move that management told staff this morning would be occurring next week.

Discussion: TVNewser, Variety, Mediaite, @saramorrison, @pkafka, BuzzFeed, @atotalmonet, The New York Observer, FishbowlNY, AdPulp, @hblodget, Mashable, @felixsalmon, @doreeshafrir, @taraariano, @shani_o, @pamelaribon and @poniewozik

Thornton McEnery / Crain's New York: NBC mismanaged DailyCandy to death, former adviser says

Fercan Yalinkilic / Wall Street Journal:

After Twitter Ban, Turkey's Netizens Find YouTube Blockage a Breeze — As with the Turkish government's ban on Twitter last week, today's blocking of YouTube has spawned a race by people in Turkey to outflank the ban through other sites and apps. — Internet users, already armed with a host …

Discussion: @policy, @alistairmbarr, Los Angeles Times, Motherboard, @eff, ReadWrite and Re/code

Hurriyet Daily News:
Turkey blocks access to YouTube after leaked recordings of key security meeting

Discussion: New York Times, @zeynep, @robertmackey, @hasavrat, The Wire, Global Network Initiative, PandoDaily, Variety, Electronista, Los Angeles Times, GlobalPost, BBC, Newsy, @buzzfeednews, @arikan, @hdner and Kirk LaPointe's …

Hurriyet Daily News:
Turkish court rejects Twitter's petition

Discussion: New York Times, Hurriyet Daily News and The Switch

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Revenge porn could be opening up an exception to publishers' protections online — At Gawker, Michelle Dean has a piece on revenge porn — the awful practice of jilted men (mostly) posting explicit videos and pictures from their exes online — and the legal backlash building against it.

Discussion: US News, Gawker and The Daily Caller

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Turkish courts release eight journalists in two days — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release this week of at least eight imprisoned journalists in Turkey, but calls on Turkish authorities to scrap the charges against them and release all of the journalists jailed in the country.

Kenneth Li / Re/code:

Roku Will Be Your Future TV's Operating System — His world is about to get more crowded — that's a phrase that has haunted the coverage of Roku CEO Anthony Wood for the past decade. — Critics are applying the phrase again as the maker of the set-top box that streams Web TV to your TV faces another big rival.

Discussion: @johnpaczkowski

Michelle Castillo / Adweek:

HitFix Launches Multiplatform Video — After dabbling in video pieces over the last few years, entertainment news site HitFix announced today the full launch of HitFix Video. — “Basically, for us, video is the way, the hook, the content and the opportunity to get in front of consumers …

Chine Labbe / Reuters:

Actress Gayet wins privacy lawsuit versus tabloid in Hollande affair — (Reuters) - A French court ordered Closer magazine on Thursday to pay actress Julie Gayet 15,000 euros ($20,700) for publishing photos that revealed an affair between her and President Francois Hollande, her lawyer told Reuters.

Discussion: New York Times, The Independent, Daily Mail, euronews, sbs.com.au, Sky News Australia, Guardian and BBC

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Sources: Dropbox Acqui-Hiring Social Reading App Readmill For $8 Million — With fresh capital in its coffers, Dropbox appears to be on somewhat of an acquisition spree, albeit a quiet one. Following the cloud storage company's recent purchase of workplace chat solution Zulip …

Discussion: @laurahazardowen, @maxfenton, @mhauer, @hermancarlsson, @mikebutcher, @jorilallo, @ehn, @henrikt and App Advice

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Twitter's brevity is its biggest strength and its big weakness — and a massive challenge — If you've been following the Twitter rumor mill at all, you've probably seen reports about a number of things that the company is trying out — as part of its ongoing beta testing of new features …

Discussion: The Next Web and PandoDaily

Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:

Cable's Next Big Threat: Loss of Ad Dollars To YouTube, AOL — It turns out that cord-cutting isn't the only threat facing cable channels. — Several of the big ad-supported online video outlets, including Google's YouTube, AOL and others, plan this upfront season to target some of the ad dollars …

Discussion: VideoNuze Analysis, @wsjcmo and @digitalshields

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Tweets About Music to Get a Billboard Chart — Chatter about music is everywhere on Twitter. Soon there will be a Billboard chart to rank all of it. — On Thursday, the two companies will announce a deal to create the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts: continuously updated lists …

Discussion: The Twitter Blog, Billboard, Digital Trends, VentureBeat, Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, The Next Web, @liahaberman, ReadWrite, TIME, The Verge and BetaNews

Wall Street Journal:
Twitter rolling out new music strategy centered on music conversations and content this week

Discussion: @neilshahwsj, @wsjd, NBC News, @ryanchittum, TechCrunch, VentureBreak, Digital Trends, hypebot, Associated Press, VatorNews, Complete Music Update, The Next Web, @brokencool and @maura

Pat Long / Journalism.co.uk:

‘Why newspapers should steer away from the MTV model’ — Pat Long, head of news development, The Times and The Sunday Times — By .reid. on Flickr. Some Rights Reserved. — When MTV launched in 1981, the station's managers rapidly found that they were facing a monumental challenge.

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Twitter pressuring companies highlighting tweets for TV not to work with Facebook — Twitter Plays Hardball With Facebook Over TV — And TV Networks Gripe — TV networks love to work posts from Twitter, Facebook and other social networks into their programming.

Discussion: @socialtvtrends, @pkafka and @caseynewton

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Disney's Anne Sweeney Talks Successor, Online Pay TV Services — At a conference in London, she discusses the “creative transformation” rather than “creative destruction” of television and comments on the company's acquisition of Maker Studios. — LONDON - Anne Sweeney …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fresh Off Disney Deal, Maker Studios Comes to Cable TV (EXCLUSIVE) — Deal was reached prior to Disney's $500 million-plus acquisition of YouTube multichannel network company — Maker Studios, which is being acquired by The Walt Disney Co. in a deal worth up to $950 million …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Fullscreen Acquires Videogame Media Firm ScrewAttack — The March madness for multichannel networks continues: Fullscreen, one of the biggest YouTube MCNs, has acquired small videogame-focused media company ScrewAttack. — Terms of the deal were not disclosed.