Mediagazer: Beats is a platform, connecting artists with fans; Apple's users will enable network effects on it (Michael Vakulenko/Medium)

4:30 AM ET, May 30, 2014

Top News:

Michael Vakulenko / Medium:

Beats is a platform, connecting artists with fans; Apple's users will enable network effects on it — To understand Beats you need to understand Lady Gaga — Look beyond headphones, play lists, music streaming, wearables and label deals — The news are finally out—Apple is buying Beats for 3 Billion Dollars.

Discussion: Guardian, @monkbent, @pgiese, @tomgara, @cdixon, @richoakley, Digital Media Wire, hypebot, Forbes, Re/code, ReadWrite, The Verge, Cult of Mac and Mercury News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Apple Will Use Curation To Beat A Path To Mainstreaming Music — Ask the average person who their favorite musicians are and they'll struggle to name more than a few. That's one reason search-based streaming services haven't hit critical mass. They force users to know what they want to hear.

Discussion: Mashable, Tech Trader Daily and VatorNews

Ben Popper / The Verge:
Apple didn't want Beats, it needed Beats

Discussion: MacStories, Re/code and Cult of Mac

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Who's behind that tweet? Here's how 7 news orgs manage their Twitter and Facebook accounts — On a typical day, The Wall Street Journal publishes about 500 or 600 stories. And with correspondents spread across the globe, those stories go up around the clock.

Discussion: @polina_marinova, @ericcarvin, @bydanielvictor, Cision and Talking Biz News

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

It's alive! What NPR learned from turning its @nprnews Twitter account from a bot into a human — May 22 was World Goth Day! To celebrate, NPR's main Twitter account, @nprnews, sent out a tweet to its 2 million-plus followers sharing a 2013 NPR story on Goth Barbie.

Discussion: the npr social media desk

David Folkenflik / NPR:

‘Period Of Turmoil’ Preceded Abramson Firing, Says Top Editor At ‘Times’ — Dean Baquet sat in his new office in midtown Manhattan, the very picture of composure and precision, as he described the top-level dysfunction that led to the firing of Jill Abramson as executive editor of The New York Times …

Discussion: The Wrap, Forbes, New York Magazine, @davidfolkenflik, @davidfolkenflik, @lisamcintire and @davidfolkenflik

Matt Hardigree / Jalopnik:

Automobile Magazine Cuts Staff And Fires Editor — Giving credence to yesterday's rumor, Automobile magazine's Michigan offices have been closed, much of its staff has been let go, and the Editor-in-Chief Jean Jennings has been fired. This comes along with Source Interlink …

Discussion: Automobile Magazine, Jalopnik, @zoomy575m, @sailthetethys, BMW BLOG, @mattclarke_am, @stanceandspeed, @nytjamescobb, @jalopnik, @nsfwlife, @dutch_mandel, @mickimaynard, @steintrek, @randyshayler, @pseudobread, @damonlavrinc and Autoblog

Bill Mickey / Folio:

Source Interlink Distribution to Shut Down — After losing Time Inc. business, all operations to cease. — As was widely speculated following the news that Time Inc. dropped its wholesale services, Source Interlink Distribution has announced that it's shutting down.

Discussion: New York Post, @cayseyw and Canadian Magazines

Reggie Ugwu / BuzzFeed:

Amazon Prime to offer music streaming service with songs six months old or older, coming June/July; Sony, Warner on board — Exclusive: Amazon Prime To Offer Music Streaming Service — With 6-Month-Old Songs — The internet giant has reached deals with major labels for a service to launch this June or July.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Mashable, Gigaom, The Verge, Business Insider, Cult of Mac, The Next Web, TechCrunch, @pigsandplans, MacRumors, AllAccess.com and hypebot

Agence France-Presse:

Turkey sentences Twitter user to jail for blasphemy — Istanbul (AFP) - A Turkish court on Thursday handed a 15-month jail term to a teacher over Twitter posts deemed religiously offensive, local media reported on Thursday. — The court in the eastern city of Mus ruled that the man …

Discussion: Mashable and Daily Dot

Al Jazeera English:
Turkey's top court rejects YouTube ban

Discussion: USA Today, BBC, Reuters and Associated Press

Bill Mickey / Folio:

MIT Technology Review Launches Tiered Subscription Plan — Latest effort to support digital-first brand strategy. — MIT Technology Review officially launched its tiered subscription plan today. Called Insider, it offers three pricing levels and has emerged from a long period of market testing and a two-month beta.

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The New York Times is restructuring its Page 1 meetings to be more digital (as that big report suggested) — If you want to do something newsworthy at The New York Times and not have people notice, I guess the best thing to do is to put it on Times Insider.

Discussion: @ryantate, @jbenton, @niemanlab, @robweir, @raju and New York Times

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Probably not a surprise: Turns out your boss spends a lot of time in email — reading news — Do you work in a handsome corner office, one with a view? If so, you likely get a lot of your news in your inbox. — Of course, that's true for many non-captains of industry too.

Discussion: Medium and Beet.TV

Chris Welch / The Verge:

YouTube reveals which US internet providers are best and worst at streaming — Starting today, internet providers in the United States will finally be held to account for lackluster YouTube streaming speeds. Google has brought its Video Quality Report — first launched in Canada at the start …

Discussion: Gigaom, The Hill, Multichannel News, FierceOnlineVideo News and Boing Boing

Jack Marshall / Wall Street Journal:

BuzzFeed tinkers with sponsored content labels as native advertising evolves — “Native” Ad Labelling is a Work in Progress — “Native” advertising, or advertising content designed to blend in with editorial content, is all the rage. But publishers and marketers are still figuring …

Discussion: @noahchestnut and @jackmarshall

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Sinclair Proposes Surrendering Three Licenses to Get Allbritton Deal Done — Republican commissioners blame crackdown on sharing arrangements — According to FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly, Sinclair has told the FCC it will have to surrender three stations …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, TVSpy, TVNewsCheck.com and The Hill

Nicole Perlroth / New York Times:

Iranian hacker “Newscaster” campaign used real journalists' names, fake reporter personas — Cyberespionage Attacks Tied to Hackers in Iran — SAN FRANCISCO — An elaborate, three-year cyberespionage campaign against United States military contractors, members of Congress …

Discussion: iSIGHT Partners, Daily Dot, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Washington Post and Mashable