Mediagazer: Beacon Reader's crowdfunding platform now lets supporters fund topics as well as journalists (Mathew Ingram/Gigaom)

9:45 AM ET, July 8, 2014

Top News:

Piracy and streaming shrank album sales, but music retains value and fan relationships matter — For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story — The Singer-Songwriter Says Artists and Fans Will Still Form Deep Bonds, but They Will Do It in New Ways — Where will the music industry be in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years?

Discussion: @buzzfeed, Forbes, NME, Gawker, The Week, @karaem, @wsj, MSN Music, @jackieaugustus, @nathanchubbard, TechCrunch, The Wrap, Guardian, Variety, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, The Huffington Post and Mashable

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How The Wall Street Journal is celebrating its 125th anniversary while also looking ahead — The Wall Street Journal marked its 75th anniversary on July 8, 1964 with a front-page story examining the paper's history and what the paper stood for. Though initially conceived as solely a business newspaper …

Discussion: Forbes, The New York Observer, FishbowlNY, Capital New York, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, @niemanlab and @wsj

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

New Zealand ISP allows its customers to subscribe to the U.S. version of Netflix — Slingshot, a local internet provider in New Zealand, wants to give its subscribers a little extra perk: The ISP just added a new “global mode” to its internet plans that allows its customers to access video services …

Discussion: The Next Web, New Zealand Herald, CNET, Home Media Magazine and DSLreports

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Guardian News & Media narrows loss to £30.6m, print income stable, digital revenues up 24% — Guardian and Observer narrow losses — Guardian News & Media reports loss of £30.6m in year to end of March, with print income stable and digital revenues up 24%

Discussion: Press Gazette, @johngapper, London Evening Standard, @stephentall, @ianwylie and @psmith

SA Mathieson / Online Journalism Blog:

Making digital journalism pay: doable. Making a living: difficult — It is perfectly realistic for journalists to make money out of digital journalism, but the problem comes from making a decent living. That was the theme to emerge from the NUJ Oxford event on making digital journalism pay.

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Beacon Reader's crowdfunding platform now lets supporters fund topics as well as journalists — There are many interesting experiments underway for funding journalism online, but Beacon Reader is one I pay attention to because it takes a collective approach — those who want to support …

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @dmitric and Techdirt

Michael Cieply / New York Times:

Participant Index Seeks to Determine Why One Film Spurs Activism, While Others Falter — LOS ANGELES — You watched the wrenching documentary. You posted your outrage on Twitter. But are you good for more than a few easy keystrokes of hashtag activism? — Participant Media and some powerful partners need to know.

Discussion: @jennyjpark, @joangallos and LA Observed

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Amnesty International launches video verification tool, website — Amnesty International is in the verification game and that is good news for journalism. — When journalists monitor and search social networks, they're looking to discover and verify newsworthy content.

Discussion: @craigsilverman

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

Katie Stanton to Replace Exiting Twitter Media Chief Chloe Sladden (Exclusive) — Less than a month after the departure of Twitter Media chief Chloe Sladden, the social media giant has found her replacement. — Katie Jacobs Stanton, previously vice president of international market development …

Discussion: Lost Remote, SocialTimes, Softpedia News, @jeffjarvis, @karaswisher, @chloes, Re/code, @raju, @awallenstein, @alecjross and @mathewi

Harley Brown / Billboard:

Microsoft Opens Xbox Music to App Makers — Xbox Music has become the latest music streaming services platform to open up its API to third-party app developers, according to a post on Microsoft's MSDN blog detailing API features like access to and management of metadata, affiliation between the platform …

Discussion: Music Week

AFP:

Iranian journalist Marzieh Rasouli sentenced to 2 years in prison and 50 lashes for anti-establishment propaganda — Iranian journalist jailed for opposing government — Marzieh Rasouli sentenced to two years in notorious Evin prison and 50 lashes for anti-establishment work

Discussion: euronews and @marzie_r

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Rightster buys digital video business Base79 in £50m deal — Digital video business Rightster has bought rival Base79 - run by Ashley MacKenzie, the son of former Sun editor Kelvin - in a deal worth as much as £50m. London-listed Rightster also said that Chad Hurley …