Mediagazer: Weighing the ethics of video game makers paying YouTubers for coverage (Mike Rose/Gamasutra)

11:20 AM ET, July 14, 2014

Top News:

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Inside Amazon's pricing war with Hachette, which is making some publishers and authors anxious — Amazon, a Friendly Giant as Long as It's Fed — Vincent Zandri hails from the future. He is a novelist from the day after tomorrow, when Amazon has remade the worlds of writing, printing …

Discussion: @smwat, @themediaisdying, @brucenussbaum, @jason_kint, @arhomberg, @intpublishers, @cdixon, @hblodget, @davidstreitfeld, Silicon Republic, @tonyhorwitz, @om, @jayrosen_nyu, Digital Book World and Business Insider

Ryan Roslansky / Official LinkedIn Blog:

LinkedIn acquries Newsle, a tool for monitoring mentions of people in news stories — Stay In The Know On Your Network: Newsle Joins The LinkedIn Family — We know LinkedIn is a place you visit to stay up-to-speed on your network, showcase and strengthen your professional identity …

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, @jamescham, @bfeld, @digiphile, @robpegoraro, The Next Web, @danroth, @jeffjarvis, @jeffweiner, @pkafka and Mashable

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:

Time chief content officer Norman Pearlstine on the spinoff, The Awl, Twitter, and more — Norm Pearlstine on Standing in Checkout Lines and The Awl — Norm Pearlstine. (Illustration by Paul Kisselev) … What does the spinoff mean for Time Inc.? We were very much defined …

Discussion: @annehelen

Michael Cieply / New York Times:

BitTorrent launching paywall and using crowdfunding to finance new sci-fi series — BitTorrent to Try a Paywall and Crowdfunding — LOS ANGELES — This might be the latest twist on crowdfunding — or the web equivalent of seeking a ransom. — BitTorrent, a purveyor of file-sharing technology …

Discussion: The Verge, @katikrause, The Next Web, @cryptogeeks, TorrentFreak and Engadget

Jonathan Mahler / New York Times:

Biggest Scorer in World Cup? Maybe Univision — Months before the first whistle of the World Cup, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, the president of Univision Communications's sports division, presented his engineers with a challenge: Could they figure out how to beam its soccer broadcasts …

Discussion: TVNewser, bookforum.com, @felixsalmon, Mediaite, Forbes and Re/code

Reuters:

Exclusive: YouTube weighs funding efforts to boost premium content - sources — (Reuters) - YouTube has embarked on a new round of discussions with Hollywood and independent producers to fund premium content, two sources with knowledge of the talks told Reuters, a move that could bolster …

Discussion: @pkafka, VatorNews and Beyond Search

Mike Rose / Gamasutra:

Weighing the ethics of video game makers paying YouTubers for coverage — Pay for Play: The ethics of paying for YouTuber coverage — Ethics are regularly a hot topic in video game criticism. — Whether it's readers accusing big-name consumer game sites of taking money for positive reviews …

Discussion: @yogscastlewis, Polygon and @raveofravendale

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

News Corp calls for piracy crackdown in Australia — Rupert Murdoch company requests toughening of laws to force internet service providers to act on copyright theft — News Corp, owner of film studio 20th Century Fox, has called for the toughening of piracy laws in Australia.

Discussion: The Register, @myriamrobin and TorrentFreak

Todd Spangler / Variety:

AT&T-Chernin Group's Otter Media Online-Video Venture Acquires Creativebug for $10 Mil — Otter Media, the newly named online-video joint venture of AT&T and Chernin Group, has acquired how-to crafting video site Creativebug from Demand Media for $10 million in cash.

Discussion: Re/code

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

British blogger Brown Moses launches new site to train others in crowdsourced reporting — A little over two years ago, the blogger known as Brown Moses was an unemployed father of one, with no journalistic training and no expertise in military weaponry or the Arab world, living in his flat in Leicester …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and Motherboard

Corey Hutchins / Columbia Journalism Review:

Newspaper revenue experiment throwdown: crowdfunding vs underwriting — Crowdfunded beats might not work, but there are good reasons for newspapers to give them a try — CHARLESTON, SC — Last week, we wrote about a deal between the News & Record in Greensboro, NC, and a local arts group …

David Carr / New York Times:

Hulu receives exclusive rights to stream South Park immediately after broadcast and entire back catalog in deal worth $80M+ — Hulu to Stream ‘South Park’ as More Players Jostle for Online Rights — While the media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho, jockeyed for parking spaces for their jets …