Top News:
New York Times:
Fox Challenges ESPN with Pursuit of Time Warner — Rupert Murdoch loves nothing more than taking on an entrenched powerhouse, and with his audacious $80 billion bid to purchase Time Warner, he showed a willingness to go up against one of the industry's most powerful players — ESPN.
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Jack Shafer / Reuters:
Streaming media services such as Netflix make a Fox-Time Warner deal as bad a bet as '90s newspaper buys — Dear Mr. Murdoch: Save yourself 80 billion bucks — The first time Rupert Murdoch tried to acquire Warner, Ronald Reagan was completing his first term as president …
Amazon.com:
Introducing Kindle Unlimited: Unlimited Reading and Listening on Any Device—Just $9.99 a Month — Read freely from over 600,000 books—available on Kindle devices, as well as free Kindle reading apps for iOS, Android and more — Listen to thousands of audiobooks from Audible …
Discussion:
Gigaom, ABC News, PC Pro, Re/code, @laurahazardowen, @laurahazardowen, NBC News, The Next Web, Engadget and TechCrunch
Agence France-Presse:
Ethiopian bloggers, journalists charged with ‘terrorism’ — Addis Ababa (AFP) - A group of Ethiopian bloggers and journalists detained for nearly three months have been charged with terrorism for having links to an outlawed group and for planning attacks, a judge said Friday.
Discussion:
ABC News, Committee to Protect … and The Raw Story
Glenn Greenwald / The Intercept:
NBC News Pulls Veteran Reporter from Gaza After Witnessing Israeli Attack on Children — Ayman Mohyeldin, the NBC News correspondent who personally witnessed yesterday's killing by Israel of four Palestinian boys on a Gazan beach and who has received widespread praise for his brave …
Discussion:
Baltimore Sun, The Huffington Post, NBC News, TVNewser, stream.aljazeera.com, @ajstream, @natashabadhwar, @jeremyscahill, @ggreenwald, @doylech, @jayrosen_nyu, @lailalalami, Business Insider, New York Magazine, Gawker, The Huffington Post, @hahellyer, @mohamed, @abarnardnyt, @headhntr and New York Times
Roberto Baldwin / The Next Web:
Microsoft confirms it's closing Xbox Entertainment Studios and halting production of new original TV shows — Today has been a tough one for Microsoft. After announcing 18,000 layoffs, it has also confirmed that it is shutting down its original programming studio, Xbox Entertainment Studios in the coming months.
Discussion:
Re/code, Variety, Adweek, AdAge, The Wrap, Multichannel News and @adamostrow
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Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:
After Shutting Down Xbox Studios, Microsoft Faces Trust Issues With Advertisers
After Shutting Down Xbox Studios, Microsoft Faces Trust Issues With Advertisers
Discussion:
VideoNuze Analysis and Forbes
Kate Holton / Reuters:
BSkyB in talks to acquire 21st Century Fox's Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia for estimated €10B — BSkyB prepares to roll the dice again with European expansion — * BSkyB in talks to buy Fox's German and Italian units — * Italian business hit by macro economic pressure
Stuart Dredge / Guardian:
Nokia MixRadio spins out of Microsoft as standalone streaming music service — Personal radio app will still be preloaded on Windows Phones, but now has scope to launch on iOS and Android too — As an independent entity, Nokia's MixRadio may now spread beyond Windows Phone.
Discussion:
Music Ally, The Next Web, Music Week, WinBeta and TIME
BBC:
US Supreme Court rejects Sherlock copyright case — The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an emergency petition from the heirs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who are trying to stop the publication of a book based on Sherlock Holmes. — Justice Elena Kagan, who was nominated to the court by President Obama …
Discussion:
Agence France-Presse and Techdirt
Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
How to Teach Google What a Story Is — Google wanted to solve a problem we can all understand. People take so, so many photographs and yet they actually do very little with them. A chosen few are posted to Instagram. Most sit in vast wastelands of thumbnails on phones or in iPhoto never …
Caroline Little / Poynter:
NAA president responds to criticism, says industry must embrace all media, including print — Newspaper group CEO: We need to embrace all media including print — A longtime newspaper man who recently turned academic, Mr. David Boardman posted an essay sharing his personal lamentations …
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu and @thenewschick
Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica:
ESPN dips its cleats into the e-sports pool with Dota 2 partnership — ESPN2 will preview The International's “final match,” more to stream online. — On Thursday, this weekend's The International, the fourth annual Dota 2 gaming tournament hosted by the game's creators at Valve …
Discussion:
Forbes, GeekWire, The Verge and The Next Web
Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:
Twitter expected to unveil new metrics that count people who see tweets in embeds and on TV — Under Pressure, Twitter Tries to Resize Itself — Company Is Expected to Unveil New Metrics That Will Show Breadth of Its Audience — After a troubling start as a public company …
Discussion:
Business Insider