Mediagazer: Ex.fm and Sountracking teams join Rhapsody in music tech acqui-hire twofer (Janko Roettgers/Gigaom)

6:22 PM ET, August 4, 2014

Top News:

Josh Schwartz / Chartbeat Blog:

Traffic to Chartbeat customers fell 3% during Facebook outage; mobile went 8.5% down; desktop went 3.5% up — Traffic During the Facebook Outage — As you've all but certainly heard, Facebook had a major outage midday on Friday. Overall traffic on news sites dropped by 3% …

Discussion: niemanlab.org, Poynter, @justinnxt, BuzzFeed, Re/code and Tech Times

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Rhapsody Acquires SoundTracking And Exfm To Boost Music Sharing And Discovery — Rhapsody, the stalwart music streaming service with 2 million paying subscribers, today acquired Schematic Labs, makers of “Instagram for songs” app SoundTracking, and Exfm, a social music discovery service that had been shut down since May.

Discussion: VentureBeat and The Next Web

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Ex.fm and Sountracking teams join Rhapsody in music tech acqui-hire twofer — Rhapsody has acquired music discovery startup Ex.fm, and the Ex.fm team is joining Rhapsody's team to work on its subscription product. — Music subscription service Rhapsody has nabbed the teams behind …

Discussion: Share the soundtrack …, Billboard and hypebot

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Tribune Co. Changes Name to Tribune Media — The company, led by CEO Peter Liguori, recently approved the spin-off of Tribune Publishing, which houses the Los Angeles Times and whose stock is set to start regular trading on Tuesday. — Tribune Co. said Monday it was changing its name to Tribune Media Co.

Discussion: New York Times, niemanlab.org, Broadcasting & Cable, Variety and Politico

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Los Angeles Times CEO Eddy Hartenstein to resign Monday

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Mike Nizza named executive editor of Bloomberg's politics site — Bloomberg has hired Mike Nizza away from Esquire as part of the company's efforts to develop a new suite of media brands aimed at a consumer audience, Capital has learned. — Nizza, who currently serves as Esquire's digital editor …

Discussion: Politico, @mikenizza and @antderosa

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:

John Oliver uses slot on HBO to attack NYT, others for using native advertising — John Oliver goes off on native advertising — In June, The New York Times published what many considered the “Snow Fall” of native ads. The post, sponsored by Netflix to promote the second season of Orange …

Discussion: Mediaite, Gawker, The Week, Adweek, Business Insider, @joepompeo, Re/code, The Wrap and AdAge

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

Source: Gannett agrees to pay $1.8B for the 73% of Cars.com it doesn't already own — Gannett Said to Agree to Buy Rest of Cars.com for $1.8 Billion — Gannett Co. (GCI), the owner of USA Today, has agreed to pay $1.8 billion for the 73 percent of auto-sales website Cars.com it doesn't already own …

Discussion: New York Times

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Google News Gives Publishers More Control Over How It Indexes Their Sites — While European publishers have a rather contentious relationship with Google News, U.S. publishers have no such qualms and are more than happy to be indexed by the search giant's crawlers.

Discussion: Google News Blog, WebProNews and The Next Web

Aki Tsuchiya / Guardian:

Television must mine bigger data or risk being Netflixed — Figures relating to consumer habit fuels decisions across a growing range of industries - and it's time for TV to catch up — In retail, Amazon and Tesco have blazed trails, mining insight from millions of consumers at scale …

Discussion: Capital New York

Chris Smith / Digiday:

Trinity Mirror sees digital experimentation pay off — Add Trinity Mirror Group to the list of newspapers showing an affinity for digital. — The change in direction for one of Britain's biggest newspaper publishers effectively began in May 2013, when it launched the first series …

Discussion: Gigaom, Wall Street Journal, @mrjohncrowley, @macloo, @digiday and @richwater

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Cablevision Hires Ex-Yahoo Tech Exec David Dibble as CTO — Cablevision Systems named David Dibble, who had until last year oversaw Yahoo's global infrastructure, as chief technology officer. — Dibble, 54, will start at the Bethpage, N.Y.-based cable company in September 2014, reporting to Cablevision CEO James L. Dolan.

Discussion: Multichannel News

Natalie Jarvey / Hollywood Reporter:

Amazon Studios Head Roy Price on Competing With Netflix, Xbox Studios' Demise (Q&A) — Amazon doubles down on drama as its rivals fall. — A version of this story first appeared in the Aug. 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. — Roy Price comes from a long line of Hollywood executives.

Discussion: @laceyvrose

Emilie Friedlander / The FADER:

Social Anxiety: Should Artists Be Paying Journalists to Listen to Their Music? — In her bi-weekly column, Social Anxiety, Emilie Friedlander peeks underneath the artifacts of contemporary culture to question what it all really means. — A couple weeks ago, a music journalist friend …

Discussion: @daryl_byrslf, @jsdwrds, @missinfo and @sterlewine

Cynthia Littleton / Variety:

Chase Carey Commits to Staying at Fox If Time Warner Deal Happens: Source — Rupert Murdoch has strengthened his hand in his quest to acquire Time Warner. — 21st Century Fox president-chief operating officer Chase Carey is said to have pledged to make a long-term commitment to stay …

Craig Silverman:

After years of cuts, big Canadian media companies start strategizing in more sustainable ways — No more waffling, big Canadian media — This has in many ways been a horrible summer for big Canadian media. — CBC announced massive cuts. TorStar killed The Grid.

Discussion: @digidave and @craigsilverman