Mediagazer: Throwback Thursday: Whatever happened to AOL's ‘Flipboard killer’? (Lucia Moses/Digiday)

9:20 PM ET, August 7, 2014

Top News:

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:

Amazon has an advantage over Google Express/B&N because it owns the customer relationship — Why Google Express, B&N vs. Amazon is apples and oranges — Summary: Google Express may prove to give Amazon a run, but ultimately the customer relationship will win out. Advantage Amazon.

Alexandra Alter / New York Times:

Google partners with Barnes & Noble for same-day book deliveries from stores in West LA, SF Bay Area, and Manhattan — Google and Barnes & Noble Unite to Take On Amazon — Google and Barnes & Noble are joining forces to tackle their mutual rival Amazon, zeroing in on a service …

Discussion: BGR, mUmBRELLA, SlashGear, Los Angeles Times, Wired, Digital Book World, VentureBeat, Re/code, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Engadget, InvestorPlace, The Verge, GalleyCat, Gigaom, TechCrunch, TIME, GeekWire, Daring Fireball, Bookseller news, @robneyer, @levie and The Next Web

Thomas Erdbrink / New York Times:

Jason Rezaian of Washington Post and Wife Still Held — Jason Rezaian of Washington Post and Wife Still Held — TEHRAN — Jason Rezaian knew he was being watched. A man on a motorcycle had been following him and his wife for weeks, his colleagues said.

Discussion: CNN, The Huffington Post, @p_zalewski, @mlcalderone, Media Law Prof Blog, Washington Post and Al-Monitor

Corey Hutchins / Columbia Journalism Review:

Gannett's changes bring excitement, some pain, and a full-time beer beat — A conversation with Joshua Awtry, the chain's top editor in the Carolinas — Yesterday was a busy one for Joshua Awtry. He was one of a handful of editors at Gannett-owned papers around the country who spent …

Discussion: Poynter, @jcrutchmer, @michaelngraff, @ldncalling, @jawtry, @jimclarkeap, @brianstelter, @1brianmagee, @coreyhutchins, Common Sense Journalism, Greenville News, app.com and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Dylan Byers / Politico:

NYT recalibrates on “torture” for clear cases where interrogators inflicted pain on prisoners — N.Y. Times broadens use of ‘torture’ — The New York Times will now use the word “torture” to describe any incident in which interrogators “inflicted pain on a prisoner in an effort …

Discussion: Guardian, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Washington Post, @ggreenwald, @ggreenwald, @jayrosen_nyu, @trevortimm, @talkingnewmedia, @litthom, @attackerman, @froomkin, @emptywheel, @trevortimm, @jayrosen_nyu and @zaksaid

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Turning a profit in the Netherlands: How a Dutch hyperlocal network has grown — While lots of U.S. media companies are still struggling to figure out how to make hyperlocal news financially viable, in the Netherlands, a four-year-old network of hyperlocal sites began turning a profit earlier this year.

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Bloomberg to cancel ‘Political Capital with Al Hunt,’ lay off TV and print staff — Bloomberg Media has decided to cancel its weekly political talk show, “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” and will lay off several television and print employees in its Washington, D.C., bureau, POLITICO has learned.

Discussion: New York Times, TVNewser, Latest News & Headlines, @alexweprin, @dylanbyers and The Wrap

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Nic Pizzolatto & HBO Refute ‘True Detective’ Plagiarism Claims — At the beginning of this week, with Emmy voting campaign in full swing, a story surfaced online that posed the question whether True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, a nominee for writing the episode “The Secret Fate of All Life …

Discussion: Lovecraft eZine, Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, NME News, Inside TV and Mashable

Peter Sterne / Capital New York:

CNN Politics eliminates more than a dozen positions in shift to video — More than a dozen employees in CNN's Digital Politics division learned yesterday that their positions will be eliminated at the end of the month, Capital has learned. — The employees were told that they would have to re-apply …

Discussion: Washington Post, @alexweprin, MediaWire Daily and FishbowlDC

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

The New York Times explores cheaper digital subscriptions — The New York Times is considering a cheaper version of its digital subscription as it continues to look for ways to get more revenue out of consumers. — According to a survey sent to readers this week, the new offering …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, New York Times and @raju

Variety:

News Corp ends first year away from Fox with mixed results: $.02/share income; $2.19B revenue — News Corp. Revenues Fall on Weaker Ad Sales, Subscriptions — Revenues at News Corp. fell during the most recent fiscal quarter on weaker subscription sales and a sluggish advertising market.

Discussion: The Wrap, Capital New York, Reuters, Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, Digital Book World and News Corp

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:

Netflix now has more subscription revenue than HBO — Netflix CEO Reed Hastings humble-bragged on Facebook today: + Reed Hastings on Facebook He's right. (About the financials, at least—Silicon Valley, an HBO sitcom about tech startups, was really bad.) Here's how HBO's subscription revenue compares …

Discussion: Adweek, Business Insider, Reed Hastings and Quartz

Rob Price / Daily Dot:

Ashton Kutcher's viral site, A+, lifted content from BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Cracked, more — Is Ashton Kutcher's new viral empire built off stolen content? — Ashton Kutcher's flagship viral content site has republished large quantities of material from across the Internet apparently without …

Discussion: @antderosa, @bmorrissey, @_cooper, @bmorrissey and @tomgara

Eric Johnson / Re/code:

Twitch CEO: “We screwed up” with short notice on policy changes affecting archives and audio — Under Fire, Twitch CEO Says “We Screwed Up” Policy Announcement — When Twitch announced yesterday that it would start muting copyrighted music in on-demand videos, the Internet freaked out.

Discussion: TechCrunch and Electronista