Mediagazer: Tesco looks at sale of Blinkbox with 300 jobs at risk (Gideon Spanier/London Evening Standard)

7:20 AM ET, October 1, 2014

Top News:

Russian State Media Portray Hong Kong Protests as U.S. Plot — Echoing Kremlin Line on Protests in Moscow and Kiev, State TV Sees U.S. Hand in Pro-Democracy Movement — MOSCOW—Russian state news outlets have begun airing reports casting the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as a U.S.-organized plot …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Andrew Jacobs / New York Times:

Chinese Web Censors Struggle With Hong Kong Protest — BEIJING — Can Chinese censors vanquish the umbrella? — As protesters in Hong Kong continue to defy authorities with their demands for greater democracy, mainland China's politically minded web users have been trying to outmaneuver …

Discussion: Business Insider, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Committee to Protect … and Gawker

Gideon Spanier / London Evening Standard:

Tesco looks at sale of Blinkbox with 300 jobs at risk — Up to 300 jobs at Tesco's online entertainment service Blinkbox were today under threat after the embattled parent company warned staff it was looking at all options, including a sale or closure. New Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis …

Discussion: International Business Times, Guardian, Advanced Television, The Times and Tech Digest

Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:

More Cable Companies Take TV Off Menu — Customers Care More About Broadband, They Say, and Programming Has Gotten Too Expensive — A growing group of small cable-TV providers are realizing that both they and their customers can live without expensive TV channels.

Brendan Sasso / National Journal:
FCC may treat some online video services like cable and satellite TV providers

Discussion: Multichannel News, Variety and Mashable

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:

‘Twilight’ Will Be Revived via Short Films on Facebook — LOS ANGELES — Two years after Lions Gate released the fifth and supposedly final installment of its “Twilight” movie series, the studio has devised an unusual franchise-rekindling effort — and it may hold clues about Facebook's future in Hollywood.

Discussion: Guardian, @michaelroston, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, @genn4dy, Deadline and @hreins

Chris Welch / The Verge:

TiVo now lets Android users stream their recorded TV shows — You can now stream TV shows recorded with TiVo's latest DVRs on Android devices. Today, the company announced that its app for Google's mobile operating system is finally available. You can also find it in the Amazon Appstore to use with the Fire Phone or Fire tablets.

Discussion: Tivo Blog, Bloomberg, CNET and Multichannel News

Amy Schatz / Re/code:

Internet Companies Take Aim at Wireless Net Neutrality As Debate Rages On — Google, Facebook and other large Internet companies are ramping up a lobbying campaign to ensure federal regulators cover wireless networks in its new net neutrality rules. — The Internet Association …

Discussion: The Hill

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

NYT's ad chief defends native advertising, focuses on growing video and mobile revenue — Going native at the Times — Meredith Kopit Levien's iPhone died on her return trip from an early August weekend in the Hamptons. So when the 43-year-old New York Times advertising chief got to work …

Discussion: Nieman Lab

Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:

Google searches for right note in online music business — (Reuters) - Google Inc is planning new and revamped streaming-music services in coming weeks, searching for a way to stand out in an increasingly crowded field of rivals from Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc to Spotify.

Liz Gannes / Re/code:

Reddit raises $50M round led by Y Combinator president Sam Altman, investors plan to allocate 10% of the round's equity to Reddit users — Reddit Raises $50 Million, Plans to Share Stock With Community Members — Reddit, the Internet's favorite place to share links, has raised about $50 million in funding.

Discussion: reddit, Sam Altman, Gigaom, Business Insider, @anildash, @mashable, @howardlindzon, VentureBeat, ReadWrite, Gawker, International Business Times, TIME, Forbes, Mashable, TechCrunch, @percival, @danielzarick, @anjiecast and VentureBeat

Karin Matussek / Bloomberg:

Google Ordered to Change Handling of User Data in Germany — Google Inc. (GOOG) was ordered by a German regulator to limit how it combines user data that could be used to find out customers' personal preferences, including marital status or sexual orientation.

Discussion: Marketing Land, Business Insider and Computerworld

Lene Bech Sillesen / Columbia Journalism Review:

Good news is good business, but not a cure-all for journalism — Positive news sites are presented as the answer to news fatigue, but solutions journalism practitioners disagree — Most news consumers probably know that the news these days is mostly dire, and that the act of staying informed …

Discussion: @rasmus_kleis and @cjr