Top News:
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Bill Gates is guest-editing The Verge in February — Technology will build a better, safer, healthier world by 2030 — I'm very excited to announce that Bill Gates will be The Verge's first ever guest editor in February. This is a new type of collaboration for us, but there's no one better …
Discussion:
Poynter, @jyarow, @jasonkirksbn, UK Blog on The Huffington Post, @caseynewton, @adrjeffries, @urbanstrata, @verge, Forbes and FishbowlNY
Linda Ge / The Wrap:
DreamWorks Animation to Cut 500 Jobs, Release Fewer Films — DreamWorks Animation will release two films per year, down from three, and cut approximately 500 jobs across the board in a restructuring of its core feature animation business, the company announced Thursday.
Discussion:
Variety, Hollywood Reporter, PR Newswire, @bloombergdeals and @lucas_shaw
Antoni Slodkowski / Reuters:
Japanese reporter's bid to save friend led to Islamic State abduction — (Reuters) - It is an unlikely friendship that ties the fates of war correspondent Kenji Goto and troubled loner Haruna Yukawa, the two Japanese hostages for which Islamic State militants demanded a $200 million ransom this week.
Discussion:
The Independent and TIME
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Economist Group:
Zanny Minton Beddoes appointed new editor of The Economist — The Economist Group announced today (January 22nd) that Zanny Minton Beddoes has been named as the 17th editor of The Economist. — She succeeds John Micklethwait, the editor for the past nine years, during which time the circulation grew from 1.1 million to 1.6 million.
Discussion:
Guardian, Politico, Talking Points Memo, @maggiejordanacn and @bklynmiddleton
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Journalist and Anonymous advocate Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison on charges stemming from Stratfor hack — Barrett Brown has been sentenced to 63 months in prison — After years of legal battles, Barrett Brown's legal saga has finally come to a close.
Discussion:
Guardian, Boing Boing, Wired, The Daily Dot, @danstuckey, Associated Press, @tinkersec, Techdirt, Ars Technica, International Business Times, @xeni, @dellcam, @danstuckey, Crime Blog, @danstuckey, @danstuckey and @dellcam
Paul Rosania / The Twitter Blog:
Twitter rolls out “While you were away” feature to iOS users, coming soon to Android and web — While you were away... Today we're introducing something new to your home timeline: a recap of some of the top Tweets you might have missed from accounts you follow.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, The Wrap, Re/code, @johnbattelle, SocialTimes, Ubergizmo, @twitterads, @jayrosen_nyu, Cult of Mac, TechCrunch, New York Times, App Advice, Mashable, GeekWire, VentureBeat, The Next Web, The Verge, MacStories, MacRumors, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, Engadget and iMore
J.K. Trotter / Gawker:
NYPD increasing patrols near Gawker, BuzzFeed, Daily Beast offices after Charlie Hebdo attack — The NYPD Is Patrolling Gawker Because of the Charlie Hebdo Attack — The New York City Police Department has assigned police officers to guard the Manhattan offices of at least three media outlets …
Discussion:
JIMROMENESKO.COM, Politico, Mediaite, PandoDaily, @brianstelter and @mlcalderone
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Why White House used Medium for State of the Union: “We're trying to find audiences where they are” — Medium editor on SOTU coup: ‘People are already here’ — Newish publishing platform Medium scored a coup yesterday evening when the White House published President Obama's prepared State …
RELATED:
Nathaniel Lubin / White House Blog:
State of the Union online: over 1.2M views of White House live stream, 400K views of transcript on Medium
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, White House.gov Blog, Washington Post, @whitehouse, @jtsthehill and CNNMoney.com
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years
Discussion:
CNNMoney.com, Nielsen, TVNewser, Politico and Broadcasting & Cable
Michael Roston / Nieman Lab:
Don't try too hard to please Twitter — and other lessons from The New York Times' social media desk — The past year brought major changes to The New York Times. The social media desk's editors joined a new department, Audience Development. Our team gained new resources as we combined efforts …
Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:
Garrett Graff named editor of Politico Mag — Garrett Graff, the former editor-in-chief of the Washingtonian, will be editor of Politico Magazine, Politico editor Susan Glasser announced in a staff memo Thursday. — Graff, who succeeded Glasser as acting editor when she became editor …
Discussion:
FishbowlNY and Capital New York
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Amazon launches Kindle Textbook Creator to help schools turn PDFs into digital books — Amazon has unveiled a new program designed to help educational establishments and authors produce ebooks for students. — With KDP EDU and the Kindle Textbook Creator, Amazon is expanding its Kindle Direct Publishing …
Discussion:
Amazon.com, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Engadget, Gigaom, GalleyCat and The Next Web
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Super Bowl Ads: NBC Turns to Tumblr to Post Spots After They Air on TV — NBC Sports has launched a new Super Bowl page on Yahoo's Tumblr that the programmer will use to feature Super Bowl XLIX's TV ads immediately after they air on NBC on Sunday, Feb. 1. — The new NBC Sports Tumblr page …
Discussion:
The Wrap, Forbes, AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable, NetNewsCheck Latest, Multichannel News and Wall Street Journal
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Tim Peterson / AdAge:
Facebook enabling advertisers to target people posting on Super Bowl topics in near real time
Discussion:
Poynter, TVSpy, AgencySpy, LostRemote, SocialTimes, Marketing Pilgrim, Forbes, Cult of Mac, AdExchanger, AdAge and Radio & Television …
Jay Rosen / Pressthink:
Journalism site success means uniquely defining beats and a different mission than industry standard — A brief sketch of the “full stack” (intellectually speaking...) news and information company. — Meaning: it has its own way of doing things, its own ideas about what is worth doing, and it implements them from end to end.
Discussion:
Andreessen Horowitz, @jayrosen_nyu and @monkbent
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Tumblr's Creatrs Network connects Tumblr's top artists with brands to help make ads — Tumblr wants its best artists to create ads people actually like — Tumblr's beautiful, GIF-filled feed is what keeps bringing visitors back, and it wants to make sure the feed stays that way even as brands begin to fill it with ads.
Discussion:
Wired, TechCrunch, SocialTimes, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal and The Next Web
John Otis / Committee to Protect Journalists:
How Ecuador's plans to make communications a public service is threat to free press — Attempts to amend Ecuador's constitution to categorize communications as a “public service” has sparked a fierce debate, with one critic drawing comparisons to the way dictators such as Stalin and Hitler used …
The Information:
Viacom weighs buying three comedy sites: the Onion, Funny or Die, and CollegeHumor — Viacom Ponders Rollup of Comedy Sites — Through its ownership of Comedy Central, Viacom has a lock on the television funny space. Now the company is contemplating whether to extend that presence in the digital realm.
Discussion:
@cityofthetown and @alexweprin
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Saavn, 'India's Spotify', Reveals It Has 11M Monthly Users And Hires Ex-Google Exec — It's looking like 2015 will be a big year for India's music streaming space. A week after Rdio's arrival in the country, Saavn — a New York/India startup that was among the first to cater to India …
Discussion:
RAIN News, Music Business Worldwide, @jonrussell, Music Week, www.gizbot.com/ and @mahesh10feb
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Television Becomes a Force at Sundance Film Festival — PARK CITY, Utah — The Sundance Television Festival this is not. — That snarky, small-screen nickname is nonetheless being tossed around by some of the Hollywood attendees who are gathering here for the 31st Sundance Film Festival, which starts on Thursday.
Discussion:
The Corsair
Caroline Alexander / Bloomberg:
Egypt President Seeks End to Jazeera Reporters' Detention — Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said he's seeking a resolution to the case of three Al Jazeera television journalists imprisoned for more than a year. — “We are very keen on sorting this out and getting it finished as soon as possible …
Discussion:
TVNewser
Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times:
Icahn to Seek 2 Seats on Gannett's Board — Carl C. Icahn is not one to relax for long. — Fresh off signing a truce with eBay, the activist investor disclosed on Thursday that he planned to seek two seats on the board of Gannett, as well as to make proposals to prevent the media company …
Discussion:
Poynter, Gannett Company, Inc, CNBC, USA Today, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Deadline, Wall Street Journal and JIMROMENESKO.COM
Rick Edmonds / Poynter:
New possible metrics for the value of news and ads: time spent, time well spent, time saved — Time spent or time well spent — how to think about Web traffic — The search for meaningful digital audience metrics took a turn for the better in 2014 when Chartbeat and others began touting …
Discussion:
@cfrech, @mbusse and @chartbeat
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