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, Forbes, @jyarow, @jasonkirksbn, UK Blog on The Huffington Post, @caseynewton, @adrjeffries, @urbanstrata, @verge and FishbowlNY
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:
Boing Boing, The Daily Dot, Wired, @danstuckey, Associated Press, Guardian, International Business Times, Ars Technica, Crime Blog, @xeni, @dellcam, @danstuckey, @danstuckey, @danstuckey and @dellcam
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 …
Discussion:
Gigaom, @sulliview, Poynter, @andybechtel, @jayrosen_nyu, @kreissdaniel, @anildash, @dangillmor, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, @lisenstromberg, @pfeiffer44, OnPolitics, iMore, @ryan, VatorNews, CNN and ABC News
RELATED:
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years
State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years
Discussion:
CNNMoney.com, Nielsen, TVNewser, Politico and Broadcasting & Cable
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
RELATED:
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, @brianstelter and @mlcalderone
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:
Forbes, AdAge, Broadcasting & Cable, NetNewsCheck Latest, Multichannel News, Wall Street Journal and WWD
RELATED:
Tim Peterson / AdAge:
Facebook enabling advertisers to target people posting on Super Bowl topics in near real time
Facebook enabling advertisers to target people posting on Super Bowl topics in near real time
Discussion:
AgencySpy, TVSpy, Poynter, LostRemote, SocialTimes, Forbes, Cult of Mac, AdExchanger, AdAge and Radio & Television …
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, Engadget, TechCrunch, GeekWire, Gigaom, GalleyCat and The Next Web
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, @bklynmiddleton and @maggiejordanacn
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
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:
TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, Mashable and The Next Web
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
Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Four Sun journalists accused of making corrupt payments face retrial — Jury discharged after failing to reach verdict on charges against Chris Pharo, Ben O'Driscoll, Jamie Pyatt and Graham Dudman — Four Sun journalists accused of making corrupt payments to public officials face a retrial …
Discussion:
@lisaocarroll, The Independent and BBC
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Rdio Teams Up With Caribbean Operator Digicel To Expand Into 24 New Countries — A week after entering India, Rdio has expanded into 24 additional markets in the Caribbean and Central America region to take its streaming service to 85 countries worldwide. None of the new countries have anything …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Gigaom, App Advice, The Next Web and hypebot
Joe Coscarelli / New York Times:
How Björk and Madonna acted quickly when digital thieves leaked album tracks — Björk and Madonna Deal With Leaks of Album Tracks — When nearly 30 new Madonna songs, many of them unfinished demos, surfaced online last month, the singer and her team reacted both emotionally …
Discussion:
@kathryngoldman and @joecoscarelli
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:
@mbusse, @chartbeat and @cfrech
Benhuh / Medium:
Facebook Hoaxsters and Satirists, Bring Your A-Game to Cheezburger — In defense of having fun at the expense of the ignorant. — On the surface, Facebook's anti-hoax campaign seems like a good thing. I can't remember the number of times I facepalmed at watching genuine outrage …
RELATED:
John McDermott / Digiday:
Facebook's opaque hoax fix lacks human verification, and could let users work en masse to suppress news
Facebook's opaque hoax fix lacks human verification, and could let users work en masse to suppress news
Discussion:
Nieman Lab, Bloomberg Politics, Naked Security, Fusion, @mcdermott and The Awl