Top News:
Adam Pasick / Quartz:
Spotify expands music discovery with Fresh Finds, a weekly playlist of music from new artists culled from music blogs and review sites — Spotify is using 50,000 anonymous hipsters to find your next favorite song — Spotify's personalized Discover Weekly playlist has won millions of fans …
Discussion:
International Business Times, TechnoBuffalo, news.spotify.com, Music Business Worldwide, Music Ally, Design & Trend, Lifehacker, MobileSyrup.com, newstalk.com, AndroidHeadlines.com, Ubergizmo, Complete Music Update, Digital Music News, Tech Times, SlashGear, The Verge, Guardian, Telegraph, The Next Web, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Billboard, Engadget, Digital Spy, PCWorld, RAIN News, Digital Trends, Tech Insider, hypebot and BuzzFeed
RELATED:
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Facebook rolls out ability to share Spotify songs and playlists from within a chat thread on iOS and Android — Spotify becomes first music platform to integrate with Facebook Messenger — Music has arrived on Messenger. — Facebook announced today that its mobile messaging platform now integrates with Spotify.
Discussion:
Variety, RAIN News, TechCrunch and VentureBeat
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Perseus Books Agrees to Sell Distribution Business to Ingram — Deal comes days after agreement to sell publishing arm to Hachette Book Group — Perseus Books Group has agreed to sell the last remaining piece of its business—its physical and digital distribution services group—to Ingram Content Group for an undisclosed price.
Discussion:
GalleyCat and Associated Press
Pavithra Mohan / Fast Company:
YouTube partners with UN to produce content that promotes gender equality, invests in videos by and about women at YouTube Spaces — YouTube Boosts Female Content Creators With Two New Initiatives — Both programs will focus on producing videos by women, for women, that discuss gender equality and other women's issues.
Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:
Newsy, bought by E.W. Scripps in 2013 for $35M and aimed at young audiences, is added to Sling TV along with Univision-Bedrocket channel Flama — Newsy, Flama Join Sling TV Lineup — Adding more millennials-focused fare to the mix, Sling TV has added Newsy and Flama to its core, $20 per month “Best of Live TV” package.
Discussion:
NetNewsCheck Latest, PR Newswire, Broadcasting & Cable and The Next Web
Steven Perlberg / Wall Street Journal:
Travel Site Atlas Obscura Raises $2.5 Million in New Funding — The company wants to be like ‘if National Geographic and Vice had a baby’ — Atlas Obscura may be a small publisher for now, but the travel and exploration website knows what it wants to be.
Jeremy Barr / Ad Age:
Sources: ComScore charges publishers between $10-$20K to track traffic on platforms like Facebook and Flipboard in addition to costs for main site measurement — Publishers Have to Pay Up to Track Their Audiences on Distributed Platforms — And ComScore Measurement of Apple News Is Still Pending
Discussion:
@jeremymbarr and AdExchanger
Alexandra Alter / New York Times:
CNET launches Technically Literate, a monthly fiction series featuring short stories about technology, to entice new readers to its 33M+ monthly audience — Tech Site CNET Tries Something Completely Different: Publishing Fiction — The technology news site CNET is known for covering the latest digital products.
Discussion:
@conordougherty, bookforum.com and Melville House Books
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Times of India group acquires US cricket broadcaster Willow TV, committing $100M for purchase and future investments in cricket rights, acquisitions, marketing — Times Group Buys Only U.S. TV Network Devoted to Cricket — Buyer commits $100 million to purchase of Willow TV and investments in rights, acquisitions, marketing
Discussion:
TechStory, TelevisionPost.com, @aasifshabbir, Financial Times, PR Newswire, The Economic Times, VCCircle and @kelseylh
Amy Qin / New York Times:
China extends censorship to online TV industry as new prohibitions on depictions of gay relationships, smoking, reincarnation, and more — China Cracks Down on Online Television — BEIJING — The authorities in China are tightening their grip on the country's booming online television industry …
Discussion:
KTVZ-TV, Gay Star News, ecns and Hong Kong Free Press
Guy Chazan / Financial Times:
Axel Springer 2015: pre-tax earnings up 10.2% to €559M, revenue up 8.5% to €3.3B, plans to expand investment in digital businesses in 2016 — Axel Springer sees earnings rise 10% amid digital growth — Axel Springer announced a 10 per cent increase in earnings for last year …
Discussion:
Bloomberg Business, Axel Springer SE, Reuters, RTTNews, Yahoo! Finance and Octafinance
Dale Maharidge / The Nation:
As newsrooms slim down, veteran reporters are forced from the profession, leaving younger journalists without mentors and confidence in the future — These Journalists Dedicated Their Lives to Telling Other People's Stories. What Happens When No One Wants to Print Their Words Anymore?