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Maggie Haberman / New York Times:
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks says she's resigning in coming weeks; sources say she has been considering leaving for several months — Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and one of President Trump's longest-serving advisers, said Wednesday that she was resigning.
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Dan Primack / Axios:
Spotify files with SEC for $1B direct listing, will use SPOT as stock symbol; reports 71M paid subs, up 46% YoY, $4.09B revenue in 2017, up from $2.95B in 2016 — Music streaming giant Spotify today filed for a $1 billion IPO. Axios had previously reported on the company's confidential filing, but the new paperwork is public.
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Peter Kafka / Recode:
Sony Music owns 5.7% of Spotify's shares, which is more than other music labels and potentially worth $1.1B based on a $20B valuation — Now it has to figure out how to divide that money with Beyonce and its other artists. — Spotify's coming IPO is validation for CEO Daniel Ek, who has built a giant music streaming business.
Discussion:
@pkafka, more at Techmeme »
Recode:
Spotify's gross margin has grown from 16% to 21% from 2014 to 2017, but since it pays per stream, it still must figure out how to turn usage growth into profit
Discussion:
TechCrunch and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »
Janko Rottgers / Variety:
Spotify says operating loss was $461.2M in 2017, up from $425M in 2016; average user streams 25 hours of audio a month, playlists generate 31% of all listening
Discussion:
Fast Company, Recode, TechCrunch, AdExchanger, The New York Observer and Fortune, more at Techmeme »
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
Interview with Tow Center's Jonathan Albright on how disinformation spreads across platforms: “the ways we get news ... are literally disintegrating around us” — “The kinds of things that I often see could literally be stopped by one person. I mean: 4chan trending on Google during the Las Vegas shooting?
Discussion:
BuzzFeed and @niemanlab
Paris Martineau / The Outline:
After removing some conspiracy and pro-gun videos and channels, YouTube says it will reinstate videos, which may have been removed in error by moderators — Looks like that whole “content moderation” thing wasn't a joke after all. — The Future — Looks like that whole “content moderation” thing wasn't a joke after all.
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Bloomberg, Splinter, BetaNews, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Verge, The Next Web, The Gateway Pundit, The Hill, The Verge, Gizmodo and Polygon, more at Techmeme »
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Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
YouTube banned neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division's channel for violating hate speech policies following criticism and a request from the Anti-Defamation League — YouTube's removal only comes after a media flurry around the platform's inaction on neo-Nazi content.
Discussion:
Engadget, The Verge, Jezebel, Engadget and Tubefilter
Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / WWD:
Vogue and Vice put on hold their collaboration, Project Vs, due to launch today; source says sexual harassment allegations at Vice caused loss of sponsorships — The project was put on hold after multiple sponsors got cold feet, according to sources. — Vice chief executive officer Shane Smith …
Discussion:
Digiday, Daily Front Row and The Business Journals
Jon Lafayette / Multichannel News:
NBCUniversal to decrease ads by 10% in original primetime programming on all of its television networks and reduce the number of commercials per break by 20% — New pods will feature just two commercials — NBCUniversal said it plans to decrease advertising time by 10% in original primetime programming …
Discussion:
Ad Age, Wall Street Journal, Variety, FierceCable, Adweek and @markdavis
Akhil Arora / NDTV Gadgets 360:
Amazon Music launches in India as a free service for Prime members, available on Android, iOS, and the web — Amazon Music has been given a full-scale launch in India, the subscription-based music streaming service that's part of Amazon Prime membership. You can now access it via music.amazon.in …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, MediaNama, MediaNama, Firstpost, Ubergizmo, RAIN News, MediaNama, Android Central, The Next Web, Music Business Worldwide and TechCrunch
Natalia Drozdiak / Wall Street Journal:
EU announces guidelines mandating that tech firms remove terror content within one hour of it being flagged by law enforcement or Europol — EU announces guidelines to tech giants for removing terror and other illegal content from their websites — BRUSSELS—The European Union on Thursday upped …
Discussion:
Bloomberg and The Daily Beast, more at Techmeme »
Matt Brian / Engadget:
UK's Sky announces deal with Netflix granting access to all of Netflix's content to Sky customers with Sky Q boxes following the example of BT and Virgin Media — While Sky continues to wade through multi-billion dollar bids from Fox and Comcast, the UK pay-TV provider has quietly …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, The Guardian, Sky News and Variety
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
Daily Star editor Dawn Neesom has resigned and Daily Express editor Hugh Whittow is expected to resign Thursday following Trinity Mirror takeover — Job cuts to save £20m loom as Trinity Mirror completes buyout of Richard Desmond titles … The editors of the Daily Express and Daily Star …
Associated Press:
Two officials close to Slovak PM Robert Fico, who were named in slain journalist Jan Kuciak's last story, have resigned until investigation into murder is over — BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — An investigative journalist shot dead in Slovakia last week was working on a story about the activities …
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