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Facebook's daily active user base in the US and Canada fell for the first time ever in Q4, dropping from 185M to 184M in the previous quarter — It was a small but negative change to daily active users in Facebook's most valuable market. — Here's a troubling data point if you're a Facebook investor …
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CNBC, Bloomberg, ZDNet, MediaNama, @privacymatters, @dhh, @bloombergasia, @jmichaelwaller, The Next Web, Fortune, GeekWire and Vanity Fair, more at Techmeme »
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Mark Zuckerberg says showing fewer viral videos reduced the total time people spent on Facebook by ~50M hours every day, as MAUs reach 2.13B, up 14% YoY — The world's biggest social network is almost minting money, but Mark Zuckerberg has warned news feed changes could hurt business.
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Facebook, Press Gazette, CNBC, Fast Company, TechCrunch, The Wrap, @joshconstine, BGR, Ad Age, New York Times, Recode, New York Magazine, VentureBeat, AdExchanger, Forbes, TechCrunch, CNBC, Business Insider, Variety and @anthony, more at Techmeme »

Memo: The Hill bars staffers from buying Twitter followers after NYT report on Devumi selling fake followers — The Hill announced to its staffers Wednesday morning that employees are now prohibited from purchasing Twitter followers. The new rule, conveyed via an internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast …
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iMediaEthics, @maxwelltani, @charles_gaba, @klasfeldreports and Adweek
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21st Century Fox wins 5-year contract for NFL's Thursday Night Football in deal sources say is worth $660M+/year; streaming rights to be sold in next few weeks — Thursday Night Football is changing networks once again. — The NFL announced Wednesday morning that the package will go to Fox for the next five seasons.
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Variety, Broadcasting & Cable, SportsBusiness Daily, nflcommunications.com, Radio & Television …, The New York Observer, Ad Age, Fortune, Bloomberg, Forbes, TVWeek.com, Adweek, Business Insider, FierceCable, ProFootballTalk, VideoNuze Analysis, @darrenrovell, @sportslawguy, @helmandc, @nicksundberg, @richbtig, @cyleeder and Deadline

Memo: The Oregonian, owned by Advance Publications, lays off 11 newsroom staffers — After repeated rounds of layoffs, it's hard to imagine the Oregonian having anywhere else to cut. But the news business's grim prognosis marches on, so the cuts continue.

Twitter now says 1.4M+ US users interacted with tweets from Russia-linked accounts during 2016 election, up from 670K previously announced, has notified them — Twitter on Wednesday said it notified 1.4 million people in the US that they engaged with Kremlin-linked troll accounts during the 2016 US election.
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@cfarivar, @kantrowitz, @propornot, @markseibel, The Hill, Recode, TechCrunch, Engadget, @kimzetter and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

National Book Awards will recognize translated books, giving awards jointly to living authors and translators for works published in the US — The National Book Awards, among the most prestigious literary prizes, are going global. — Starting this year, the National Book Foundation …
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Publishers Weekly, Bookseller News, @scottesposito, @philnel, @likaluca, Melville House Books, @likaluca and NPR

Pandora announces restructuring, shifting resources to ad tech and audience development, cutting workforce by 5% to save $45M annually, will expand in Atlanta — Pandora Media is pink-slipping about 5% of its workforce, a move the streaming-music company said will help it save $45 million annually.
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TechCrunch, Fast Company, Radio & Television …, MediaPost, Pandora, Business Insider, RAIN News, Radio Ink, @conorsen, AdExchanger, MarketWatch, @urvaksh and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

A look at the economic shifts as publishers move from guaranteed payments to revenue sharing with content recommendation services like Outbrain and Taboola — For the past three years, publishers have benefited from fat guarantees from content recommendation services like Outbrain and Taboola.

Meredith CEO Tom Harty says editorial staff face no changes yet at Time Inc. as Meredith takes over; Time Inc. CEO Rich Battista, other top executives to leave — Meredith is moving in. — The $2.8 billion acquisition of Time Inc. becomes final on Jan. 31, and Meredith officially takes over Feb. 1.
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Fortune, Page Six, @davidzmorris, @abbywestnyc, TVWeek.com and Vanity Fair

The Awl, born in 2009 from the idea that intelligent readers wanted resonant, weird, and amusing news and ideas, has now passed away; archives survive — The Awl was born of the following thoughts: What if there were a website with a wealth of resonant, weird, important, frightening and amusing bits of news and ideas?
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@kottke, Boing Boing, @tomscocca, @dvnjr, Eamonn Fitzgerald, @snackwave_julie, @andrewlavallee, @mishaangrist, @johndelsignore, @casey_cac, @tcarmody and @jyarvin

126 prominent European screenwriters and directors sign open letter urging EU lawmakers to adopt copyright law aimed at better compensating creatives online — The 126 signatories, including directors Alan Parker, Stefan Ruzowitzky and Agnieszka Holland, are pushing for the European Union …

Memo: Vox CEO Jim Bankoff says company hit its financial targets for 2017, says hiring growth will slow in 2018, and hints at some projects being “scaled back” — Vox Media Chairman & CEO Jim Bankoff on an era where quality, scale and sustainability matter more than ever.

BBC Director-General Tony Hall says the corporation made a “mistake” in failing to review Carrie Gracie's salary as China editor — Tony Hall appears in London's House of Commons in a public evidence session along with other top executives of the public broadcaster and former China editor Carrie Gracie.
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