Top News:
Wall Street Journal:
eMarketer expects Google's share of the US search ad market to drop below 50% in 2025 for the first time in 10+ years, as Amazon, Apple, and others make gains — A flurry of new offerings for advertisers is hitting the market — Google's grip on the nearly $300 billion search advertising business is loosening.
Discussion:
@pkedrosky, @carnage4life@mas.to, @aravsrinivas, @aepstein_, @ashkan, Aravind Srinivas on LinkedIn, The Verge, Adweek and AdExchanger, more at Techmeme »
Trip Gabriel / New York Times:
Former NYT investigative reporter David Burnham, whose work uncovering corruption in the NYPD during the 1970s inspired the movie Serpico, dies at the age of 91 — Tipped off by the detective Frank Serpico, he wrote an explosive series on police corruption in New York City, sparking an investigation by the Knapp commission.
Discussion:
@schwellenbach, @sergenyt, @proflhunter, @carlmalamud@official … and Deadline
Matthew Jordan / The Conversation:
As Congress tries to force carmakers to install AM radios as a matter of public interest, it should push licensed stations to abide by public interest standards — A lament about the demise of AM radio has been rising in the halls of Congress. — Several automakers, most notably Tesla and Ford …
Discussion:
Barrett Media, RADIO ONLINE, Inside Radio and Radio Ink
Max Tani / Semafor:
Substack, which still isn't profitable but has added 1M+ paid subscribers over the past year, is trying to become a primary way creators of all mediums get paid — Seven years since its launch, the newsletter platform Substack has consolidated its dominance of the independent news business.
Discussion:
Jason Whittaker on LinkedIn and @semafor, more at Techmeme »
Sridhar Pappu / New York Times:
How SmartLess, a podcast by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes, became a rare cultural tent pole that continues to thrive after its pandemic birth — Started during the pandemic, this venture is the first step in a media empire being built by the actors Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman.
Discussion:
Deadline
Victoria Gomelsky / New York Times:
Watches of Switzerland Group, one of the world's largest watch retailers, buys watch enthusiast website Hodinkee and says its coverage will remain independent — Neither Benjamin Clymer, its founder, nor the Watches of Switzerland Group would disclose terms, but they stressed that coverage would continue to be independent.
Discussion:
@reb40, @ilyakan2004, @kstahl, @hiddenvaluegems, @penttijokinen, @will__stern, @cllctmedia, @aspeciale, @rafat, @robbreport, @etkeld, London Evening Standard, The Mirror, City A.M., MarketWatch, Fortune, Forbes Australia, Bloomberg, cllct, Hodinkee, Daniela Morena on LinkedIn, Benjamin Clymer on LinkedIn, Lorcan McCabe on LinkedIn, Katie Reed on LinkedIn, Adam Schoenberg on LinkedIn and Coverager
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Matt Mullenweg says WordPress.org “belongs to me personally”, as his WP Engine feud blurs the lines between WordPress.org, WordPress Foundation, and Automattic — The lines between the WordPress open-source project, the nonprofit backing it, and the commercial arm owned by Automattic are blurring.
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
An interview with ex-NBCUniversal executive Evan Shapiro on why streaming is a “shitty” business, Netflix ads, and why Hollywood must band together to thrive — After an Iberseries & Platino Industria keynote, the “media universe cartographer” explains why streaming is a “sh**ty” …
Discussion:
@tvgrimreaper
Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:
A look at Google NotebookLM's Audio Overview feature, which was built by Google Labs and has gone viral for its AI-generated “deep dive” podcasts with two hosts — With this Google tool, you can now listen to a show about any topic you could possibly imagine. You won't believe your ears.
Discussion:
@ambermac, @cnbctechcheck, @ericjorgenson, @stevenbjohnson, @omarsar0, @karpathy, @omartosca, @davetroy, @elonmusk, @firstadopter, @stevenbjohnson, @karpathy, @karpathy, Barron's Online, MIT Technology Review, Forbes, MIT Technology Review, Axios and Hard Fork on YouTube, more at Techmeme »
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Meta unveils Movie Gen, which creates up to 16-second videos from a text prompt, available to some staff and partners; Meta plans to add it to its apps in 2025 — Movie Gen tool can create short videos from a text prompt — Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. debuted a new artificial intelligence tool …
Discussion:
Meta, Andrew Weld-Moore on LinkedIn, Mike Hollander on LinkedIn, Siddharth Bhattacharya on LinkedIn, @jimclydego, @soumithchintala, @dr_cintas, @prashant_1722, @ahmad_al_dahle, @koltregaskes, @prashant_1722, @nearcyan, @kimmonismus, @reece___rogers, @arankomatsuzaki, @soumithchintala, @prashant_1722, @_akhaliq, ZDNET, Ars Technica, The Wrap, Neowin, The Verge, New York Times, @aaldahle@threads.net, @jakebailey@threads.net, @aiatmeta@threads.net, @evolving.ai@threads.net, @chriscox@threads.net, Wired and TechCrunch
Dade Hayes / Deadline:
Filing: Nexstar cuts its chief revenue officer position, and CRO Michael Strober will leave the company on October 30; he was hired after Nexstar bought The CW — Nexstar Media Group, which hired Turner veteran Michael Strober as EVP and Chief Revenue Officer in 2022, has eliminated his position.
Discussion:
The Desk, TVNewsCheck and Variety
Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica:
YouTube says it fixed an issue that appeared to affect thousands of accounts, incorrectly flagging channels as spam, removing them, and disabling subscriptions — YouTube confirmed Friday that a bug mistakenly removing seemingly thousands of accounts wrongly marked as sharing spam and deceptive content was finally fixed.