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Wednesday, June 1, 2016
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Forbes has quit bugging (some) people about their adblockersIt looks as if Forbes may have loosened up on policies that prevented adblocker users from reading their content. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Reddit / UNU_AMA
Reddit runs an AMA with “an artificial ‘hive mind’ called UNU” →
“Today I’m answering questions about U.S. politics. Ask me anything…”
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is licensing The Washington Post’s technology platform →
Joining Tribune Publishing in adopting Arc. Could it become the Amazon Web Services of newspaper/news company backends?
Recode / Ina Fried
Mary Meeker’s 2016 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis →
If you don’t want to click through the slides, the PDF is here.
Billy Penn / Chris Krewson
Meet Josh Kopelman, the venture capitalist who is the new chairman of the Philadelphia Media Network →
PMN owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com. Last year, former owner Gerry Lenfest donated the papers to a new nonprofit, the Institute for Journalism in New Media. “I probably wouldn't have gotten involved at this level if it was a for-profit company,” Kopelman said.
Extra Crispy / Meredith Turits
Time Inc. launches Extra Crispy, a site entirely about breakfast →
” While our team has been incubating Extra Crispy for more than a year, we've seen Lucky Peach release their Breakfast Issue, Eater launch a Breakfast Week, and The New York Times make the case for breakfast, among others. Imagine our faces as we watched the world lose their collective minds about both a golden donut and a rainbow bagel in the span of a few weeks.”
Fusion / Kashmir Hill and Daniel McLaughlin
Fusion analyzed Facebook Trending Topics for a week to see if they’re politically biased →
Fusion compared the news Facebook featured to the news surfaced by The Drudge Report. “What is clear is that Facebook’s biases, if they do exist, are not crystal clear in the data alone.”
Bloomberg.com / Lucas Shaw
Fox will fund The Skimm’s move into video with $8 million funding round →
The Skimm will create a studio to produce original videos; RRE Ventures, Greycroft Partners, and Homebrew also participated in the round.
Medium
The Telegraph / Helena Horton
Twitter suspends popular anti-Putin parody accounts →
“The most popular Putin parody was @DarthPutinKGB, which had more than 50,000 followers.”
Digiday / Garett Sloane
Snapchat is redesigning Discover to make it more like a newsstand →
“Instead of static media logos in circles, representing the channels, publishers will have an actual cover image to draw readers into the content, according to one source. One publisher said the cover images would make Snapchat content look more like a magazine — and hopefully attract more eyeballs.”
Vanity Fair / Sarah Ellison
The New York Times is reportedly planning “at least 200 newsroom layoffs early next year” →
“In order to save the paper, Baquet has opened his newsroom to commercial thinking more than any editor in its history. He's even gone so far as to acknowledge the Times of the future will no longer be the paper of record on everything, but only in the areas it can afford to be.”
The Guardian / Jasper Jackson
New York Times’ Paris staff launch bid to reduce job cuts →
"We are not doing this just to save jobs. We are doing this to save the same sensibility this paper has had for 130 years."
Politico / Kelsey Sutton
News Corp.’s Heat Street charts a course through the culture wars →
“Heat Street's broader editorial aim, and the sensibility of its staff, is to call out what they see as hypocrisy in politicians, the news media and popular culture.”
Variety / Todd Spangler
Gawker stumbles to traffic low as political sites see user freefall →
“Gawker.com's traffic in April dropped a whopping 37% from the previous month, to 7.6 million visitors — the site's lowest mark in at least three years, per comScore. That was enough to take Nick Denton's entire empire down to a 29-month traffic low, even though most of his other brands, including Gizmodo to Deadspin, have held up.”
The New York Times / Katie Benner and Nick Wingfield
Jeff Bezos defends his decision to buy The Washington Post →
Speaking at Recode’s Code conference, Bezos said, "If it had been a financially upside-down salty snack food company, I would not have bought it.”
Bloomberg View / Jonathan Bernstein
The demise of local news may be ruining congress →
“In the old days, a senator might hope to receive positive media coverage when he or she introduced the bill; when a committee held hearings; when the bill passed the Senate; when it cleared the final congressional hurdle; when it was signed into law; when the new program was funded (in a separate appropriations bill); when the hospital won a grant; at a ground-breaking ceremony; and at the ribbon-cutting when the construction was completed. Maybe a few more times, too.”