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Thursday, January 12, 2017
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Are those creepy web ads that learn your preferences and follow you around online also discriminatory?Floodwatch, a new tool from the Office for Creative Research, is hoping it can collect enough data from users to help researchers answer questions around just how users are being targeted by ads online. By Shan Wang. |
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Tarbell, launched by an ex-health insurance exec, will focus on corporate cash’s political influence“There’s not enough written about how these processes actually take place. Who is writing the checks? What’s in it for them? What are the consequences of all of these for individuals and our way of life?” By Ricardo Bilton. |
What We’re Reading
Medium / David Cohn
The CMS is your first editor →
“Technical features of a CMS dictate editorial. It's as simple as that.”
The Wall Street Journal / Ben Fritz, Tripp Mickle, and Hannah Karp
Apple is moving much farther into the original content business →
“These people said the programming would be available to subscribers of Apple's $10-a-month streaming-music service, which has struggled to catch up to the larger Spotify AB. Apple Music already includes a limited number of documentary-style segments on musicians, but nothing like the premium programming it is now seeking.”
Techdirt / Mike Masnick
Techdirt’s First Amendment fight for its life →
“And here’s the thing: this fight could very well be the end of Techdirt, even if we are completely on the right side of the law.”
The New York TImes / Sapna Maheshwari
More ads will appear on Instagram, now on its ‘Stories’ feature →
Ads will now show up between some Stories (a feature Instagram copied from Snapchat last year) which take up the full phone screen and otherwise seamlessly transition from one account to the next. (Snapchat also runs similar ads.)
Postmedia
Postmedia’s print advertising revenue dropped 21.9% in the last quarter →
Continuing significant declines for Canada’s largest newspaper chain.
Digiday / Jessica Davies
Facebook’s European media chief: Fake news is a ‘game of whack-a-mole’ →
"You can't put the genie back in the bottle in terms of the technology, but you can do things to address it, and we are doing a lot of those things," said Patrick Walker, director of media partnerships for the social platform, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Business Insider / Oliver Darcy
BuzzFeed sells $25,000 in ‘failing pile of garbage’ merchandise and will donate all proceeds to press-freedom group →
The company started a flash sale on Wednesday afternoon after Donald Trump referred to the website as a “failing pile of garbage” during a press conference (Trump was furious at the digital news outlet for publishing a 35-page memo full of salacious and unverified claims about him).
Bloomberg.com / David Gauvey Herbert
How Storyful is dealing with fake news →
“Since Election Day, the team's strategy has become more complicated. ‘Fake news has dominated 90 percent of our conversations,’ says Storyful Chief Executive Officer Rahul Chopra. While Facebook and Twitter denied, then grudgingly acknowledged, the role they played in spreading newsy-looking lies during the crucial final weeks of the presidential campaign, Chopra's staff focused on ways to debunk false items.”
today.com / Ian Sager
NBC’s Today Show has a new app →
The centerpiece is “a daily, curated list of the best moments from Today, featured in a quick swipe-through format.”