:: Future of Journalism

Amazon's API terms become restrictive: Goodreads ends sourcing

paidContent :: Book-centered social networking site Goodreads, which allows users to keep records of the books they read and share the information with others, has long sourced most of its basic book data from Amazon. Now, saying Amazon’s API terms have become “more and more restrictive,” Goodreads is switching data providers and entering an agreement with book wholesaler Ingram—alarming some users who fear their reading records will be lost.

Continue to read Laura Hazard Owen, paidcontent.org

Twitter: What can I do if my content has been withheld?

Twitter recently announced that it may block specific content on a country-by-country basis but at the same time it offers help to get around.

Twitter Help :: If you have encountered a Tweet or an account that has been marked as withheld, you may be wondering what that means and why that may have happened. With hundreds of millions of Tweets posted every day around the world, our goal is to respect our users' expression, while also taking into consideration applicable local laws.

Clipped from: support.twitter.com (share this clip)

Continue to read support.twitter.com

WSJ reports Facebook plans IPO filing for next week: $75-$100 billion valuation

Business Insider :: Facebook is planning to drop its long-awaited IPO filing on Wednesday, the WSJ reports. The timing isn't set in stone and could still change, a source tells the WSJ. Morgan Stanley is "close" to becoming the underwriter. Goldman Sach will also play a "major role." The filing will disclose lots of long held secrets about Facebook's financials. Facebook's IPO valuation is expected to be somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion.

Continue to read Nicholas Carlson, www.businessinsider.com

Amazon Kindle lights the Android world on fire

Flurry :: In just two years, tablet computing has gained unprecedented traction.  According to research firm Strategy Analytics, global tablet shipment more than doubled during the last three months of 2011, rising to 26.8 units, up from 10.7 million a year earlier.  And while Apple continues to dominate the tablet category, having sold a record 15.4 million units during the final quarter of 2011, Android OS tablets have increased their share of the tablet category, growing from 29% in Q4 2010 to 39% in Q4 2011. The increase in market share is due largely to the entry of the Kindle Fire by Amazon. 

Continue to read Peter Farago, blog.flurry.com

Boston Consulting Group: How companies and countries can win in the Digital Economy

BCG Perspectives :: Every business needs to “go digital.” Data about customers, competitors, suppliers, and employees are exploding. 90% of all data were created in the past two years. By 2016, there will be 3 billion Internet users globally, and the Internet economy will reach $4.2 trillion in the G-20 nations. No company or country can afford to ignore this phenomenon. The fact is that we have entered the “second half of the chessboard,” where the scale and speed of change are indelibly altering industry structures and the way that companies do business. Farsighted companies, even ones in traditional industries, can separate the signals from the noise and create new sources of advantage by going digital.

Continue to read David Dean | Sebastian DiGrande | Dominic Field | Paul Zwillenberg, www.bcgperspectives.com

Twitter to roll out more brand pages for paying advertisers

AdAge :: Twitter will start rolling out more brand pages next week for some brands and partners who have already committed to spending at least $25,000 on its ad products, including promoted tweets and trends. The messaging service unveiled its brand pages last month, launching with a group of 21 marketers including Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike and PepsiCo.

Continue to read Cotton Delo, adage.com

Too much focus on Google+? Google's crappy search results

Search Engine Land :: The debate about what should — and shouldn’t — show in a Google search result for “santorum” has been well-documented, at this point. But I’d like to use this now famous search to illustrate something else: how it appears Google is taking its eye off the ball of being a search engine.

[Danny Sullivan:] Dear Google: Crappy results like (my search for Santorum) don't give the impression you care about search.

Continue to read Danny Sullivan, searchengineland.com

A tense relationship: Google cancels Twitter Android meeting

PandoDaily :: A well-placed source tells us that Google’s Android team was supposed to meet with Twitter at CES about how to make Twitter work better on Android. Then, the Search Plus Your World controversy began. Eric Schmidt claimed that Google couldn’t index Twitter and Facebook properly because those companies don’t allow Twitter to access their data. Twitter openly refuted this: The reality is Google’s bots hit Twitter hundreds of millions of times per day, sending 1,500 queries per second. The Google brain trust was so irritated with Twitter’s statements that the Android meeting was abruptly called off.

Continue to read Sarah Lacy, pandodaily.com

A citizen journalists - professional mix: Bleacher Report to hire 20 bona fide writers to raise quality

paidContent :: Bleacher Report is using part of the $22 million cash infusion it received last summer to hire twenty bona fide writers. The move will likely improve the quality of the popular site which now relies almost exclusively on rabid fans to churn out buckets of barstool-style sports chatter. Since its launch in 2008, Bleacher Report has been a disruptive presence in sports reporting. Its army of amateurs has led it to acquire over 20 million unique visitors a month and placed it in the top ranks of sports sites.

Continue to read Jeff Roberts, paidcontent.org

"Freemium" model: Spotify hits 3m subscribers to improve conversion rate

FT Tech Hub :: No wonder the record labels are sounding much more positive about music subscription services. Spotify is starting to reap the benefits of its oft-doubted “freemium” business model. After hitting 2.5m subscribers in November, the Anglo-Swedish digital music service has now reached 3m, with more than 20 per cent of its active user base paying every month to banish advertisements or listen on smartphones.

Continue to read Tim Bradshaw, blogs.ft.com

New York Times faces leadership vacuum looking for a non-family member to be CEO

Bloomberg :: The departure of New York Times Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson last month leaves the company with a leadership vacuum amid falling revenue, profit squeezed by pension costs and pressure from family members to restore a dividend once worth more than $20 million a year. Robinson, 61, was pushed out by Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his cousin Michael Golden, said a person familiar with the situation. Times Co. is looking for a non-family member to be CEO.

Continue to read Edmund Lee | John Helyar, www.bloomberg.com

New York Times releases code to help blogging journalists collaborate on WordPress

Poynter :: More and more journalists use blogging platforms to write and edit stories, but those text editors are pretty basic: It’s not easy to see what changes others have made to a post. And two people can open the same post, overwriting one another’s edits. The New York Times has solved those problems for online journalists by building a tool that will track changes in a browser-based text editor. A WordPress plugin is available as well.

Details - Continue to read Steve Myers, www.poynter.org

Questionable fact-checking "Half-True", "Mostly-True" - Rachel Maddow to PolitiFact: "You're fired!"

YouTube :: The video footage shows a 4:36 min clip of Rachel Maddow's eponymous show on MSNBC. She had a closer (and entertaining) look at PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter(TM) fact check of a statement in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, questioning if this can be called fact checking at all.

PolitFact looked into a special part of President Obama's speech, in which he said: "In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005." PolitiFact's rated his statement: "Half True". Half true? - PolitiFact explained the rating: "Obama is correct on both counts when using private-sector job numbers. But he went too far when he implicitly credited his administration policies. So we rate the statement Half True." - Maddow: "'When he 'implicitly credited his administration policies'?'" (Obama said: "businesses have created ...") Maddow: "PolitiFact, what is wrong with you? You think the President calls himself businesses?"

[Rachel Maddow, MSNBC:] How do two trues add up to a half true?

Now watch it yourself:

Uploaded by PresidentObama3, Jan 25, 2012.

Facebook-newsroom.com? Facebook hires Dan Fletcher, Bloomberg to be its managing editor

So far we can only speculate about Facebook's strategy. Keep in mind that the social network has recently registered three new domain names: facebook-newsroom.com, facebook-newsroom.net, and facebook-newsroom.org.

Business Insider :: In what could be a sign of things to come, Facebook has hired Dan Fletcher, former social media director at Bloomberg, to be its managing editor. A source tells us that Facebook could be looking at LinkedIn's LinkedIn Today as a possible model.

Continue to read Kevin Lincoln, www.businessinsider.com

Further discussed here - Continue to read Emil Protalinski, www.zdnet.com

Seattle: Facebook wanted journalists to sign non-disclosures before news conference

KPLU :: Facebook is apparently pretty concerned about privacy – especially its own. After announcing that Facebook and the State Attorney General’s office would announce a “joint legal strategy" this morning, the AG’s office followed up with an email requiring journos sign a non-disclosure agreement.

[Dan Sytman:] It only applies to things that you might accidentally stumble upon ...

The email was sent to all journalists invited to the press conference at Facebook's Seattle office involving company officials and Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna.

The email - Continue to read Jake Ellison | Monica Spain, kplu.org