Should the New York Times charge hedge funds or large financial institutions more for early access to market-moving stories like its Walmart exposé? Reuters blogger Felix Salmon says yes, but doing this would fundamentally change what the New York Times and its journalism are all about. Read more »
Facebook’s latest securities filing contains some eye-popping numbers but also some red flags — particularly a sharp rise in costs. As the company’s IPO approaches, investors need to ask themselves, Is Facebook unlike anything we have seen before, or is it just another modestly profitable Web business? Read more »
Some critics have raised the question of whether Facebook and Twitter are making us more lonely and disconnected from one another. But the Web and social media are just tools: They can be used to create connections or to create distance, just like any other technology. Read more »
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton talks about whether we are in another technology bubble, what the decline of Facebook and Twitter as conversational media say about social networks, the death of advertising and whether he has any interest in selling his digital empire. Read more »
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton says that he wants to fix the way that online comments work, but in order to do that he is having to reinvent Gawker itself — by trying to flip on its head the way that online content works. Read more »
Google-co-founder Sergey Brin recently said he believes the future of the “open Internet” is at risk. Then why is the company trying to build its own closed network? Because the open vs. closed debate is more complicated than it first appears when it comes to Google. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Book publishers argue that Amazon is a vicious monopoly that has too much power over them and their content. But they need to realize they gave Amazon much of that power themselves when they agreed to shackle all of their books in DRM chains. Read more »
The Pulitzer Prize win by the Huffington Post has been hailed by some as the first win by a “blog,” but the reality is such terms have become increasingly meaningless. All we have now is media, some of which is journalism and some of which isn’t. Read more »
Chartbeat announced a $9.5-million round of funding and a series of new features aimed at giving websites and publishers better insight into how users are engaging with their content, something that has become increasingly important as Facebook becomes a major player in online advertising. Read more »
Apple says it had to cut an agency-pricing deal with publishers in order to weaken Amazon’s monopolistic control over the e-book industry. But wait — didn’t Apple behave exactly the same way towards the record labels as it is accusing Amazon of behaving towards book publishers? Read more »
Some traditional media entities seem to be hoping for a single magic bullet that will cure their revenue problems, but it is more likely success will come from making a number of smaller bets. Unfortunately, large media players don’t tend to be good at that. Read more »
The viral video of a nine-year-old boy who built a magical arcade out of cardboard at his father’s auto-parts business in Los Angeles has a lot to say about the spirit of entrepreneurship and creativity that fuels much of what we write about at GigaOM. Read more »
As the Department of Justice pursues an antitrust case over e-book prices, publishers say they need “agency pricing” to prevent Amazon from increasing its monopoly and decimating the book industry. So who should we be rooting for, the giant retailer or the giant publishing houses? Read more »
One of the most disruptive aspects of social media is that it allows newsmakers such as politicians to reach an audience directly, instead of going through traditional channels. This is changing the relationship between sources and the media not just in the U.S. but everywhere. Read more »
Critics of reader comments often argue that they are worthless because they are filled with trolls, and not that many people read them. But despite these flaws, building community through comments and other social features is more important than it has ever been for online media. Read more »
Everyone may be wondering why Facebook paid $1 billion for what appears to be just a simple photo-sharing app, but the biggest lesson to learn from Instagram’s success is just how important it is to build network effects into the core of your service. Read more »
Some believe that Facebook’s $1-billion purchase of Instagram makes sense, but others argue the dollar value of the deal seems almost unbelievably high. Is it another sign of a tech-startup bubble, or a smart move by Facebook to lock up a potential competitor? Read more »
As author Clay Shirky points out, the simple act of publishing something — whether it’s a book or a news article — doesn’t require an industry any more, just a button. So what do the traditional content-publishing industries do now to justify their continued existence? Read more »
Veteran investigative reporter Bob Woodward said this week the Internet would not be of much use in a case like Watergate, the story he helped break in 1972. But he misses the point about the value of using a multitude of sources instead of just one. Read more »
Next Issue Media’s newly launched digital news-stand has been called a “Netflix for magazines.” But while it may be an improvement over the current Balkanized state of the digital magazine market, does it really fit the way that people want to consume digital content now? Read more »
Just over a year after AOL acquired the Huffington Post, much of the integration between the two is being unwound, and control over key elements of the business are reverting to founder Arianna Huffington. Should AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong be watching his back? Read more »
Although the writing has been on the wall for traditional print-based media for some time, few companies have made any dramatic steps to try and adapt because they are too busy running their existing businesses. That’s why digital-native entities will almost always win. Read more »
There’s been a lot of criticism of Readability for collecting money from readers who use its ad-stripping service. But its approach is actually better than some others — and that desire on the part of readers is something publishers need to figure out how to accommodate. Read more »
As almost every other form of media from newspapers to television becomes more conversational, books have remained relatively anti-social. Author and tech blogger Clive Thompson says he is excited about a future in which e-books are more social — but is that what readers want? Read more »
The UK government considers a law that would allow for surveillance of online activity, U.S. universities admit they track what their athletes are saying on Twitter, and employers are asking for Facebook passwords. At this point, advertisers tracking us online is the least of our problems. Read more »
We’ve gotten used to the content industries arguing that what happens when people download or make copies is “theft.” But using that term muddies the waters when it comes to what copyright is supposed to be about, and lends support to irrational laws and court decisions. Read more »
Smashwords says its internal data shows that the agency-pricing model — which is the subject of a federal antitrust case against Apple and the major book publishers — doesn’t mean higher prices for e-books. But does that mean the Justice Department’s case is irrelevant? No. Read more »
Y Combinator founder Paul Graham is right when he says that the continued push for legislation like SOPA and PIPA is a result of a failure to adapt to the changing environment the internet has created when it comes to intellectual property and the content industries. Read more »
Apart from a few tired old services like eHow, there aren’t many places you can go to find how-to guides for a range of different things complete with photos and video. Snapguide, which just launched its iPhone app and web service, wants to fill that void. Read more »
Branch has gotten some attention for its new service, which offers a web-based platform for invitation-only discussions, as well as the fact that it is financed in part by two co-founders of Twitter. But is being less open a benefit for Branch or a disadvantage? Read more »
Pinterest’s recent changes to get on the right side of copyright law highlight how the legal system continues to lag behind what the Internet makes possible. Until that issue is resolved, virtually every Internet-powered content-sharing service is at risk. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Citizen journalism and social-media tools have made it easier to get information out of countries like Egypt and Syria, but in some cases these reports may not be true. Does that mean citizen journalism is unreliable? No. It just means we need to approach it differently. Read more »
Author J.K. Rowling has chosen to do a number of interesting things with the launch of the e-book versions of her Harry Potter series. While not everyone wields as much power as Rowling, there are lessons other book publishers should learn from what she is doing. Read more »
Is there a way for newspapers to generate revenue without a paywall? Yes. They could try to think about developing a relationship with readers that is based on mutual exchange of benefits, and let the monetization flow from that instead of just asking for a handout. Read more »
Debates over apps vs. the web and the value of Google’s new personalized search features are just part of the larger battle between the open web vs. walled gardens and closed platforms — but what if users don’t care? What does that mean for the web? Read more »
The problem for many companies is that user information is spread across hundreds or even thousands of different fields in various databases, and it’s difficult to compile it in real time. But doing that successfully is becoming increasingly important, says WiBiData at Structure:Data. Read more »
Hadoop may be the current leader of the pack when it comes to handling big data, but LexisNexis says at Structure:Data the system it developed for its own internal data use — and recently open-sourced — is a viable alternative and in some cases is superior. Read more »
Now that Apple has showed it plans to spend some of its massive $100 billion cash holdings, some argue it should acquire Twitter as a way of bulking up its social features. But just because it could buy Twitter, does that mean it should? Read more »
Is new legislation that is aimed at allowing startups to raise money from individuals really going to help the economy — or is it just going to increase the number of stock scams and help fuel a dangerous kind of bubble mentality around investing? Read more »
One thing that becomes clear from the latest Pew report on the state of media is just how big a role aggregators — both human and machine-powered — are playing in news consumption. That is both a danger and an opportunity for mainstream media players. Read more »
