Digital publishing news for July 11, 2013
TabTimes is reporting that Apple has been found guilty of “conspiring with publishers to fix the price of electronic books, dating far back as 2009”.
“The five publishers charged in the case – Hachette, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck, Simon & Schuster and the Penguin Group – have since reached settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice, but Apple will now be forced to wait until a new hearing determines what damages it must pay,” TT reports. Apple plans to fight the verdict.
Newsweek Sale is Looking Desperate
According to The Wrap, “Barry Diller, eager to sell the struggling brand, may soon get his way as Newsweek’s editors and writers jump ship.”
If you’ve been reading the news of this sale, Diller hasn’t exactly done his best to build up the brand. In April, he called his purchase of Newsweek a mistake and has not tried to hide his eagerness to sell it off. Daily Beast, however, is growing and the people not leaving Newsweek are quickly scrambling to fill jobs there instead.
“Several prominent members of NewsBeast’s editorial staff have left the company recently. CEO Baba Shetty stepped down in June after less than nine months in the position, Newsweek’s top editor Tunku Varadarajan left just three months into its all-digital revamp, and Varadarajan’s replacement, Justine Rosenthal, is now leaving the company,” reports The Wrap.
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Murdoch Will Testify
Rupert Murdoch (News Corp – maybe you’ve heard of him?) is heading in to testify in British Parliament about the things he said, that were recorded, about the normalcy of journalists bribing police officers, presumably for extra dirt or exclusive access for their stories. “Payments for news tips from cops [have] been going on a hundred years… You didn’t instigate it,” Murdoch told Sun staff.
Times ‘Won’t Run a Third Edition Just For the Sake of Running a Third Edition’
The New York Times currently publishes five different New York editions per week, but has recently decided to cut that down to four. “The Times had previously published two national editions and three New York editions daily. The third New York edition is the one that’s been eliminated,” reports Capital.
“The decision is one made for efficiency’s sake and will have no impact on the quality of the paper and certainly no impact on weekday circulation,” wrote said Times spokeswoman, Eileen Murphy, in an email. “It means we won’t run a third edition just for the sake of running a third edition. If news breaks after the second edition deadline, we will run a postscript.”
Instagram Encourages Publishers to Embed
Now that Instagram has built in embedding capability to their videos, they’re encouraging publishers to use the new feature in their publishing efforts.
“A sports publication can take you behind the scenes at a game with videos or photos from the athletes. … A news organization can provide a real-time view into a breaking news event. … A magazine can bring their readers behind the scenes at a fashion show or Hollywood event,” an Instagram rep said in a marketing email to publishers.
In other news, Condé Nast launched a video channel, iPad ad sales are filling the gaps that magazine ads left, 73% of Online Publishing Association members offer native advertising options and 90% will offer them by the end of the year.
