Facebook, which has had a mixed relationship with news media, debuted Facebook News, a section devoted to news stories from a range of publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed and Business Insider. Most notably, Facebook is paying for use of the content, inking some deals that top $1 million, and letting professional journalists choose some of the stories to be published. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg urged all online platforms to support professional news outlets. Continue reading Facebook Will Pay For News, But Will Not Mine or Sell Data

News Corp and Facebook inked a deal that will let the social media platform license headlines from The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones media outlets including the New York Post for its ad-free news section. The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News and Business Insider are other publications that have reached similar arrangements with Facebook. The New York Times is in talks with Facebook, but has not revealed whether it is close to a deal. News Corp’s deal was complicated by WSJ’s digital subscription business model. Continue reading Facebook to License News From Dow Jones Media Outlets

Verizon announced the formal commercial rollout of a 5G fixed wireless home network service in all its 5G enabled markets by year’s end. The new offering will combine the telecom’s broadband product Fios with its 5G Home product by taking advantage of their shared network architecture. Verizon plans to bring this new package to select areas in 30 cities. The move will provide the company with a pathway for expanding its home connectivity business at the same time it presents fresh options to consumers. Continue reading Verizon to Launch 5G Fixed Wireless Home Network Service

News Corp is developing Knewz.com, a website and mobile app that aggregates news and is intended to be an alternative to Google News and other platforms that don’t adequately compensate publishers. Sources said that an alpha version of Knewz.com was being shown for News Corp executives and that the company could launch the final product later this year — or decide not to proceed with it. Knewz.com is expected to draw from national news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NBC News. Continue reading News Corp Working on Publisher-Centric Curated News Site

Twitter hosted its second-ever Digital Content NewFronts event this week, showcasing a series of new and renewed video content deals. The social media mainstay announced 13 video content deals, including a new one with Univision that will cover Spanish-language sports, entertainment, and news, including 2020 election coverage. It also announced a deal with The Wall Street Journal for an original show called “What’s Now,” and other deals with major players like the NFL, Bleacher Report, CNET and others.

Continue reading Twitter’s New Content Deals with Univision, WSJ and Others

ProPublica journalist Julia Angwin has worked with programmers and data scientists to uncover the algorithms used by big tech companies such as Facebook and how these tools can be used to promote scams, racial bias and extremist content. Now, with a $20 million gift from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Angwin and data journalist Jeff Larson are starting The Markup, a new site focused on investigating technology and its impact on society. Wikimedia Foundation former head Sue Gardner will be executive director. Continue reading Journalists Unveil The Markup to Investigate Tech Algorithms

Research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reveals that younger people have changed their social media habits on consuming news. For Reuters, YouGov surveyed 74,000 people in 37 markets about their social media habits, and found that, among younger people, use of Facebook for news is down 9 percent from last year. Instead, this group is more likely to use Facebook’s WhatsApp to discuss current events in a more private forum. The survey took place before Facebook changed its News Feed filters in January. Continue reading Research Reveals Fewer People Rely on Facebook for News

AT&T, one of the winners in the recent end of net neutrality rules, is clarifying its stance. In an open letter that was published nationwide, including in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, chief executive Randall Stephenson called on Congress to establish an Internet Bill of Rights that would apply to all Internet companies and guarantee “neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection for all Internet users.” Continue reading AT&T Chief Exec Calls for Creation of an Internet Bill of Rights

Google is developing new tools for publishers and will end the “first click free” policy to help them boost subscriptions. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Financial Times keep their online articles behind a paywall, but savvy readers get around that by googling a headline or search terms, and then clicking for free access. Google’s new program, “flexible sampling,” allows publishers to determine how many free clicks they want to provide. The “first click free” policy required them to provide three free articles per day. Continue reading Google Will Let Publishers Decide the Number of Free Clicks

For years, Google has encouraged publishers to partake in its “first click free” policy, which allows its search engine users to circumvent news website paywalls for a limited amount of content. Publishers have complained that the policy hurts subscription growth, but that if they don’t participate, Google will list their sites further down in search rankings. Now, in response to long-standing publisher opposition, Google is ending that policy, letting publishers determine how users access their sites from search results. Continue reading Google Ending ‘First Click Free’ Policy to Appease Publishers

Google has unveiled efforts to help drive users to subscribe to news publications in response to publishers’ complaints that Google and Facebook now dominate online advertising. First, it is renovating its “first click free” feature that lets users access subscription publications via search. The company is also taking another look at publishers’ tools for online payments and how to target potential subscribers. The New York Times and the Financial Times will be the first to test these tools. Continue reading News Publications Testing Google’s New Subscription Tools

The difficult relationship between Google and Facebook and traditional journalism outlets is based on the fact that the former has control over digital advertising and distribution, disempowering the latter. Now, the News Media Alliance, that industry’s main trade group, is working to win collective bargaining rights with the digital titans they are forced to depend on, asking Congress for a limited antitrust exemption to do so. Experts give the effort long-shot odds, but news media industry is determined to proceed. Continue reading News Media Unite for Collective Bargaining with Tech Titans

Spotify will pay music labels more than $2 billion in minimum payments over the next two years. The company’s revenue has grown more than 50 percent, to $3.3 billion last year, so the big deals are a means to keep growing. Sources say the company has inked two deals recently, with Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music label, accounting for one-third of the market, and Merlin, which represents a group of independent labels. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Spotify plans to go public this year. Continue reading Spotify Signs New Universal and Merlin Deals, Preps for IPO

According to sources, Facebook is readying the launch a feature that will allow users to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications, directly from the mobile app. The feature, which is expected to debut by the end of the year, is still under discussion internally. Among the unresolved issues are whether Facebook will limit stories to those published natively to Facebook via Instant Articles, the payment model and whether Facebook would get a percentage of revenue. Continue reading Facebook to Debut Feature for Enabling Media Subscriptions

Veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg has been writing a weekly personal technology column since 1991, first at The Wall Street Journal, and then at The Verge (for which he serves as executive editor) and Recode (where he is co-founder and editor-at-large). As he retires his weekly column, Mossberg takes one more look at how consumer tech has evolved over the last three decades, “and what we can expect next.” Specifically, he addresses “The Disappearing Computer” as we enter a new world of ambient computing, in which personal computers start to fade into the background. Continue reading Mossberg Retires Weekly Column, Talks Ambient Computing