The Wall Street Journal remains the top-selling US daily newspaper, while The New York Times has bumped USA Today for second place, largely due to digital subscriptions which now account for 19 percent of average US daily newspaper circulation, up from 14 percent in 2012, according to The Alliance for Audited Media’s (AAM) semiannual Snapshot report.

The report covers top-line circulation and audience figures from October 2012 through March 2013 for approximately 700 US and Canadian newspapers. In this case, the bottom line still tells a story of continued newspaper circulation declines despite gains across digital platforms. 

Daily circulation for the 593 US newspapers reporting comparable averages for March 2012 through March 2013 decreased 0.7 percent. Sunday circulation for the 519 newspapers reporting was down 1.4 percent.Continue reading...

Bid adieu to another legendary brand. The New York Times Company is rebranding its 125 year-old International Herald Tribune as The International New York Times as it strives to buttress its international presence. 

The change ends the 40-year-old IHT brand—which is perhaps most familiar to U.S. expats—and underscores the tectonic shifts in newspaper journalism and revenue streams wrought by digital and an increasingly competitive environment for readership.

Based in Paris, the rechristened paper will debut a new website this fall. “This recognizes our global reach and is an exciting and logical move,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of the Times. 

Mark Thompson, president and CEO said in a statement there was “significant potential to grow the number of New York Times subscribers outside of the United States…The digital revolution has turned The New York Times from being a great American newspaper to becoming one of the world’s best-known news providers. We want to exploit that opportunity.”Continue reading...

More than 40 companies including Apple, Facebook and Twitter have been targeted in malware attacks linked to an Eastern European gang of hackers using an iPhone-developer website, iPhoneDevSDK. 

The hackers are mining for proprietary research and intellectual property they can re-sell underground, with their assault being called a “sophisticated attack” by Facebook and “extremely sophisticated” by Twitter.

RSA Security Inc. has called their tactics a “waterhole” attack, as victims are attracted to the source of the infection. This technique attacks a centralized website with many visitors and secretly infects vulnerable machines using an un-patched exploit. It differs from a targeted attack like emailing a malware-laden attachment to a specific user.

Apple said Tuesday in a statement, "We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple." Apple countered with release of a Java patch for OS X users and a tool that will sweep Mac computers for any Java malware and remove the offending software, which millions of Mac users must now install.Continue reading...

We are living at an pivotal moment in history as the dominance of words shifts from print to digital in the biggest change since Gutenberg’s press first made the word accessible to the masses in 1440. Newsweek is the latest victim and after 80 years in print, it's changing its name to Newsweek Global and its format to digital-only.

“Newsweek will transition to an all-digital format in early 2013. As part of this transition, the last print edition in the United States will be our Dec. 31 issue,” stated the official announcement from verteran magazine editor Tina Brown. The veteran magazine editor became editor-in-chief of Newsweek and sister digital news site the Daily Beast in Nov. 2010. The Washington Post had sold the title three months earlier to audio pioneer Sidney Harman for $1.00 and assumption of liabilities, with Brown coming on board as a result of Barry Diller's IAC taking an ownership stake.

Now, it's a new era for the brand, which has been undergoing restructuring since 2008. "We are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it," said Brown in a memo to staff. "We remain committed to Newsweek and to the journalism that it represents. This decision is not about the quality of the brand or the journalism, that is as powerful as ever. It is about the challenging economics of print publishing and distribution."Continue reading...

Netflix and Starz contract renewal talks break off, ending one of Netflix's "most important" (though less so, lately) content deals.

Hostess Brands, maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, retains restructuring advisers.

Oracle $1.3 billion verdict against SAP overturned by judge.

Accera Inc.'s Axona milkshake raises hopes for Alzheimer's patients.

Air Australia reveals new livery.

Airbnb expands into sublets.

Amazon bargains to avoid online sales tax in California.

American Airlines disputes survey saying it had the longest call-waiting times during Hurricane Irene, hires pet detective to track missing-at-JFK passenger Jack the Cat.Continue reading...

Personal news aggregation site Ongo launches this week, backed by some of the biggest names in the newspaper business.

For $6.99/month, Ongo offers ad-free access to stories from The Washington Post and USA Today, plus selected content from the New York Times — which is about to erect a paywall around its website — and the Financial Times.

Similar to how Hulu pulls together the "best of" programming from TV networks and movie studios, Ongo bills itself as a “service that gives consumers a fundamentally new way to read, discover and share digital news and information.”Continue reading...