This week’s Mediatwits has a Southern flavor, with a preview of the coming South by Southwest confab in Austin, as well as a look at Facebook’s latest rootin’ tootin’ revamp of its newsfeed and what it means for media folks. Our special guest is Joshua Topolsky, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Verge, who will be down in Texas as a SXSW keynote questioner next Monday. Our roundtable also includes Mark Glaser moderating, along with Seattle Times’ Mónica Guzmán, Reuters’ Felix Salmon and surprise special guest Staci Kramer. Other topics include the state of affairs for freelance writers, who often get paid less (or nothing) to write online. Plus, Time Warner decided to spin off its magazine unit, Time Inc., rather than sell it to Meredith.
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Mediatwits Bios
Mónica Guzmán is a columnist for the Seattle Times and Northwest tech news site GeekWire and a community strategist for startups and media. She emcees Ignite Seattle, a grab-bag community fueled speaker series. Mónica was a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and seattlepi.com, its online-only successor, where she ran the experimental and award-winning Big Blog and drew a community of readers with online conversation and weekly meetups. Follow her on Twitter @moniguzman
Felix Salmon is the financial blogger for Reuters. He was named one of Time Magazine’s 25 Best Financial Bloggers, and offers his frank view on the maneuverings of Wall Street, Washington and popular culture. Watch him on Felix TV or follow him on Twitter @felixsalmon.
Special Guest
Joshua Topolsky is the co-founder and Editor-in-chief of The Verge, an online publication that covers the intersection of technology, art, science, and culture. Joshua was named Adweek’s 2012 Digital Editor of the Year. He is the resident technology expert for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Joshua makes regular appearances on Bloomberg TV, NPR, Fox News, NBC, ABC, and CNN, and hosts the Vergecast, a popular weekly podcast. Prior to founding The Verge, Joshua was the editor-in-chief of Engadget from 2008 to 2011. Josh has spent his life exploring a creative curiosity, from a childhood spent tinkering with computers and electronics, through his formative years touring the world as a music producer and DJ.
More Reading
1. Facebook wants to provide “best personalized newspaper”?
Facebook launches multiple topic-based feeds, bigger images, and a consistent design across devices at TechCrunch
Live Blog: FB Newsfeed Announcement at Wired
About the New Newsfeed at Facebook
If followers can sponsor updates on Facebook, social advertising has a new horizon at O’Reilly Radar
2. What’s the business model for freelance writers?
A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist at Nate Thayer’s blog
The Problem with Online Freelance Journalism at Felix Salmon’s blog on Reuters
Why I Write for Free at The Atlantic
3. SXSW keynote questioner Joshua Topolsky from The Verge
SXSW 2013 is not about the next big thing at Adrants
Want to Get Value Out of SXSW? Stop Looking for the Next Big Thing at AdAge
4. Time Warner to spin off Time Inc. mags after Meredith talks fail
Time Warner spinning off Time Inc. magazines at USA Today
3 Questions About the Time Inc. Spin-Off at CNN Money
Meredith Talks Dead; Time Inc. Will Spin Off at Adweek
Poll
Be sure to vote in our weekly poll, this time about SXSW:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian and fiancee Renee. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+
