"There are many who still wish the 79-year-old mogul [Rupert Murdoch] well, hopeful that he is at the vanguard of a cultural shift that will save newspapers. Yet elsewhere there is dismay among analysts, advertisers, publicists and even some reporters on the papers."

The New York Times Magazine's big piece on the News of the World phone hacking scandal ...

Rory Brown: "Over the past few months Neil and I have been discussing the opportunities to launch a series of niche B2B sites without the legacy issues that many traditional publishers face. ... in summary we are looking to combine some very clever semantic technology with traditional niche publishing disciplines to create a series of websites. I’m delighted that Patrick Smith has also recently joined us as our first Editor. ... The initial site aims to launch towards the end of September ..."

Really innovative new media redefine the very meaning of news, Jeff Jarvis notes while reading some history: "I was among those who scoffed when Mark Zuckerberg dubbed his algorithmic aggregation of personal updates a 'news feed.' I was wrong."

"Forget worrying about journalism and who’s going to fund your Baghdad bureau for just a minute and ponder this: news does not sell itself. Newspapers like The Times are learning now what digital B2B titles have known for years – that making a paid-for news product work online needs a great deal of specialised marketing, promotion, management and practical know-how."

"Forget worrying about journalism and who’s going to fund your Baghdad bureau for just a minute and ponder this: news does not sell itself. Newspapers like The Times are learning now what digital B2B titles have known for years – that making a paid-for news product work online needs a great deal of specialised marketing, promotion, management and practical know-how."

Ken Doctor: "analytics, the smart gaining of knowledge from data, was at the heart of the company’s successes and plans. If we look at the emerging newsonomics under the FT business, we see how analytics are driving both of the FT’s two basic business lines, reader revenue and advertising revenue."

"[Johnston Press] said it had concluded a deal with Qype and will use the software to power new listings on its network of local websites."

"Two former business media managers [Neil Thackray and Rory Brown] have joined forces to create a business news site which will provide information and analysis using semantic technologies."

"[Paul Lewis], who was due to join The Times next month as a "special correspondent", will instead remain at Guardian News & Media to lead a small team of journalists who will experiment with using online tools to develop multimedia storytelling."

"In the next few weeks we will be launching a new business media company trading as Briefing Media Ltd.... The co founders of Briefing Media are me and Rory Brown. ... We are using an innovative semantic search algorithm to organise and navigate the content with each vertical site being supervised by an expert analyst who constantly updates and improves the taxonomy and the content. ... You probably want to have a look at our first site – but you will have to be patient for a month or so. We expect to release our first vertical towards the end of September and have already identified six more to develop over the coming months."

Gideon Rachman: "[A] proposed law in South Africa that would go a long way to muzzling the press ... is a major threat to South African democracy. Yet, I have been struck by the almost total silence of the British press on this subject. Papers that devoted acres of space to the success of the World Cup cannot be bothered to follow up with a report of what’s going on in South Africa now."

"Patch determines what communities to enter by using a 59-variable algorithm that takes into account factors like income, voter turnout, and local school rankings."

"Facebook’s announcement yesterday of its entry into the “check-in” space is yet another blow to local media. Local businesses — many of whom already are deep into Facebook — are now being encouraged to create their “places” pages, which is what users will see when they check in via Facebook. Why is FB doing this? The gold in the hills of local advertising."