Is that an ad or a news story – and does it matter?

Excellent story by Ira Basen in the Globe and Mail about online "infostrories" -- stories and publications telling "brand" stories.

Excerpt:

"That story about snow tires at the top of the Google results page could come from the auto section of a newspaper, but it could just as easily come from a site published by a tire manufacturer whose engineers can share their expertise, without the pushy tactics that turn off both customers and search engines."

 The full story

Facebook says 83 million accounts may be fake

Facebook's share price dipped below $20 on Thursday after reporting slowing growth and an admission of an alarming number of fake accounts. In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the social media company said that as many as 83 million of its accounts are fake. More.

What will CNN do to hold viewers?

Time Warner CEO Jeff  Bewkes says the company is determined to make CNN more watchable without letting opinion creep into the news presentation. He said he is  unsatisfied with CNN's low ratings and will seek to turn around the cable news network with programming that is more compelling and stays non-partisan. Bewkes didn't have any specifics to offer so his committment seemed to fall a little flat.  Reuters

CBC pays unknown sum to air 2014, 2018 games

The game was too rich for Bell Media, apparently, but CBC was good for the dough (yours) as it purchased rights to the 2014 Winter Games and the 2018 Summer Games. Terms are undisclosed. Earlier, a consortium of Bell and CBC tried to buy the games jointly. The idea was to get them for a reasonable price by avoiding a bidding war. The IOC apparently didn't like that and the partnership withdrew from negotiations. So the winner now is clearly seen to be -- not the CBC -- but the IOC. We're betting when the details come out, we will see a cash amount that will make CTV's 2010 Winter Games folly look cheap. We say this despite the alternate surmising in the linked story here of Ian Lee of Carleton University. He says the IOC paid a price for overplaying its hand. We would bet he's wrong but unlike the CBC, we would be playing with our own money. Toronto Star

Attack on Mexico paper ups plan to intimidate

The three masked men took less than a minute to burst into the offices of a major Mexican newspaper in northern Mexico, subdue the security guard, drench the reception with gasoline and set the building ablaze. Story says its part of of the cartels ruthless campaign to intimidate the media.