Kevin: Mike Butcher adds more detail on Microsoft's discussion with Rupert Murdoch's News International about 'de-indexing' their content from Google and being paid by Microsoft as an exclusive search provider on Bing. The most interesting tidbit: "Money talks, obviously, and we understand that the payments could be a) part in revenue share from advertising on Bing b) the inclusion of news partners in adverts for Bing. In other words, you’d start to see ads with “You’ll only find The Wall Street Journal on Bing.com” etc."

Kevin: Brian Stelter reports: "A consortium of magazine publishers including Time Inc. and Condé Nast plan to jointly build an online newsstand for publications in multiple digital formats, according to people with knowledge of the plans." It's a so-called iTunes of news. I wonder if this will follow the eMag model that Axel Springer is following in Germany with additional digital content beyond

Kevin: "William Lewis, Telegraph Media Group editor-in-chief and now MD of digital, has outlined the strategy behind the newly created division."

Kevin: Jay Rosen is compiling a list of sources of subsidy in the production of news. It's a brilliant list that looks in great and growing detail at revenue sources for news production. It is well work bookmarking and checking as Jay and others add to it.

Kevin: Investor and tech watcher Fred Wilson points a new technology from the developer of audioscrobbler, the technology underpinning last.fm. Richard Jones has now released a technology called Playdar. "Playdar is a "music content resolver" platform. You put the Playdar software on all the machines you have with music on them. And then Playdar makes it so that you can play your music via the web whenever and wherever you want."
Open platforms and ecosystems are powerful and the music web needs more of them. I am excited to see where Playdar goes. I'll be following it closely and if you are into web music, you should too."

Kevin: An excellent post with some great data and analysis from Alison Gow, Executive Editor, digital, for the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post. She takes newspaper to task for claims that 'nobody else scrutinises our public bodies'. She says that the average local newspaper isn't a regular visitor to magistrates courts in the UK. She is working with the Press Association to look at new models of producing local accountability journalism, and she has the numbers to prove it. She also answers the charge from a commenter that newspapers local council and courts coverage is dominated by recycled press releases. Not so. It's great to see this kind of blogging and research going on from within journalism. It's inspired me to do more of it.

Kevin: My colleague Patrick Smith, writing for PaidContent, has a brilliant post on economic models that work online. Offline models transfer imperfectly to the internet. It makes sense because geographical isolation and the natural monopolies they grant aren't in operation. Content is both plentiful and searchable, and the high capital distribution economics of broadcast and print media aren't in play.
Patrick offers alternatives and makes a succinct but compelling case. Engagement, not just marketing to drive page views, and rewards for loyalty could address inadequacies in the existing digital models for news organisations.