Media Roundup: The Boston Globe Rejects Paycut, Twitter Powered By a Small Number of Users and More

The Boston Globe rejects paycut — The Boston Newspaper Guild at the Boston Globe has narrowly turned down The New York Times‘ proposed 8.3 percent paycut. The Times, the parent company of the Globe, had threatened to shut down the paper or cut salaries by 23 percent if the cut was voted down. Since the vote, the Times said it will instead try to implement a “turnaround.” In a letter to Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the union said that it believed that the 23 percent paycut was a bluff. The union has immediately filed a complaint to federal regulators. The Boston Globe lost $50 million last year. The Times was looking to trim $20 million in expenses from the Boston paper. [Source: paidContent]

Twitter powered by a small number of users — A new report reveals that Twitter is full of accounts with empty profiles and little activity. The study, based on a sampling of 4.5 million Twitter accounts, shows that 55 percent of users aren’t even following anyone, and 52 percent have no followers. However, less than ten percent where classified as “inactive users.” Inactive users were users that have fewer than ten followers, follow less than ten people and have tweeted less than ten times. A report earlier this month suggested that 90 percent of all content on the site comes from the most active ten percent of users. [Source: Mashable]

Bing stealing market share from Yahoo and Google — Bing has gained two percent in the search market share, giving the search engine 15.5 percent, up from 13.8 percent. According to ComScore, Bing is taking searches from the top two search engines: Google and Yahoo. For a brief period last week, Bing spiked ahead of Yahoo to become the distant number two to Google. A new eyetrack study has also revealed that Bing’s sponsored results garner more attention on the page than Google’s. About 42 percent of users view the Bing ads, while only 25 percent of users view Google’s. [Source: The Business Insider, The Business Insider]

Web video watchers may be ready to leave cable TV — According to a new study, Hulu is more of a threat to traditional broadcast media than Google and YouTube. The survey shows watching video online is becoming increasingly more mainstream, and few viewers are pirating their content. A third of all web video watchers sampled said they could imagine ditching their cable TV for another solution. Still, the computer monitor remains the primary way online video in consumed. The release of Hulu Desktop and YouTube XL had many in the industry worried that video watchers would use their TV to view online video by connecting their monitors to their TVs. [Source: All Things Digital]

Murdoch sees a digital future — In an interview with the Fox Business Channel, News Corp CEO said he could see newspapers going all digital within twenty years. Murdoch said that devices such as the Kindle and the Blackberry are making the traditional paper obsolete. Murdoch has commissioned an e-reader device, similar to the Kindle to be made by News Corp, and is no stranger to charging for digital content. He said he beleives the split is largely generational, and that he recognizes young people’s aversion to newspapers. [Source: Editor & Publisher]