Media Roundup: News Corp Misses Earnings Estimates, About.com Cuts 22 and More

News Corp misses earnings estimates — Media giant News Corp. posted an 8.4 percent decline in revenues missing Wall Street’s expectations. The company saw a net profit of 12 cents per share. In a memo, CEO Rupert Murdoch stated that while he expected revenues to be low, the quarter was far worse than he anticipated. The company also urged investors to lower expectations for the remainder of the year. [Source: CNET]

About.com cuts 22 — New York Times-owned information site About.com is cutting 22 employees, roughly 10 percent of its workforce. About.com will also be freezing pay and reducing travel expenses. Historically, About.com had been a strong revenue producer for the New York Times, but an Internet-wide ad slow down has affected the company’s revenues. The cash-strapped New York Times is also rumored to be considering a sale of About.com.  [Source: paidContent]

WSJ lays off 14 — In a note to staff, managing editor Robert Thomson announced that the Wall Street Journal will be cutting 14 positions. The paper’s Fashion and Retail groups will be closed down and the Law, Health and Real Estate groups will lose positions as well. Contrary to privious rumors, there will be no layoffs in the company’s newswires. The paper’s parent company, News Corp., had missed Wall Street’s earnings expectations for the quarter. [Source: MediaBistro]

Amazon to free e-books from Kindle — Internet retailer Amazon is expected to announce a new version of its Kindle e-reader on Monday. Additionally the company is set to make electronic books available on other mobile devices. Despite being rivals in the online music market, Amazon may be referring to making books readable on Apple’s iPhone. [Source: All Things Digital]

StumbleUpon quietly bigger than Twitter — “Social Discovery” network Stumbleupon is quietly seeing strong growth in adoption. The service, which allows users to “stumble upon” sites that other users find interesting, has roughly seven million users. Similiar to social news site Digg, publishers that have their site “stumbled” often see a strong spike in traffic. Twitter, which has received an enormious amount of praise and attention in online media, is estimated to have five million users. [Source: ReadWriteWeb]