As Google announces that Hangouts, its most successful Google+ feature, will be making its fist external appearance on NFL.com, The Next Web asks: Could broadcast journalism see a revival in online media? Joel Falconer makes the case for online broadcasters to “use tools such as Hangouts to deliver news as it comes in.”

The New York Times has agreed to sell the struggling About group, including search site About.com, to Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive for $300 million in cash, reports the Media Decoder blog.

Meanwhile, the NYTimes’s Arthur. S. Brisbane is coming to the end of his tenure as public editor and contemplates the news outlet’s future in this article for the Sunday Review. Reflecting on his experience at the esteemed title, Brisbane writes: “Two years ago […]I suggested that the pace of change called for a re-emphasis on ‘transparency, accountability, humility.’ Looking back now, I think The Times could do better with these.”

Josh Miller, CEO of Branch, talks to Nieman Lab about what sets the newly launched discussion platform apart from its competitors. “[It] is not Twitter, because the discussion is linear, longer-form, and invitation-only. It’s not chat, because all are welcome to observe. It’s not a comment platform, such as Disqus, because a Branch conversation is the content, not metadata attached to the content,” writes Andrew Phelps.

"If journalists are gloomy about the outlook for their industry, printers are despondent. Media companies can still make some money as readers switch to digital editions; a printer cannot," reports The Economist in an article that investigates the worsening fortunes of printing presses.

For more industry news, please see WAN-IFRA's Executive News Service.