Mullenweg says "WordPress.org just belongs to me personally", as his WP Engine feud blurs the lines between WordPress.org, WordPress Foundation, and Automattic (Emma Roth/The Verge)

Mediagazer: Mullenweg says “WordPress.org just belongs to me personally”, as his WP Engine feud blurs the lines between WordPress.org, WordPress Foundation, and Automattic (Emma Roth/The Verge)

Top News:

Bloomberg:

Meta unveils Movie Gen, which creates up to 16-second videos from a text prompt, available to some staff and partners; Meta plans to add it to its apps in 2025— Movie Gen tool can create short videos from a text prompt — Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. debuted a new artificial intelligence tool …
Discussion: Meta, Andrew Weld-Moore on LinkedIn, DNyuz, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechRadar, Mike Hollander on LinkedIn, Siddharth Bhattacharya on LinkedIn, AV Club, Futurism, ZDNET, @jimclydego, @soumithchintala, @dr_cintas, @prashant_1722, @ahmad_al_dahle, @koltregaskes, @prashant_1722, @nearcyan, @kimmonismus, @reece___rogers, @arankomatsuzaki, @soumithchintala, @_akhaliq, @prashant_1722, MediaPost, Ars Technica, Financial Times, Gizmodo, CNET, PetaPixel, The Information, Engadget, Digital Trends, The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Neowin, The Verge, Reuters, New York Times, @aaldahle@threads.net, @jakebailey@threads.net, @aiatmeta@threads.net, @evolving.ai@threads.net, @chriscox@threads.net, Wired and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:

Andrew Weld-Moore /
Andrew Weld-Moore on LinkedIn: Exciting news! — We're proud to introduce Meta Movie Gen, our latest breakthrough in generative AI for media. …

Eric Hal Schwartz /
TechRadar: You'll want to try Meta's amazing new AI video generator

Mike Hollander /
Mike Hollander on LinkedIn: this is wild. not too long ago, you had to spend $$ on high-end video editing software and even more $$$ on hardware that could run that software. …

Siddharth Bhattacharya /
Siddharth Bhattacharya on LinkedIn: Today's big news is the launch of Meta's MovieGen, and it's an announcement I feel very proud of. — I have worked in highly impactful products …

Mary Kate Carr /
AV Club: Meta has cooked up a new, scarily accurate A.I. video generator

Frank Landymore /
Futurism: Meta's AI Bootleg Moo Deng Is an Insult to Pygmy Hippos Everywhere

Jim Monge /
@jimclydego: @AIatMeta introduces “Movie Gen”. A brand new AI video and sound generator. This is mind-blowing. [video]

Soumith Chintala /
@soumithchintala: yes, Meta released a full scientific paper on MovieGen, with a lot of details that'll help the field move forward.

Alvaro Cintas /
@dr_cintas: 🚨 Meta just announced Meta Movie Gen. It can generate high-quality AI videos from text, sync audio to the video, and even perform video editing. Look at these 10 crazy examples: 1. Fluffy koala bear surfing [video]

Prashant /
@prashant_1722: EXCLUSIVE! The BIGGEST META MOVIE GEN thread.. Best in class video quality now available in the AI video offering. I have compiled the incredible video collection shared by Meta here. Follow and share the thread. Tell me if you have seen anything better. Meta beats KlingAI, [video]

Ahmad Al-Dahle /
@ahmad_al_dahle: I couldn't be more excited to share our latest AI research breakthrough. We call it Meta Movie Gen and it's a collection of state-of-the-art models that combine to deliver the most advanced video generation capability ever created. Check it out: https://ai.meta.com/... [video] @koltregaskes: Meta AI Announces Movie Gen A model that can generate images, video, audio and can edit video with text! This is a full suite AI content generator. [video]

Near /
@nearcyan: meta movie gen announced this morning • 30B video model, 7B upsampler • 1080p 4-16s videos • info on sampling, training, basic dataset curation pipeline details less frequently shared • ‘potential release’ after much time and feedback... page: https://ai.meta.com/... [video] @kimmonismus: Meta has landed an absolute hit today with Meta Movie Gen. Not only is the video quality at Sora level, you can even upload your own photo and integrate it into the video. Here are a few examples. [video]

Reece Rogers /
@reece___rogers: It will be interesting to see how long it takes Meta to make Movie Gen broadly available. The announcement blog vaguely gestures at a “potential future release.” https://www.wired.com/... @WIRED

Aran Komatsuzaki /
@arankomatsuzaki: 🎬 Meta introduces Movie Gen: A Cast of SotA Media Foundation Models - 30B params, 16-second video at 1080p 16fps with synchronized audio - Text-to-video, video personalization, and video editing - Supports personalized video creation using user images - Innovations in [video]

Soumith Chintala /
@soumithchintala: the MovieGen stack got a huge upgrade. compared to others, the Editing and Personalization features are really on a different level! producing personalized videos from a single photo of a person was quite mind-blowing to me. @_akhaliq: Meta announces Movie Gen A Cast of Media Foundation Models We present Movie Gen, a cast of foundation models that generates high-quality, 1080p HD videos with different aspect ratios and synchronized audio. We also show additional capabilities such as precise instruction-based [video]

Colin Kirkland /
MediaPost: Meta Competes With OpenAI, ByteDance With New AI-Powered Video Generator

Benj Edwards /
Ars Technica: Meta's new “Movie Gen” AI system can deepfake video from a single photo

Kyle Barr /
Gizmodo: Meta's Movie Gen AI Video Generator Is Capable of Making Actual Movies, Music Included

Omar Gallaga /
CNET: Meta Announces Movie Gen, an AI Video and Audio Creator

Matt Growcoot /
PetaPixel: Meta Shows Off its ‘Industry-Leading’ AI Video Generator Called Movie Gen

Kalley Huang /
The Information: Meta Unveils AI Video and Audio Generation Tools

Devindra Hardawar /
Engadget: Meta's Movie Gen looks like a huge leap forward for AI video (but you can't use it yet)

Andrew Tarantola /
Digital Trends: Who needs Sora when you've got Meta Movie Gen?

Todd Spangler /
Variety: Meta Unveils ‘Movie Gen,’ Tool That Creates 16-Second AI-Generated HD Videos

Pradeep Viswanathan /
Neowin: Meta unveils Movie Gen, claiming the most advanced video generation model yet

Ahmad Al-Dahle /
@aaldahle@threads.net: I couldn't be more excited about our latest AI research breakthrough in video generation. We call it Movie Gen - it's a collection of SOTA models that combine to deliver the most advanced video generation capability ever created. • Up to 16s of continuous video generation. …

Jake Bailey /
@jakebailey@threads.net: Pretty insane work by our @aiatmeta team. Wow https://ai.meta.com/... @aiatmeta@threads.net: As part of our continued belief in open science and progressing the state-of-the-art in media generation we've published more details on Movie Gen in a new research paper for the academic community 👉 https://go.fb.me/3qapq2 @evolving.ai@threads.net: @aiatmeta just dropped a bombshell! Meet Meta Movie Gen - introducing their research for the most advanced media foundation AI models.

Chris Cox /
@chriscox@threads.net: We're sharing our progress today on Movie Gen, our project to develop the state of the art for AI video generation. As of today our evals show it's industry-leading on text-to-video quality across a number of dimensions, with 16s of continuous length, plus a leap forward for the state of the art on video-matched audio …

Reece Rogers /
Wired: Meta's Movie Gen Makes Convincing AI Video Clips

Devin Coldewey /
TechCrunch: Meta's Movie Gen model puts out realistic video with sound, so we can finally have infinite Moo Deng

ProPublica:

Sources and records: Trump Media has forced out its COO, CPO, and other executives after internal allegations that CEO Devin Nunes is mismanaging the company— Several people involved with the former president's company, operator of Truth Social, believe the departures …

Discussion:

Kevin T. Dugan /
New York Magazine: Trump Media Has Major New Problems

Matthew Impelli /
Newsweek: Donald Trump's Truth Social Loses Top Executive

Paolo Confino /
Fortune: Trump Media COO Andrew Northwall resigns, per SEC filings

Kevin Breuninger /
CNBC: Trump Media COO quits; DJT turns over more shares to SPAC investor in court fight

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling /
New Republic: Trump's Truth Social, Already in Shambles, Loses Its Top Execs

Dan Ladden-Hall /
The Daily Beast: Trump Media's Misery Deepens as Top Execs Depart

Ariel Zilber /
New York Post: Trump Media execs forced out after complaining about CEO Devin Nunes: report

Luke /
@jdluckenbach: Alleged mismanagement by Nunes. One person said they include allegations of misuse of funds, hiring of foreign contractors and interfering with product development.

Robert Faturechi /
@robertfaturechi: NEW: Trump's media company forced out execs after internal allegations that CEO Devin Nunes is mismanaging Truth Social, according to interviews + records. Several people involved believe the ousters are retaliation following “whistleblower” complaint. https://www.propublica.org/...

Brian Stelter /
@brianstelter: ProPublica: Donald Trump's media company “has forced out executives in recent days after internal allegations that its CEO, former Rep. Devin Nunes, is mismanaging the company, according to interviews and records of communications among former employees.” https://www.propublica.org/...

Jennifer Slack /
@JenniferSlack@mastodon.social: Trump Media fires executive whistleblowers who reported CEO Nunes (remember that weird guy who hated the spoof Nunes' cow account on Twitter?) for a variety of violations. — https://www.propublica.org/... @ProPublica@newsie.social: Top Execs Exit #Trump Media Amid Allegations of CEO's Mismanagement and Retaliation — Several people involved with the former president's company, operator of #TruthSocial, believe the departures were retaliation following internal complaints about CEO Devin Nunes to the company board. …

The Verge:

Mullenweg says “WordPress.org just belongs to me personally”, as his WP Engine feud blurs the lines between WordPress.org, WordPress Foundation, and Automattic— The lines between the WordPress open-source project, the nonprofit backing it, and the commercial arm owned by Automattic are blurring.

Discussion:

Thomas Claburn /
The Register: 159 Automattic staff take severance offer and walk out over WP Engine feud

Heather Bragg /
@heatherbragg: Considering @wordpress powers 40% of the Internet, this comment is concerning. @alchemyunited: Well, that's one way to silence any dissenting plugin and theme owners on .org. Why wasn't this “business structure” made more transparent sooner? “ https://wordpress.org/ just belongs to me personally,” Mullenweg said during an interview with The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/... [image]

Jason DeFillippo /
@jpd@threads.net: This is the beginning of the end for WordPress. Matt proves to be as petty as the rest of the tech oligarchs even though he puts on a nice-boy front. That, and I hate that fucking software with unbridled vehemence. https://www.theverge.com/...

Eva de Valk /
@evadevalk: What a mess https://www.theverge.com/...

Youness El Andaloussi /
@younelan@threads.net: Watching the new ‘WordPress belongs to me’ attitude and telling employees to leave if they disagree with him puts the WordPress fight in another perspective. I'm not a fan of how wpengine not contributing back but this is not OK. My prediction, unless he does damage control, WordPress will get forked... and will lose in popularity https://www.theverge.com/...

Matt Beck /
@mattbeck: One takeaway I have in all of this WordPress drama is that it's amazing it hasn't blown up in Matt's face this way until now. https://www.theverge.com/...

Rick Findlay /
Reclaim The Net: Open-Source vs Profit: WP Engine Takes Automattic to Court in Power Struggle Over WordPress Matt Mullenweg: Automattic Alignment — Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Kamya Pandey /
MEDIANAMA: WP Engine Sues Automattic, Alleges Extortion and Abuse of Power Over WordPress Trademark Dispute

Ivan Mehta /
TechCrunch: 159 employees are leaving Automattic as CEO's fight with WP Engine escalates

Jon Brodkin /
Ars Technica: Automattic demanded web host pay $32M annually for using WordPress trademark

Deadline:

Filing: Nexstar cuts its chief revenue officer position, and CRO Michael Strober will leave the company on October 30; he was hired after Nexstar bought The CW— Nexstar Media Group, which hired Turner veteran Michael Strober as EVP and Chief Revenue Officer in 2022, has eliminated his position.

Discussion:
The Desk, Variety and TVNewsCheck

Discussion:

Matthew Keys /
The Desk: Nexstar Chief Revenue Officer Michael Strober to exit

Brian Steinberg /
Variety: Nexstar Cuts Chief Revenue Officer Who Tried to Sell Ads Across CW, NewsNation

Matthew Keys /
TVNewsCheck: Nexstar Chief Revenue Officer Michael Strober To Exit

Wall Street Journal:

A look at Google NotebookLM's Audio Overview feature, which was built by Google Labs and has gone viral thanks to its the Deep Dive podcast with two AI hosts— With this Google tool, you can now listen to a show about any topic you could possibly imagine. You won't believe your ears.

Discussion:
Axios, @ericjorgenson, @davetroy, @karpathy, @cnbctechcheck, Barron's Online, @karpathy, @stevenbjohnson, @karpathy, MIT Technology Review, @omartosca, Forbes, @stevenbjohnson, @omarsar0, @firstadopter, @ambermac, MIT Technology Review, @elonmusk and Hard Fork on YouTube, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:

Scott Rosenberg /
Axios: Google's AI podcast hosts draw crowds

Eric Jorgenson /
@ericjorgenson: @karpathy How do you fact-check generations like this?

Dave Troy /
@davetroy: Google's NotebookLM is by far the most actually useful AI product of the current generation, for people that actually need to augment their own capacity. Being able to process multiple large and complex sources and pull out key details (names, organizations, key themes, etc) is

Andrej Karpathy /
@karpathy: Deep Dive is now my favorite podcast. The more I listen the more I feel like I'm becoming friends with the hosts and I think this is the first time I've actually viscerally liked an AI. Two AIs! They are fun, engaging, thoughtful, open-minded, curious. ok i'll stop now. @cnbctechcheck: We tested out $GOOGL's viral NotebookLM tool using CNBC and Wall Street's favorite study tool: an analyst note. Powered by Google's most advanced AI model, Gemini 1.5 Pro, could this be the next killer app for generative AI? @dee_bosa reports [video]

Andrej Karpathy /
@karpathy: @EricJorgenson Good q worth noting that the Wikipedia page is in the context window when the pod is generated, this increases the accuracy a lot provided original material is ok. It's when you try to “zero shot” prompt straight up you'd expect a hazy recollection, quite possibly hallucinations.

Steven Johnson /
@stevenbjohnson: Wow. Such a great case study in why we designed NotebookLM from the beginning around curated sources It's basically the foundation of the product: curate the information you need the AI to have expertise in—and then transform it into whatever form you want.

Andrej Karpathy /
@karpathy: Over the last ~2 hours I curated a new Podcast of 10 episodes called “Histories of Mysteries”. Find it up on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/... 10 episodes of this season are: Ep 1: The Lost City of Atlantis Ep 2: Baghdad battery Ep 3: The Roanoke Colony Ep 4: The Antikythera [image]

Rhiannon Williams /
MIT Technology Review: The Download: Google's AI podcasts, and protecting your brain data @omartosca: Many people have praised NotebookLM for their approach to genAI podcasting, even the UI for researching, but they all forget to praise the model behind. Gemini is more powerful and impressive than people think, they just need to get out of the gpt and Claude bubbles.

Steven Johnson /
@stevenbjohnson: Love that you're doing this, @omarsar0! Sounds like a great intro (and beyond) to the product.

Elvis /
@omarsar0: 🎓Introduction to NotebookLM Very excited to announce @dair_ai's first FREE course, Introduction to NotebookLM! As an AI educator, researcher, and engineer, NotebookLM unlocks a wide range of use cases. It's not just the podcast generation feature (which is amazing), it's [image]

Tae Kim /
@firstadopter: Congrats to Google Labs and the NotebookLM team for creating one of the most compelling AI products yet. Great stuff. It offers a glimpse of AI's future with Gemini's longer context window capabilities and unlocking the siloed knowledge inside corporate internal databases [image]

Amber Mac /
@ambermac: These are not real people doing a podcast chat about my newsletter intro. Instead, I dropped my 200-word essay text into Google's NotebookLM (a virtual research assistant) and chose the little button at the top that says - Deep dive conversation: Two hosts (English only). Now [video]

Melissa Heikkilä /
MIT Technology Review: People are using Google study software to make AI podcasts—and they're weird and amazing

Elon Musk /
@elonmusk: @karpathy Interesting

Ars Technica:

YouTube says it fixed an issue that appeared to affect thousands of accounts, incorrectly flagging channels as spam, removing them, and disabling subscriptions— YouTube confirmed Friday that a bug mistakenly removing seemingly thousands of accounts wrongly marked as sharing spam and deceptive content was finally fixed.

Discussion:

Sarah Perez /
TechCrunch: YouTube apologizes for incorrectly flagging some channels as spam and removing them and disabling some subscriptions; it says it is working on the issue @teamyoutube: Hi Creators - We're aware of an issue causing some channels to be incorrectly flagged for Spam and removed. Our teams are looking into this and reinstating the channels right now - thanks so much for your patience. More information: https://support.google.com/...

@teamyoutube:
Update: our teams are still working on reinstating the incorrectly removed channels and access to subscriptions - we're sorry for the trouble! Some content like playlists may be delayed, but it's all coming back. Thanks for your patience while we work on this! @arstechnica@mastodon.social: YouTube fixes glitch that wrongly removed accounts, deleted videos — YouTube confirmed all channels back online after mistaken removals. — https://arstechnica.com/... [image]

Sarah Perez /
@Sarahp@mastodon.social: YouTube apologizes for falsely banning channels for spam, canceling subscriptions https://techcrunch.com/...

Pranob Mehrotra /
Android Authority: YouTube's recent wave of bans is the result of a bug, and a fix is underway

Press Gazette:

A UK judge rules that GB News can challenge an Ofcom ruling about a Q&A show with Rishi Sunak in a court hearing, but says Ofcom can keep pursuing sanctions— But the broadcaster failed in its bid to temporarily block Ofcom from publishing a sanction against it.

Discussion:
Financial Times, Broadband TV News

Discussion:

Daniel Thomas /
Financial Times: GB News seeks court injunction to stop watchdog's sanctions process

Julian Clover /
Broadband TV News: GB News goes to High Court to block Ofcom sanctions

Publishers Weekly:

Penguin renews its master publishing deal with BBC Studios for Bluey books; the books have sold 20M+ copies in 22 languages worldwide, including 8.5M in the US— Penguin has renewed its master publishing deal with BBC Studios for the hit preschool animated series Bluey.

Press Gazette:

Leading UK cultural figures decry Observer's planned sale to Tortoise as “a betrayal” of liberal journalism; Guardian, Observer staff consider striking— Guardian and Observer journalists have agreed they may take industrial action in protest at plans to sell The Observer to Tortoise Media.

Discussion:
@pressgazette: More leading names from UK culture have signed an open letter protesting against proposed Observer sale to Tortoise Media, including: @mrjamesob, Maxine Peake, Daisy Lafarge and Olivia Sudjic https://pressgazette.co.uk/...

@pressgazette:
Update: Latest additions to the letter opposing the sale of The Observer include Stephen McGann, Miriam Margolyes, Isabella Hammad, Jonah Hauer-King, Miquita Oliver, Julian Lloyd Webber and Shoshana Zuboff https://pressgazette.co.uk/...

Adam Tinworth /
One Man & His Blog: When digital goes shopping for print

Paul Fisher Cockburn /
Paul Fisher Cockburn on LinkedIn: Even the idea of The Scott Trust selling off #TheObserver was always going to cause a rumpus, but the way things have been done - and the lack of clarity …

Billboard:

Warner Music Group and Meta strike a multiyear licensing deal across all Meta platforms, including WhatsApp for the first time— The deal will cover WhatsApp for the first time and includes an agreement to jointly tackle issues around generative AI on Meta's platforms.

CNN:

In response to the NYT's decision not to issue local endorsements, Ben Smith and other NYC journalists launch a project to do interviews with and vet candidates— New York CNN — — As newspaper editorial boards lose influence, or withdraw from the space altogether, there are openings for others.

Discussion:
@brianstelter@threads.net and

Discussion:

Brian Stelter /
@brianstelter@threads.net: Bigger picture: “This came out of organic conversations among friends about how to fill some of the hole left for independent, experienced journalistic editorial interviews that used to be an important test for public officials,” @semaforben said. …

Brian Stelter /
@brianstelter@threads.net: As newspaper editorial boards lose influence, or withdraw from the space altogether, others are trying to fill the gap. In NYC a who's-who of local journalists are launching the “New York Editorial Board” to interview candidates for higher office... https://www.cnn.com/...

The Hollywood Reporter:

WBD's head of ad sales, Jon Steinlauf, announces he is stepping down at the end of 2024 after 32 years at the company— WBD is beginning the search for Steinlauf's replacement. … WBD chief revenue and strategy officer Bruce Campbell announced Steinlauf's looming exit Friday …

Discussion:
The Wrap, Adweek, MediaPost, Business Insider, Deadline, Ad Age and TVNewsCheck

Discussion:

Lucas Manfredi /
The Wrap: Warner Bros. Discovery Ad Sales Chief Jon Steinlauf to Exit

Bill Bradley /
Adweek: WBD Ad Sales Chief Jon Steinlauf Exits

Wayne Friedman /
MediaPost: WBD's Steinlauf To Exit, Ad Revenue Trends Worsening

Lucia Moses /
Business Insider: Warner Bros. Discovery's advertising chief is leaving. Read the memo sent to staff.

Parker Herren /