Amazon’s Executive Team Is Shrinking

Amazon’s management team has quietly lost four executives over the past year.
amazon_screen

Twitter Co-Founders’ New Site, Medium, Will Open to Public in New Year

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams shares more details about his new publishing platform.
Medium

Amazon SVP of Worldwide Digital Media Steven Kessel Taking Time Off

Amazon has confirmed to All Things D that Steven Kessel, a 13-year veteran responsible for the company’s Kindle business, is taking time off.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos holds up the new Kindle Touch in New York

News Byte

The End Is Here Before the Beginning for Beyond Oblivion

Beyond Oblivion, a New York-based music start-up is shutting down before even launching a product, having burned through some $87 million worth of funding, according to a report in the Financial Times (link goes to a story behind a paywall). Backed by investments from News Corp. (which also owns this Web site), it had sought to bundle the service with hardware and charge a flat fee, but had trouble selling recording labels on the idea.

News Byte

DailyMotion Vet Joy Marcus Joins DFJ Gotham

Joy Marcus, who used to run U.S. operations at France’s DailyMotion, has a new gig: She’s joining DFJ Gotham as a venture partner, where she’ll concentrate on the firm’s digital media portfolio. Marcus’ resumé also includes stints at Time Warner, Barnesandnoble.com and MTV.

Voices

JP Morgan Raises $1.2 Billion For Digital Growth Fund

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has quickly rounded up $1.2 billion for a new digital-growth fund, furthering Wall Street’s bold push to capture stakes in fast-growing private tech companies such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.

News Byte

Revision3 Adds IGN President Roy Bahat to Board

Web video studio Revision3 is bringing some more digital-media expertise to its board with the addition of Roy Bahat, president of gaming media company IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corp. Bahat is a Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar who did stints with McKinsey & Company, the New York City mayor’s office and various start-ups before joining IGN in 2007.

Voices

J.P. Morgan Plans New-Media Fund

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., riding the wave of investor interest in fast-growing, privately held technology firms such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., plans to start a fund that would invest in Internet and digital-media companies, people familiar with the matter said.

Voices

PepsiCo Unveils Winners Of New Start-Up Incubator Program

PepsiCo Corp. set out in June to find 10 relatively unheard of start-ups to put it on the cutting edge of digital media and social marketing. Now the company has announced the winners of the inaugural PepsiCo10, an incubator program that matches technology, media and communications entrepreneurs with PepsiCo brands for pilot programs set to launch in the coming months.

News Byte

IVP Closes New $750 Million Tech and Media Fund

This morning, Institutional Venture Partners announced the closing of IVP XIII, a new $750 million fund that will invest in rapidly growing technology and digital media companies. IVP’s later-stage investment strategy has been successful so far; like its similarly named predecessor fund–the $600 million IVP XII–the new fund is oversubscribed, and the firm’s committed capital now totals $3 billion.

MySpace | A Place for Layoffs

MySpace | A Place for Layoffs