Lotsa ants. (Photo: flickr.com/pinkmoose)

The MPAA and the RIAA aren't raking in as much cash as they used to. [TechDirt]

This breed of ants works a little like the Internet. [PC World]

Time Warner is expanding its fiber network in New York City, hopefully preventing any more techies from tearing their hair out over problems getting high-speed Internet. [Wall Street Journal]

IAC has purchased About.com for $300 million, because of synergy. [The Hollywood Reporter]

America's V.P. gets no Facebook love. [Buzzfeed]

Getting your Gmail hacked is going to look like a walk in the park once hackers can rifle through your innermost thoughts. [ZDNet]

(twitter.com/keep)

Somehow this passed us by: AdKeeper, the startup from About.com's Scott Kurnit attempting to create a "like" button for online ads, announced a pivot a few weeks ago. In a Nov. 21 blog post titled, "Another View of AdKeeper," Mr. Kurnit explained that the site will be relaunching at Keep.com with "a unique offering that serves the AdKeeper mission in new and exciting ways," but did not explain the specifics.

The original idea, which earned Mr. Kurnit $43 million from investors including Spark Capital,
First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures, The New York Times and betaworks, was to create a network across the internet that would place a "keep" button on ads and allow users to store those ads for later. The company reportedly had a $100 million valuation. "The fact is, 90 percent of people have torn an ad from a magazine," Mr. Kurnit wrote in an op-ed at All Things Digital.

We imagined users might want to keep coupons or funny videos or other kinds of content-like ads, like this Thanksgiving recipe from GE, but we weren't very confident in the idea. (The opening line of our first post ever on AdKeeper: "You know when you see an ad on the Internet somewhere, and it's just so awesome that you wish you could save it and look at it later? No? Uh oh.")

Although advertisers (including some of Betabeat's!) loved the concept at first and AdKeeper insisted users were keeping lots of ads, the reviews started coming back mixed. “I don’t necessarily see the benefit," Adam Shlachter, digital head of global media agency MEC, told Digiday. "I haven’t seen any evidence that there’s demand for this type of functionality or that it’s really adding anything for advertisers.”

And while more than 10,000 people like AdKeeper on Facebook, the app only has 200 monthly users.

Perhaps that's why AdKeeper is switching things up. The new product at Keep.com is apparently in stealth, but the tagline is "Follow brands. Save money. Have fun." The Facebook account links to discounts from a seemingly random assortment of brands from Rue La La to Shoe Buy. "It won't be long before the curtains open and you can start saving time and money on your favorite brands," says the introductory email. "If you want your friends to do the same, please invite them to sign up. After all, it's more fun to shop together."

Mr. Kurnit did not immediately respond to an email request for an interview.

"Since launching AdKeeper earlier this year we’ve researched, displayed, used, digested, reviewed, sorted, organized and shared thousands of ads," he wrote. "We realized that ads are just the tip of the iceberg. Much like marketers put ads at the top of the purchase funnel, consumers agree that ads are truly just the start of a lasting relationship with the brands in their lives."

It sounds like Keep.com will be a more tailored approach to the kind of brand-following that happens on social media. Considering the startup teamed up with Safecount just a week before the pivot announcement in order to provide better processing for tagged ads, it sounds like the "keeping ads" idea will stick around in some form. But "bigger than Twitter"? It's looking like not.

UPDATE: Scott Kurnit responded by email to say it's not a pivot: "Not a new direction. An extension. Very happy with AdKeeping. AdKeeper is working well. Somehow Digiday chose to quote 4 people we have never met with who know nothing about our business. Worst 'journalism' I've ever seen. Bizarre."

New York Times Co., bringing the hot new revenue fire, as ever.

“It’s working from a revenue perspective,” Ms. Robinson said of the paid online subscription model introduced back in March. By September, digital subscriptions were up to 324,00o. The Boston Globe, also owned by the Times Company, introduced paid subscriptions in October. With that money, the company has been paying down its debt. Coupled with reduced costs, they now have the finances to start buying growth. And what better place to look than the bubbling tech sector?

The company, whose stock has been down more than 20 percent this year, will likely be looking for acquisitions that can counteract sliding ad revenue, which was down 8.8 percent in the third quarter.

Now that About.com, another property owned by the Times, is trying to shed its spammy image for the world of premium online video, perhaps the New York Times might be in the market for another content farm?