Tom Cheredar

I’m staff writer and lead media reporter for VentureBeat. Typically, my focus is on tech companies, products, and services related to music, movies, books, TV shows, comic books, digital magazines, and pretty much anything else that’s considered “consumable media.”  I do spend a lot of time covering YouTube, Spotify, Apple/iTunes, and Amazon (among others), but not just from a consumer perspective. I want to drill into the business-end of media companies as they navigate through the jungle of content licensing, fierce competition, and outdated tech legislation. I support VentureBeat’s ethics statement, and I don’t accept gifts from companies I cover, which includes hardware or paid services that frequently pop up in my reporting.

 

Prior to VentureBeat, I was a frequent contributor to Geeks of Doom where I did on-site coverage of events like Comic-Con. Before that, I worked at a handful of local newspapers around Nashville, Tenn. (Perhaps this explains why I consider Spider Jerusalem’s contribution to journalism on par with Marshall McLuhan’s.) I have a degree in journalism from MTSU, and currently live in Austin, Texas.

 

You can contact me via my staff email or through Twitter.   ***Please send all pitches to tips@venturebeat.com***

stories by Tom Cheredar

WordPress parent company Automattic sees $50M investment from Tiger Global

Blogging service WordPress’s parent company Automattic is getting a $50 million investment from Tiger Global, according to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg.

The announcement comes from a blog post on Mullenweg’s personal site today, and this comes just days after rival …

Pandora’s 40-hour listening cap translates to a record 700K new paid subscribers

Pandora took some heat after placing a 40-hour listening cap on its power users back in February, but the move seems to have created positive results.

Shazam updates its iPad app with auto-tagging and integration with Spotify & Rdio

Media discovery startup Shazam released a new version of its iPad app today that adds a ton of new features boosting your ability to identify music, TV shows, and advertising.

Ahead of earnings, Pandora brings your music listening activity to Facebook’s Timeline

Pandora's new Facebook integration adds a helpful social layer to the streaming music service that may help assure investors that Pandora is moving forward, despite a grim business outlook ahead of tomorrow's Q1 FY2014 earnings report.

Zite’s new iOS app update welcomes (but doesn’t cater to) mournful Google Reader users

Zite was one of the first companies to answer cries from loyal Google Reader users when the service was shuttered back in March, building a "replacement" in about six hours. Yet in the news reader's latest iOS app update, Zite's management team makes one thing very clear: it's time to let Google Reader die.

Amazon introduces ‘Kindle Worlds’ for … selling fanfiction?

Thanks to Amazon, writing fanfiction about popular television show characters just became more than a passionate hobby that earns you ridicule from friends and co-workers.

Pandora starts playing music from unreleased albums

The new station marks an important step in Pandora's attempt to become just as vital to the music industry as the traditional radio stations were decades earlier.

NFL will bring exclusive original TV content to Xbox One

With Microsoft's introduction of the new entertainment watching experience through its new Xbox One console, one of the biggest winners will obviously be for those that love live sports.

With the new Xbox One, you’ll never watch TV the same way again

Microsoft just blew the doors off of every integrated television experience with the reveal of its next generation console Xbox One.

Crunchyroll expands its revenue stream by selling anime-related merch

Streaming video service Crunchyroll has just rolleed out a new platform that allows its viewers to purchase merchandise related to the shows they're watching, the company told VentureBeat today.

Is this the future of TV on Xbox? Microsoft launches interactive music show

Just a day shy of it's superimportant and highly publicized event to showcase the next-generation Xbox console, Microsoft's Xbox team has announced a new interactive TV show that's definitely worth paying attention to.

Dijit launches a web version of its NextGuide app TV utility

Streaming video and TV programming guide startup Dijit just released a new web app version of its NextGuide app that's every bit as useful as the mobile versions.

Yahoo’s Mayer: we’re committed to monetizing Tumblr

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer held a press conference today to flesh out more details about its $1.1 billion acquisition of blog platform Tumblr, which was confirmed yesterday after days of rumors.

Stitcher radio comes to your dashboard with new ‘Car Mode’ feature

Stitcher Radio is rolling out a new feature on its iOS app today that makes it much easier to use the streaming service while driving in a vehicle -- which is exactly where radio belongs.

Yahoo newsfeed’s latest ingredient: Embedded tweets

For the second time in the last month, Yahoo is making some changes to its newsfeed that will presumably attempt to boost interest and improve the overall experience of reading the news.

Time Warner Cable could buy a piece of Hulu’s pie, report says

Media company Time Warner could be weighing a deal to buy a stake in streaming video service Hulu.

YouTube opens livestreaming for most channels

YouTube will now let channel owners do it live... streaming, that is.

‘OK Google,’ your conversational search is awesome as hell (video)

Normally, when a company claims that it's bringing the helpfulness of a Federation starship's onboard computer to everyday technology, I sort of roll my eyes and prepare to be disappointed -- except this time that didn't really happen.