J-Links for Aug. 1: Ballast reaches fundraising goal; HuffPo Quebec on its election coverage; Corus joins media giant ad alliance

In Canadian media:

Ballast reaches fundraising goal

Ballast wants to be Canada’s Gawker, or The Dish, or whatever it is that will provide an “eccentric yet considered approach” to the happenings of the day. And it looks like it will get the chance. The start-up publication, which will be edited by Paul Hiebert and Jonathan Hall, reached its fundraising goal on Kickstarter today.  

Corus joins Rogers, Shaw and CBC in digital ad partnership

Corus Entertainment Inc. has joined an existing digital advertising alliance consisting of Rogers, Shaw and CBC that lets advertisers target specific groups of Web users in real time on any of the online sites owned by the media companies. It is “a way for each to partly offset pressure elsewhere,” the Financial Post reports, citing the presence of Netflix and Google as threats to online advertising and Bell and Telus as threats to cable subscriptions for the media companies in the alliance.

Le Huffington Post Quebec fills readers in on upcoming election coverage (en Francais)

With the Quebec provincial election having been called for Sept. 4, media outlets in the province are gearing up their election coverage. Le Huffington Post Quebec explains how they will be covering the parties and the issues at hand in its original reporting, blogs that represent all five major parties and panels of experts and analysts.

In international media:

Why Twitter banning Guy Adams was really that bad

Twitter’s decision to ban Independent journalist Guy Adams after NBC filed a complaint about the fact Adams had tweeted executive Gary Zenkel’s corporate email address was a bad one. A very bad one, says Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic. Twitter’s official statement places the blame on policy, though Madrigal says the decision was damning due to the context: After all, Twitter has to make decisions like this every day, and the individuals involved are “capable of understanding the nuances involved.”

Today’s read:

SoundCloud making efforts to be the YouTube of audio

SoundCloud, arguably the largest audio-sharing platform since MySpace, is courting radio news professionals and other spoken-word producers in an effort to become the de facto place to upload audio online.  The Niemen Lab notes the three factors that allowed YouTube to gain the notoriety it did: free hosting of content, easy-to-embed player and a community. The only thing that might hold SoundCloud back from reaching the same end? A lack of immediate monetization opportunity the way that YouTube has for video.