Confirmed: Pinterest taking $100m for e-commerce play
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten wants to plug Pinterest in to purchasing, after leading a $100 million investment in the social pinboard curator. Read more at paidContent »
Can Yell turn online around with self-serve marketing?
photo: Flickr / edkohler
Yell.com and Yellow Pages operator Yell Group is acquiring UK point-and-click website builder Moonfruit, as it tries to salvage even digital classifieds that are in reverse. Read more at paidContent »
Microstock’s stock is rising: $265 million for Shutterstock, Fotolia
photo: Shutterstock / Douglas Freer
Fotolia is taking a $150 million private investment as Shutterstock goes public to raise $115 million. Coincidence? Crowdsourced-photo rivals are bulking up to challenge microstock’s market-leading iStockPhoto. Read more at paidContent »
Betting big on live sports data, Perform lays €120 million on RunningBall
photo: Perform Group
Fresh from its IPO, the increasingly good-looking online sports video and betting outfit Perform is buying big to add live match data to its services. Read more at paidContent »
Interview: BBC’s Olympics will deliver an ‘online legacy’
photo: BBC
BBC News & Knowledge general manager Phil Fearnley tells paidContent BBC Online has conceived Olympics Web, connected TV, mobile and tablet products as platforms for re-use on future large events. Read more at paidContent »
Video reveal: BBC super-sizing “the first truly digital Olympics”
NBC may have been criticised for not streaming enough Olympics Games – but, in the UK, the BBC plans to stream all 2,500 hours of this summer’s London 2012 events across web, mobile, tablet and connected TV. Read more at paidContent »
Japan’s Docomo buying mobile content powerhouse Buongiorno for €224 million
photo: Buongiorno
Japan’s largest mobile telco is about to buy in to mobile media content in Europe and farther afield, by acquiring one of the space’s pioneer companies. Read more at paidContent »
Streamed music chart has short long tail, more Rihanna than Rita
photo: Columbia Records
The UK’s current best-selling single is nowhere to be seen in the first ever dedicated streaming music chart – but, elsewhere, anomalies are harder to spot. Read more at paidContent »
Apple TV rumor mill makes millions as iTV ‘confirmed’
photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Apple may not be buying a high-design German home entertainment device maker, but that doesn’t mean investors in the rumoured target company won’t make a killing – and it doesn’t mean it won’t still have a part to play in Apple’s iTV. Read more at paidContent »
The world’s hottest digital markets: a music map
photo: Shutterstock / Smith
Unlimited-access digital music services are racing to beat iTunes – and each other – in new countries each week. Our map breaks down the world’s digital music market, country by country. Read more at paidContent »
Ex Brightcove, DoubleClick execs start web publishing service RollUp Media
Former DoubleClick, Brightcove and Demand Media executives have formed a new startup service to help small niche publishers make money from the web. Read more at paidContent »
Beyond the birds: Rovio finally ready to diversify?
Rovio may fancy itself as mobile media’s Disney, but only now is it looking at follow-ups to its Mickey Mouse, Angry Birds, as it goes on talking up a future IPO. Read more at paidContent »
Spotify rival WiMP has global ambitions, too – now it needs cash
photo: Renata Osinska/Shutterstock
Spotify’s closest Scandinavian competitor says it must seek new investment to join its digital music peers in international expansion this year. Read more at paidContent »
BBC’s Rivera wants to make 2012 digital’s Coronation
“The Olympics will be the biggest 19 days in the 15 years of BBC Online,” says BBC future media director Ralph Rivera, as he summarises a big year for the service. Read more at paidContent »
Interview: 5 Questions for Future CEO Mark Wood
The chief of one of the publishers with most magazines on iPad wants to make more of them interactive and start licensing his production tools to rivals, after selling half a million Newsstand titles in six months. Read more at paidContent »
AOL ad sales go on growing, but U.S. display ‘off-tune’
photo: Staci D. Kramer
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong promised improvements in U.S. display ad sales processes, after international growth embarrassed domestic declines. Read more at paidContent »
Anonymous hits UK’s Virgin Media in Pirate Bay protest
photo: Shutterstock / Strelka
The hacking collective claims to have crashed the website of Virgin Media in retribution for complying with an order to block UK Pirate Bay access – but Bay honchos condemn the act. Read more »
Nevermind austerity; European startups get public funds
photo: Shutterstock / Glovatskiy
Technology investment funds operated by several national and regional governments have largely survived the chop. Here are their latest investments. Read more »
Manchester media war – bitter dispute freezes How-Do
An online news service for workers in England’s newly digital media region of the north-west has suspended activities after five years, after its recent merger has ended in acrimony. Read more at paidContent »
Producers, advertisers begin tapping TV’s second screen for fun and profit
When it comes to TV’s emerging second screen phenomenon, broadcasters have been dipping toes in the water. This weekend, some are putting in a whole leg. Read more at paidContent »
Yahoo finally giving its European search advertisers to Microsoft
photo: Yahoo
Almost three years after they agreed a search alliance, Microsoft and Yahoo are finally making it happen in Europe. Read more at paidContent »
Trinity Mirror must re-grow digital business after CEO’s exit
The staff and some leading shareholders of one of the UK’s leading news publishers have got their way – Trinity Mirror CEO Sly Bailey will leave the company after 10 years by year’s end. Read more at paidContent »
MTV will have a hard time charging Brits for VOD
MTV UK has upgraded its MTV OD on-demand platform with catch-up TV shows transmitted in the last seven days – but it may be challenged to make a success of it. Read more at paidContent »
Science research may be freed from journals’ ‘unhealthy’ paywalls
The UK government has told academic journal publishers it will make freely available online the publicly-funded research they currently charge for, labelling “paywalls” “deeply unhealthy”. Read more at paidContent »
People’s Daily Online shares suspended after excessive trading
photo: Robert S. Donovan
We knew that shares in People’s Daily Online (SHA:603000), China’s government-backed news website, were hot, but apparently they’re a little too hot to handle. Read more at paidContent »
Europe’s digital chief hopes France can liberalise digital copyright
photo: Flickr / World Economic Forum
The lawmaker leading Europe’s digital agenda initiatives is hoping France can liberalise its digital copyright regime, after it introduced a policy to warn and disconnect illegal content downloaders. Read more at paidContent »
BSkyB buys Acetrax to be its connected TV Trojan Horse
photo: AP Images
While pundits would prefer to focus on phone hacking, News Corp’s part-owned UK pay-TV operator BSkyB is buying further in to internet TV. Read more at paidContent »
Learn European digital leaders’ strategies at paidContent 2012
Leading executives from some of Europe’s most talked-about digital media enterprises will share their insights at our flagship annual paidContent 2012 conference on May 23, 2012. Read more »
Avito.ru takes $75 million for Russian small web ads
photo: Flickr / yeowatzup
Russia’s online listings market could be about to explode, and investors want a piece of it. The latest beneficiary is a Craigslist-style site that also wants to be like eBay. Read more at paidContent »
False start?: Olympic organisers say photo uploads are allowed
photo: Shutterstock / Steve Heap
Olympics organisers have taken to social media to say spectators and athletes can upload photos from this summer’s London games venues, despite guidance that has been interpreted to the contrary. Read more at paidContent »
Web journey complete, FT switching off iOS app
The Financial Times is preparing to kill off its iPad and iPhone app for good, signalling its final conversion from executable-app to web-app publishing. Read more at paidContent »
Hacking report highlights: Execs ‘covered up hacking’, Murdochs ‘ignorant’
The former Dow Jones CEO, current New York Daily News editor and ex News International legal manager did mislead the UK parliament in a phone hacking “cover-up”, a report from a committee of 10 cross-party parliamentarians concluded. Read more at paidContent »
Hacking report: Rupert Murdoch ‘not fit’, James’ competence questioned
photo: Sirian Soosay
The UK parliamentary committee’s report into whether it was misled over phone hacking makes conclusions including: “Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.” Read more at paidContent »
Apple barred from using ’4G’ in marketing for the iPad in UK
After advertising’s regulator investigated complaints, Apple has agreed to remove the “4G” label in a country that can’t yet support a “4G” iPad. But complaints keep coming. Read more »
Another nail: UK ISPs must block Pirate Bay
photo: Shutterstock / Tatiana Popova
The UK becomes the thirteenth country to compel ISP-level blocking of The Pirate Bay, after record labels won a court case. Read more at paidContent »
No UGC, please – but will the Olympics’ social media strategy work?
photo: anbibyte / Shutterstock
Organisers want to stop athletes and spectators from publishing photos, video and audio from this summer’s London Olympics, in an effort to protect Big Media rights outlay – but that doesn’t mean the Olympics doesn’t have a social media strategy… Read more at paidContent »
Digital reading beginning to take Chinese mindshare
photo: Robert S. Donovan
The newspaper industry frequently thanks emerging markets growth for the surprising quirk of global print circulation growth.
But now emerging markets, too, are becoming advanced online media markets. Read more at paidContent »
Spanish mobile ad net TapTap takes $4.5 million to launch in America
photo: Corbis / James Leynse
A Madrid-based mobile advertising network is taking investment to challenge big U.S. competitors. Read more at paidContent »
Social media not necessarily journalism’s panacea, news bosses say
photo: FuelYourWriting
Tech giants may have their own views on what journalism should become, but some news organisations are questioning what benefits the social vision of future news can really bring at a time when they’re struggling for business survival… Read more at paidContent »
Flipboard is ‘head-on competitor’ on Economist’s road to all-digital
The Economist’s CEO thinks news publishing will be all-digital at some point in the near- to mid-term. But he sees services like Flipboard re-using his content to take its revenue along the way. Read more at paidContent »
