Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest technology companies keep rejecting comparisons with news organisations.
But they nevertheless think they have the prescription for what news media must do next… Read more at paidContent »
As China’s two online video leaders merge to improve their position in the fast-growing field, three of their rivals are teaming up to fight back. Read more at paidContent »
The UK’s troubled number-two local news publisher has vowed to launch national websites for pet shows, bonny baby contests, football fans and more, as part of new CEO Ashley Highfield’s big digital and transformation strategy. Read more at paidContent »
InformationWeek publisher and events organiser UBM on Wednesday became the latest to report what is now becoming a trend. Read more at paidContent »
Two years after it was off-loaded by AOL, Bebo’s founding Birches and fellow current shareholders sue the social network’s current owner, alleging financial mismanagement and more. Read more at paidContent »
Facebook gave investors something to ponder ahead of its mid-May IPO, when it filed an amended S-1 to report lower quarterly revenue and net income for the first three months of 2012. Read more »
Netflix has vowed to re-animate its on-hold global ambitions by launching further into Europe this coming Q4, after it spent slightly less than expected on its UK and Ireland launch this January. Read more at paidContent »
The UK’s communications regulator has kicked off a week in which News Corp will again be hauled over the coals, by opening an inquiry in to email hacking at its Sky News channel. Read more at paidContent »
China’s YouTube strikes a deal with broadcasters to power a western-style singing contest, as it merges with rival Tudou in a $1 billion deal. Read more at paidContent »
The upstart unlimited music service, like Rdio before it, has a better web music widget than Spotify, and has just inked a media partnership for it. But will it really count for anything? Read more at paidContent »
Belgian newspaper publishers are the latest to hope a joint digital news kiosk can prove profitable. Read more at paidContent »
Payments are big up north. A Square competitor and an online payments facilitator are named the Nordic region’s most promising digital outfits. Read more at paidContent »
Mobile media content is going centre-stage.
So much so that, in 2012, global revenue from mobile advertising and content will hit $67 billion, according to a new Strategy Analytics forecast. Read more at paidContent »
The curious case of the missing citizen news site. Where is the new service that China’s Twitter-beating microblog operator launched to give news organisations anonymous tips? Read more at paidContent »
Shazam’s efforts to enable TV ads with recognisable audio tags gain a big leg-up, with news UK broadcaster ITV will sell the idea to its advertisers. Read more at paidContent »
Having quickly become the world’s most-read newspaper website, Mail Online now looks like turning profitable earlier than expected. Read more at paidContent »
Many newspaper publishers are now hastening the reform of their local titles challenged by digital consumption migration, the drying up of classified ads and rising print costs, a confluence of strategies suggests. Read more at paidContent »
The online video sector is growing fast, and advertising forecasts point to a boom. So why is one of the leading companies’ share price sliding in the other direction? Read more at paidContent »
Six months after first reports emerged Amazon was negotiating to take e-books Japan, it has reportedly struck its first such deal. Read more at paidContent »
China’s Communist Party is doing a good impression of a Silicon Valley news startup, as it floats its official newspaper’s web operation to finance catching up commercial services. Read more at paidContent »
It’s powering paid online bundles of rival news publishers in eastern Europe. Now Piano Media is taking on €2 million from VCs to try taking the idea overseas. Read more at paidContent »
Social games development company, Zattikka incorporated on Monday, has gone public on London’s AIM exchange and is rolling up independent studios it hopes can give it some of Zynga’s gold. It was started by Virgin Interactive games executives Tim Chaney (pictured) and Mark Opzoomer. Read more at paidContent »
Sales of e-books may have already overtaken those of hardback in 2011 by volume, but it will take until 2014 for actual sales revenue to catch up, according to one forecaster. Read more at paidContent »
Readers of Scandinavian crime fiction can now revel in the music, movies, art and other artefacts of the morbid genre, too. Read more at paidContent »
The market for job classified ads may be gloomy at present, but Mail Online publisher DMGT is buying further in to it, by acquiring the Jobrapido recruitment site for up to €30 million Read more at paidContent »
CEO Daniel Ek says Spotify could take a fifth investment to value it at $4 billion, as he puts some latest financial figures out there. Read more at paidContent »
BBC Worldwide hopes people outside the UK will pay to subscribe to content including non-live sports. Read more at paidContent »
The BBC brings sport video on demand and on-board motor-racing live cams to connected TVs including TiVo. Read more at paidContent »
BBC Worldwide is making a strategic investment in a company whose technology will let it port its games to any mobile platform. The BBC’s commercial and overseas unit is investing an unspecified sum in Spaceport, whose technology leverages HTML5, Javascript and OpenGL to let creators convert […] Read more at paidContent »
Time was, publishers shovelled their linear magazines in to tablet digital editions. Now that order is flipping, with magazines designed for proper tablet interaction being repurposed to print. Read more at paidContent »
Spotify has moved a step toward embracing the web by introducing a new embeddable widget – but the launch highlights perhaps one of the biggest anomalies of the music service. Read more at paidContent »
South Africa’s local MSN venture is the latest publisher to try mining the web’s love for celeb gossip by carving out its celebrity section as a separate website. Read more at paidContent »
Days after paidContent reported that Amazon has indefinitely suspended its approval program for newspapers on Kindle, Amazon has relented and kickstarted the process for at least one publisher caught up in the backlog. Read more at paidContent »
As the online video opportunity booms, video index and advertising firm Blinkx is growing fast – but not quite as fast as had been expected, as revenue for the last 12 months fell slightly behind analysts’ expectations.. Read more at paidContent »
The music industry is battling to stop piracy through Russia’s largest social network so that it can turn the country from a digital backwater in to a top music market. vKontakte, which is often called a Facebook copycat for its similar features and design, includes built-in […] Read more at paidContent »
The Netherlands’ main news titles are collaborating on ideas for a joint payment system that would let readers buy access to each. Dutch publishers’ trade association NDP Nieuwsmedia confirmed members are exploring possibilities for a “common platform to meet demand for their content”, involving a shared database. […] Read more at paidContent »
Reed Business Information’s sell-offs really aren’t over yet. Now it is selling the UK’s number-two job classifieds site, TotalJobs, to German publisher Axel Springer’s equivalent StepStone for a hefty $175 million. Read more at paidContent »
Tel Aviv online video ads facilitator Hiro Media is taking on a $5 million investment to expand its efforts in the U.S.. Hiro makes advertising services for content owners, publishers, syndicators and advertising agencies. It plans to open a development and support centre in New York to […] Read more at paidContent »
Pretty soon, there may be nothing left for James Murdoch to distance himself from. Ahead of a parliamentary report on phone hacking that reportedly may accuse him of “lying”, now he is resigning his chairmanship of the UK’s largest pay-TV operator, BSkyB, saying: “As attention continues […] Read more at paidContent »
What if a magazine publisher had devised Angry Birds? Time Inc’s UK publisher IPC Media is creating a new division to develop casual games. But this isn’t strictly a content play. The division, IPC Play, will create “advergames” – marketing game-candy designed as digital adjuncts to the space […] Read more at paidContent »
