European startups love to analyze their failures and look for reasons the continent finds it hard to build huge new businesses. Now a great, comprehensive piece in The Economist manages to show how the problems are deep, dangerous — and go back at least 50 years. Read more »
The BBC’s commercial wing is promising six months of office space and advice to new start-ups. But what will it get out of the program, and how will it help fledgling companies? We ask the woman in charge. Read more »
It started with an innocuous tweet and turned into a legal saga that critics said threatened free speech online. But, after two years and three appeals, the UK’s High Court has overturned the conviction of a man who joked about blowing up his local airport. Read more »
As Britain prepares to host the Olympics, London’s startup entrepreneurs are the focus of a string of major announcements that all promise to transform the city from a fading Victorian giant into a gleaming technopolis. It’s a revolution that can’t come soon enough. Read more »
Details are sketchy right now, but it appears that the director of Independence Day and Godzilla is one of the partners behind a new online film portal that promises to reward users for paying attention to the trailers they watch. Read more »
The European leader for ride sharing already has four million users, and now it is gearing up to take on an American market that has no dominant competitor. With Daimler fuelling the expansion bid, it could quickly find itself ahead of the pack. Read more »
Boxes for the UK’s big internet TV venture have finally gone on sale, priced a hefty £299, four years after it was conceived. But YouView may be the wrong service, aimed at the wrong market at the wrong time. Read more at paidContent »
Germany’s Rocket Internet may have not made its big U.S. push yet, but one of its early plays — parenting subscription service Petitebox — has failed amid logistical problems. Will it make up for that by resurrecting the service under a new name? Read more »
When is “bye-bye buffering” not “bye-bye buffering”? When Virgin Media acknowledges its own ad starring Olympic athlete Usain Bolt was mere “puffery”, landing it in regulatory hot water. Read more at paidContent »
Who owns the airspace in London’s Olympics venues? Organisers want to stop spectators from creating personal WiFi hotspots, while BT charges up to £9.99 per day for on-site access. Read more »
Britain’s 4G rollout is woefully delayed, and the announcement that a spectrum auction won’t take place until next year is hardly speeding things up. But is there a chance that this unconnected cloud could have a silver lining? Read more »
There are plenty of sell-your-picture platforms out there already that give people the chance to become semi-professional photographers. But German startup Photocircle has a twist: it’s encouraging those taking pictures to support social projects in the photogenic places they visit. Read more »
With peripheral inquiries ongoing in to conspiracy and media ethics, Tuesday’s announcement that Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and six others will be charged for “phone hacking” shows the News Of The World furore will soon finally focus on the original criminal allegations. Read more at paidContent »
UK regulators will next month consider whether to go on allowing voting in TV talent shows via mobile apps, following high-profile slip-ups by one of the industry’s leading vendors. Read more at paidContent »
Traditional TV will dominate, viewing on other devices is growing, and researchers can’t agree on how many people will watch the Olympics on mobile and tablet – that’s the conclusion from sifting research forecasts on the matter. Read more at paidContent »
The world’s largest mail order company is one of the main investors in the Redpoint e.Ventures fund, which aims to exploit Brazil’s continuing shift to e-commerce Read more »
Amazon is amalgamating development teams from two acquired companies in to a London “centre of excellence” for streaming movies, TV and music on devices around the world. Read more at paidContent »
Google’s decision to buy hot French email startup Sparrow has seen reactions ranging from excited to bitterly disappointed. But while some critics are just hipsters who confuse selling up with selling out, there are plenty of reasons to worry about a purchase by the ‘Plex. Read more »
The Berlin startup hopes that a ‘big six figure’ funding round can help it provide a European take on the ‘Airbnb for childcare’ model. But will its emphasis on trust and personal screening mean success — or simply create scaling problems? Read more »
With billions in losses coming each quarter, it feels as if Nokia’s living on borrowed time. While many people expect Microsoft to step in and purchase the struggling Finnish handset giant, that may be unlikely. So here are five ways it might turn things around. Read more »
The Samwer Brothers have stopped being furtive about the extent of their many clones, with a new site that lists their full portfolio as part of a wider rebrand. But what can we learn from this dramatic shift? Is Rocket Internet looking to America? Read more »
Speaking with paidContent at the Olympic Park, International Olympic Committee social media head Alex Huot explains social media rules must safeguard TV rightsholders, and says big media can find a new role for themselves… Read more at paidContent »
The money will go into two funds, one of which also aims to raise angel cash. But will it be enough to shore up a promising but funding-starved startup scene? Read more »
It may be the height of summer in Finland, but the view from Nokia chief Stephen Elop’s office window must look pretty dismal right now. Things just keep getting worse for the beleaguered handset maker, which has just announced that it lost $1 billion over the […] Read more »
The London Olympics’ host team will launch two digital products next week, joining broadcasters, other media, the IOC and the games’ organising committee in seeking fans’ electronic mindshare. Read more at paidContent »
German startup PaperC adds a twist to the idea of academic textbooks by letting people purchase a single chapter — or even just a page. Now, in order to raise funding it’s not going a traditional route: it’s holding a public auction. Read more »
Global No2 video service Dailymotion is expanding its white label streaming service to try and capture a greater share of the market. Can its new features draw in more users and help the company meet its targets? Read more »
A study by the British media regulator Ofcom says that people are more likely to use their handsets to text rather than talk — but the real revolution is happening in mobile data, which has doubled in the last 18 months. Read more »
Papagei.tv wants to use movies and other video entertainment to help people learn new languages — and it’s doing well out of the gate, with at least €10m to extend its immersive language-training courses and a role as the official language trainer for Germany’s Olympic team. Read more »
Piano Media, the digital news payments kiosk through which several Slovenian and Slovakian publishers have begun charging for some of their content, is opening shop in its third country, Poland, as paidContent speculated last month. Six publishers (Agora, Murator, Polskapresse, Media Regionalne, Edytor and Axel Springer-Ringier) […] Read more at paidContent »
Guardian News & Media is re-opening its voluntary redundancy programme after its “digital-first” survival strategy’s first year resulted in much higher company losses. Read more at paidContent »
Apple wasn’t the only loser in the ruling. It was ultimately a loss for both parties since the court also disagreed with Motorola’s previous claim that Apple’s iPad design patent was invalid. As a result, both parties have to cover court costs generated by the dispute. Read more »
The man who has been given the job of reworking France’s controversial anti-piracy legislation says cutting off the internet connection of filesharers is probably wrong. But don’t expect him to go easy on those of accused of illegal downloads. Read more »
Facing a fresh investigation from EU regulators over its failure to promote a choice of browsers to Windows 7 users, Microsoft has swiftly blamed a ‘technical error’. But will that be enough to save it from a gigantic fine? Read more »
BBC Online spent four percent less in 2011/12 than the previous year amid cutbacks, its annual report shows. Read more at paidContent »
A new coolant called CryoSolplus, being developed at one of Germany’s Fraunhofer institutes, aims to make electric car batteries last longer by using paraffin droplets that are three times better at absorbing heat than water. Read more »
Struggling British chipmaker CSR is selling its mobile business to Samsung in a deal worth $310 million, in what appears to be the latest episode in the ongoing global patent war. Read more »
It’s only been a few weeks since Microsoft’s $1.2bn deal to buy Yammer was confirmed, but already the company’s influence seems to be spreading: productivity startup Teamly has scored investment from one of Yammer’s early team members and developed a deeper integration with the service. Read more »
The controversial world of paywalled academic publishing has been hit by a major shift, with the British government saying it will make open access to scientific research a condition of public funding by 2014. Read more at paidContent »
France’s Supreme Court has set aside a critical piracy ruling won by Google in 2011, leaving the door open to the search giant being forced to censor some of its autocomplete listings to prevent copyright infringement and piracy. Read more »
