The good news: digital formats now make up a quarter of UK entertainment sales thanks to 2012 growth. The bad: ongoing physical decline on the high-street means overall sales are shrinking. Read more at paidContent »
Early indications show a big hike in ebook sales, a glut of new iPad owners and a transformative effect for one game studio — it’s another Christmas in which new device gifts give an uplift to content sales. Read more at paidContent »
The MP3 player saved the music business. But now consumers are replacing dedicated music players, ebook readers and compact cameras with multi-purpose smartphones. All hail the new Swiss Army knife. Read more at paidContent »
Sacrebleu! IPTV adoption in France is greater than anywhere in the world — and becoming more so. But that doesn’t mean the French consume the most internet video. Here is why its market is failing to take advantage. Read more at paidContent »
In an acknowledgement of the growing importance of the “second screen” for TV watchers, Nielsen is unveiling a new set of ratings that will measure a given show’s popularity on Twitter. Read more »
Folks already use the internet more than newspapers to get their national news. Now the internet is on the verge of toppling even TV, research sugests. Read more at paidContent »
A majority of Chinese internet users say they pay for digital content. That finding is likely a demographic quirk — but may nevertheless mean a welcome market opportunity for vendors. Read more at paidContent »
Many more viewers say they will change their pay TV service in 2013 — but, despite greater planned adoption of new internet TV replacements, research suggests subscribers are more likely to simply remove channels from their packages. Read more at paidContent »
Millions of people now consume content on mobile devices but the analytics tools used to measure websites has failed to account for them. Now, a system has come along that measures these mobile users — and shakes up some of the traditional rankings. Read more at paidContent »
Tablet content is seeing higher engagement than that desktop web. But can tablets do the same for advertising, whose classic banner format is ‘cratering’? Read more at paidContent »
A U.S. election bump lifts the newspaper above the venerable broadcaster, as the two British news orgs vie for American readers. But closer inspection shows the BBC remains the more popular brand. Read more at paidContent »
Should content owners sell through a subscription or on a piece-by-piece basis? That depends on the country they will be selling to, according to data that shows wildly varying patterns. Read more at paidContent »
The publisher of supermarket giant Tesco’s custom magazine says it is now more read than any UK newspaper. That would be a milestone in branded content. But the claim merits closer inspection of the numbers. Read more at paidContent »
Despite fewer viewers and blunt advertising metrics TV is still king, with revenues that dwarf online. Still, Doug McCormick of Rho Ventures says using smarter, online-style tech to better target ads will benefit both networks’ and marketers’ bottom line. Read more »
It’s going to take a Herculean effort to depose Google as Brits’ search engine of choice. But, percentage point by percentage point, Bing is fronting up, knocking its rival’s share below the important 90 percent mark. Read more at paidContent »
Mobile networks like Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica are urgently investing in over-the-top internet services to guard against becoming dumb pipes. But what is the real value in telcos trying to mimic WhatsApp? Read more »
Thanks to the rise of online business, companies must now get their products and services to market as fast as they can, and releasing software now means small releases that occur very frequently. Enter devops, which is disrupting traditional assumptions about the roles of development and operations. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Ad spending online will grow by 16 percent next year and hit 21.4 percent by the following year, according to a ZenithOptimedia forecast. Read more at paidContent »
Mobile now takes more than 16 percent of paid search spending in the US, according to research. But its growth tailed off in the last quarter. Read more at paidContent »
With no iPhone 5 support and multiple competing variants, mobile payments may be having an evolutionary emergence toward what many expect will be a revolutionary disruption. But, already, NFC helped process 4.5 billion rubles’ worth ($138 million) of mobile payments in Russia in the first six […] Read more »
Much digital news consumption is moving to mobile devices. But the money isn’t yet following. UK publishers say slow-coach ad agencies still wedded to desktop web ads are at fault. Read more at paidContent »
Music downloads continue to grow despite the emergence of new streaming services, according to research which says that Spotify users are twice as likely to buy songs they play. Read more at paidContent »
Search engines are losing share of users’ clicks. Analysts say they are going to Facebook and Twitter. What does that mean for the future of search? Read more at paidContent »
Research claims three billion songs were illegally downloaded via torrent between January and June. The problem may remain large, but it is likely shrinking. Read more at paidContent »
First combined print and online readership data shows some titles still see more usage on paper than by pixels, while others are finding booming audience growth online. Read more at paidContent »
A new survey points to falling levels of reading every medium bar SMS in the last seven years. Campaigners are worried, but schoolchildren say they enjoy reading as much as ever. Read more at paidContent »
Apple’s tablet is now considered a better buy than it’s smartphone, a survey suggests. But the data likely reveals iPhone 5 anticipation more than a grand product shift. Read more »
Online advertising is now a multi-billion dollar industry. But it still languishes far behind ye olde television commercials for effectiveness, consumers say in a new survey. Read more at paidContent »
As newspapers try and re-engineer their businesses to adapt to the disruption caused by the web and social media, they will have to confront a crucial question: How can they measure the effectiveness of the journalism they are producing — or is pleasing advertisers enough? Read more »
Comparing the cost of on-demand computing to buying your own infrastructure is one way to look at IT costs in a cloud era, but it’s a shortsighted way to measure how cloud computing can affect your business. Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels outlines another way. Read more »
Digital-replica magazine circulation has grown fast this year. But, so far, the emerging sector is still too tiny to have any positive impact on an industry whose overall circulation goes on declining. Read more at paidContent »
More data suggests these were the “mobile games”. London 2012′s organising committee says most digital engagement was via mobile devices, as it closes the lid on the Olympics with an end-of-games stats dump. Read more at paidContent »
The BBC’s celebrated ‘four-screen’ London 2012 output has revealed a late-night iPad fetish and new high water marks for live video and mobile content consumption. ‘This has really been the multi-platform Games,’ the corporation says. Read more at paidContent »
We crunched data from the last 12 years to examine UK newspaper and website readership. Here is what the results say about the future of online news. Read more at paidContent »
Half of searches and video streams are coming from mobiles and tablets during the Olympic games. Has the mobile internet reached a tipping point? New Google data would seem to suggest as much. Read more at paidContent »
Many SaaS startups will eventually be acquired. Unfortunately, most of the acquiring companies don’t use SaaS metrics. As Matt Fates of Ascent Venture Partners explains, if potential acquirers don’t recognize the overall value of a SaaS company, negotiations will be hindered from the start. Read more »
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 »
Paying for online news is still a minority sport – but participation may be growing thanks to tablet computers. Read more at paidContent »
Not even the biggest-selling album of all time can put a shine on it – the music album may be spinning its last revs per minute. Read more at paidContent »
Viewers may not watch this summer’s London 2012 Olympic Games online as much as some broadcasters hope, according to research. Read more at paidContent »
