M&A Round-Up: Zaypay, Wallaby, 49Games, JigoCity Get Snapped Up
Brief news on several acquisitions from companies looking to expand in payment provision, Lat America, gaming and the daily deals space… Read more at paidContent »
Fanhattan’s iPad app makes video discovery social
Fanhattan has integrated with social networks, which will not only provide more interesting content for users to watch but will also allow them to share their interests with friends. Users can now get recommendations from their social graph, including movies and TV shows their friends like. Read more »
Everyday Health Puts Ex-ABC News Digital Head Slavin In Charge Of Video
Wellness news and info online network Everyday Health has been working on expanding its video content to TV for a while and it now has exec… Read more at paidContent »
Scribd Reader App Float Adds 100 Pubs; Subscriber Plans, Ads Coming
Float, the social reader iPhone app from document sharing site Scribd’s has added content from another 100 publishers to the 150 launch part… Read more at paidContent »
Community Writing Site Wattpad Raises $3.5 Million In First Round Funding
Wattpad, an online writing community that lets users share and collaborate on stories across platforms including mobile apps, has closed a $… Read more at paidContent »
The Morning Lowdown 09-12-11
» BostonGlobe.Com Launches Today; Shifts To Paying Subscribers Only Oct. 1 (paidContent)
» Righthaven: We Might Have… Read more at paidContent »
Hypercasual: when the web gets a little too friendly
Lots of companies have tried to soften up their image by adopting a friendly tone of voice, but social media has cranked the volume up. But when even banks and faceless corporations are adopting this facile approach, is it time hypercasual was killed off? Read more »
Mobile Lowdown 9-12-11: Google/Oracle, Apple/HTC Patents; Amazon; Adobe
A look at some of the big stories in mobile today:
» Amazon is taking one more step to enrich its content offerings; it’s reporte… Read more at paidContent »
NYTimes.com Launches English-Language India News Blog
With newspaper revenues in a downward spiral in the U.S., it’s easy to forget that there’s one area where daily tabloids and broadsheets are… Read more at paidContent »
VMware tackles task management with Strides
The Socialcast team at VMware has introduced a beta version of a new product called Strides, which aims to make task management an interactive experience. Think Basecamp, but more social, and with more visibility into what your colleagues are working on. Read more »
Subscriber Content
How cloud computing plus Facebook might mean the end of personal privacy
Thanks to Facebook and other social networks, if we can accurately put a name to a face, there’s a lot of personal information available online to tell us about that person. And recent experiments unveiled at this year’s Black Hat conference showed that soon all it ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
GetGlue Makes It Easier For Marketers To ‘Check In’ With Self-Serve Option
As the number of check-in services proliferate, GetGlue is trying to solidify relationships with networks as it tries to prove the value of… Read more at paidContent »
Twitter CEO: We have 100M active users
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo lifted the veil on Twitter user statistics Thursday morning. Besides revealing the company’s active users, he talked about features it’s working on, the expansion of promoted tweets, and why he’s “excited” that 4 out of 10 active users don’t tweet. Read more »
Will Docomo’s New LTE Service Fan The Flames In The Apple vs. Samsung Fire?
We may be approaching the point where it’s fair to ask the following question: Where haven’t Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Samsung sued each other… Read more at paidContent »
Report: Facebook’s Revenue Doubled To $1.6 Billion In First Half Of 2011
Facebook does not publicly disclose its financial results, but an unidentified source tells Reuters (NYSE: TRI) that the company pulled in $… Read more at paidContent »
Barclays: Expect A Pullback In Branded Ad Spending
There are two general rules when it comes to advertising spending these days: when times are tough, marketers tend to take money from brand… Read more at paidContent »
Habbo Hotel’s CEO Checks Out, Disney Exec Takes His Room
Sulake, the Finnish company which operates the Habbo Hotel teen virtual world, is swapping its CEO. Read more at paidContent »
Can gamification help solve the online anonymity problem?
Some news sites such as The Huffington Post use badges and other kinds of reward systems to encourage user engagement and positive behavior in their online communities. Could doing this help Google overcome the downsides of anonymity without banning users who don’t use their real name? Read more »
Consumer interest in Apple not dampened by Jobs’ departure
Apple’s stock value didn’t plummet when Steve Jobs announced his departure as CEO, and the general public seems to share the market’s optimism. A new study found that positive sentiment from consumers regarding Apple reached an all-year high following Jobs’ announcement. Read more »
Bitbop Pulls A Hulu, Goes Abroad With Ad-Free Mobile Video Offer In Germany
Bitbop, the mobile video service once owned by News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) and then sold in a whirr of a divestment strategy, looks like it is fi… Read more at paidContent »
Netflix Starts Latin America Rollout In Brazil; Faces Challenges At Home
As promised, the streaming side of Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) has made its way south. The service went live in Brazil today with Netflix Brasil (a… Read more at paidContent »
The Morning Lowdown 09-02-11
» As Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) Price Change Kicks In, Starz Says It Won’t Renew Deal (paidContent)
» Techcrunch’s Arringto… Read more at paidContent »
George Bush’s Brother Is ‘Tweeting’ In Chinese On Weibo
George W. Bush’s younger brother Neil has just started microblogging – not on Twitter, nor in English, but on Sina (NSDQ: SINA) Weibo, in Ch… Read more at paidContent »
It’s not just nice for media to be social — it’s imperative
The idea that newspapers need to become more social and transparent in order to build trust with their readers is not a new one — but few have put it as well as a student journalist did in a recent column for The Daily Californian. Read more »
YouTube Expands Movie Rentals To Canada
YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) is taking its almost obscure movie rental service to Canada, launching today with 1,000 or so films from Hollywood and… Read more at paidContent »
MSLO Unveils iPad Subscriptions; Video Plans Centered On Advertorials
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) is the latest publisher to offer of a digital subscription plan for the iPad editions of its mag… Read more at paidContent »
Memo to Gladwell: Social media helps activism, and here’s how
Author and social-media critic Malcolm Gladwell has argued that Twitter and Facebook haven’t played any kind of important role in “real world” revolutions like those seen recently in Egypt and Tunisia. But sociologist Zeynep Tufekci makes a strong case for why Gladwell is wrong. Read more »
Hulu Japan Launches With Movies, TV From CBS, Sony, Fox & More But No Ads
Hulu’s first offering outside the U.S. is live: Hulu Japan, a subscription service with “hundreds” of films and thousands of hours of TV. Fo… Read more at paidContent »
Deezer Streaming Music Service Launching In UK
They may not have produced a band as big as The Beatles, and may bear some responsibility for the musical output of Claude Francois, but the… Read more at paidContent »
Sony Kisses Qriocity Branding Goodbye, Forms Sony Entertainment Network
Many consumers were never completely sure of the correct way to pronounce it, and it has had mixed success as a household name synonymous wi… Read more at paidContent »
Big Money For SMS-Based Social Media: India’s SMS GupShup Takes $10 Million
photo: Flickr/kiwanja
With a lot of the focus in the mobile universe on Android, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and what is happening in the smartphone segment, it’s easy to… Read more at paidContent »
What CNN could learn by acquiring Zite
If CNN is smart, watching what happens inside Zite’s news-reading app could give it something that all media companies are in desperate need of — whether they know it or not: real-time insights into what people really want to read about and why. Read more »
Crowdbooster makes social media campaigns smarter
Crowdbooster, a Y Combinator start-up, is publicly launching a new social media optimization platform that pairs analytics with tailored recommendations about how to employ social media. The company, which just raised seed funding, is looking to stand out by telling customers what to do and when. Read more »
We Love Us Some Mobile Internet In The UK
Numbers out this morning from the Office of National Statistics in the UK give us the most up-to-date picture yet of the growing role mobile… Read more at paidContent »
Limelight Networks Selling Eyewonder To DG For $66 Million
Two years after Limelight Networks (NSDQ: LLNW) bought interactive ad shop EyeWonder for up to $110 million, the content management company… Read more at paidContent »
Updated: CNN Snaps Up iPad Magazine Zite In Bid For Scale And Technology
As rumored a week ago, CNN has purchased Zite, the makers of a personalized iPad magazine application that aggregated content around user pr… Read more at paidContent »
Older Facebook Users Click On Ads, Younger Ones Only ‘Like’
A good deal of the double-digit growth rates behind display dollars this year and next is due to rising interest in Facebook as an ad medium… Read more at paidContent »
The Morning Lowdown 08-30-11
» Sale Ending Soon? Yelp Rethinks Its Daily Deals Service (paidContent)
» Steve Jobs’ Greatest Legacy: Persuading The… Read more at paidContent »
Subscriber Content
Building a better paywall: strategies for monetizing news content
The impact of digital technology has shattered long-established monopolies and ways of making money in the newspaper publishing industry. Today, publishers must find ways to subsidize content-creation costs directly, and this report examines a few different approaches, from more flexible paywalls to charging users directly for access and mimicking the business models of other industries, such as online gaming. Companies mentioned in this report include Ford, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Subscriber Content
Focusing social platforms for community marketing
One of the things social media marketing will need if it’s going to live up to its aggressive $5 billion spending forecast is more differentiation between marketing and collaboration platforms. Companies like Jive Software, Lithium, Mzinga and Telligent offer social network platforms aimed at both employees ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
