The science of sharing: Why we 'like' and 'retweet'

Thousands of years before social media, humans shared stories and ideas. Today, digital media has made it easier to pass information along.

So how does a newsmedia outlet get people to retweet and share information with their circles of online friends and followers? “Pull their heartstrings, piss them off, make them laugh,” Fast Company reported today, explaining the results of a new study published in Psychological Science.

When emotional stimuli are aroused, the autonomic nervous is activated, which in turn boosts social transmission, the study, authored by Jonah Berger, explains. That means that when people feel fearful, angry or amused due to information, they are more likely to share it.

“In a prior paper, we found that emotion plays a big role in which New York Times articles make the most emailed list. But interestingly, we found that while articles evoking more positive emotions were generally more viral, some negative emotions like anxiety and anger actually increased transmission while others like sadness decreased it. In trying to understand why, it seemed like arousal might be a key factor,” Berger said, according to Medical Xpress.

Berger came to his conclusions after doing two experiments: having 93 students watch a sequence of video clips that made them nervous, amused, sad or calmly satisfied. They were then showsn a clip that was emotionally neutral, and asked whether they would share it with family or friends. Other groups sat still or jogged a minute before reading a news article online, and then were told that if they wanted to, they could send that article to anyone they liked, Fast Company explained.

The results of both tests were the same: the content that resulted in higher physiological “arousal” made the students more likely to share it.

Image: NaDovo's flickr photostream

News Corp. buys series of Australian parenting sites

News Corp.’s Australian division has acquired a series of parenting and child-related blog sites owned by Kidspot for AU$45 million, MediaGuardian reported today.

The Kidspot network includes Birth.com.au, Kidspot.co.nz, The Spot, SheSpot, Mums Say and Baby and Kids Market.

While the details of the deal were not disclosed, it is expected to be complete on Monday, according to a report by the NewsDigitalMedia Australia.

News Limited Chairman and chief executive, John Hartigan described the acquisition as a transformational deal that “makes us the leading player in the highly valuable online parenting market,” according to a report by paidContent. “The fact that Kidspot alone accounts for around 10% of the total online FMCG advertising market… shows the strength and potential of the business.”

The sites are extremely attractive to advertisers, Kidspot founder Katie May told NewsDigitalMedia Australia. “Kidspot’s unique approach to premium online content and innovative social and community connections, backed by News’ massive scale and infrastructure will be a powerful force in media and further entrench Kidspot’s position as a favourite destination for brand advertising partners.” 

May will now report to News Magazines chief executive, Sandra Hook.

The Kidspot group launched in 2005 and has become an established leader in the parenting business, counting over 31,000 Facebook fans - one of the largest, most active fan bases of any Australian media company, NewsDigitalMedia Australia noted.

According to reports the six-year old online blog network, the Kidspot group has a revenue  of $7m a year and more than 1.3 million unique visitors a month, The Register reported.

One year later: The Times has over 100,000 digital subscribers

A year after introducing its full paywall, The Times and The Sunday Times have 101,036 digital subscribers, News International, which owns the titles, announced today.

The number of subscribers are up 28 percent from the 79,000 mark in February, PressGazette reported.

Meanwhile, The Times is downloaded onto an average of 35,000 iPads each day (up 40 percent from February), and The Sunday Times is downloaded onto an average of 31,000 iPads (up 41 percent).

Working out the math, paidContent noted that the £2 weekly subscription subscription is billed as £8.66 per month, which gives the publisher £874,971 in monthly digital subscription revenue.

Digital Media Association spent $70,542 lobbying in Q1

The Digital Media Association, which represents U.S. Internet media companies, spent US$70,542 in the first quarter this year to lobby for copyright law reform, the taxation of digital media and other issues, according to a recent report, The Association Press reported.

The amount of money increased from $65,121 in the previous quarter, but decreased from $77,161 year-over-year. The association's members include Apple Inc., Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks, Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc.'s YouTube, Forbes reported.

The copyright law reform the group lobbied for includes the use of copyrighted material whose owner is unknown, an online privacy bill and the taxation of digital media.

Image: Media Bistro

French broadcasters not allowed to say 'Twitter'

How do you say “Facebook” or “Twitter” in French? If you're a broadcast journalist in the country, apparently you just don't.

Broadcast journalists in France are no longer allowed to mention specific social media companies, unless they are an integral part of the story. This means they can't tell viewers to follow them on Twitter or visit their Facebook pages, The Age reported Friday.

Le Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, which regulates the French broadcast industry, announced the rule May 27, saying it is part of a ban that has been in place since 1992. The ban does not allow for promotion of commercial enterprises on television and radio.

Now, if broadcast journalists want people to visit their feeds and pages, they can mention social media as a generic term, but not specific sites. How broadcasters will send viewers to their Twitter feeds or Facebook pages without actually mentioning the names of the platforms was not addressed.

The CSA explained the rule in a statement, according to Business Insider:

“Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition. This would be a distortion of competition. If we allow Facebook and Twitter to be cited on air, it’s opening a Pandora’s Box — other social networks will complain to us saying, 'Why not us?'”

The rule's passing wasn't noticed at first, but then French bloggers began pointing out that mentioning where to find someone on Facebook and Twitter – both commuication platforms – isn't the same as advertising for a brand, such as mentioning which type of shampoo they use, The Atlantic Wire noted.

Benoît Raphaël, former regional daily press executive and editor-in-chief and co-founder of lepost.fr, wrote that the CSA apparently does not understand how social media functions:

“Above all, the CSA did not understand that, before being registered, Twitter and Facebook are public spaces where more than 25% of the French population discuss and exchange information. What is said of Facebook, a real social ecosystem, it replaces the Internet. When Nicolas Sarkozy meets Mark Zuckerberg on the sidelines of the eG8, he is received almost like a head of state: a community of 600 million Internet users, larger than the population of the United States of America. In short, the world has changed.”

Image: Business Insider

U.S. location-based ads to reach $6 billion by 2015

Location-based service advertising, which offers local information such as restaurants and shops through mobile devices based on consumers’ location, will exceed one-third of all mobile advertising by 2015, up from 18.5 percent in 2010, according to a new study by Pyramid Research.

By 2015, location-based advertising will be worth US$6.2 billion, up from $588 million in 2010.

Location-based advertising will contribute 60 percent of all location-based revenue by 2015, Media Post reported.

"The different components of mobile advertising (including search, display and messaging) are all growing. However, local search will be the most important driver of location-based advertising revenues,” said Jan ten Sythoff, analyst at large for Pyramid Research.

Navigation applications are shifting to a search-funded model, while many companies are "looking to capitalise on the growth of local search," he added.

One of the key driver to local-base advertising business is the continued growth of smartphones and mobile tablet GPS-based devices, according to the analysts.

North America, with high GPS handset penetration, is the largest region for this advertising growth, while in Japan and South Korea it is also high. In Europe, GPS penetration is rather lower, Pyramid Research pointed out.

Image: Andrew Patrick

Specific Media buys Myspace for $35 million

Online ad firm Specific Media has agreed to buy Myspace from News Corp for between US$35 million and $40 million, AllThingsD has reported. News Corp. will continue to hold a minority stake in the social network.

The price is well below the $100 million News Corp was seeking just two months ago, and far from the $580 million it paid for the site in 2005.

However, AllThingsD pointed out that News Corp made back its initial investment through a lucrative advertising deal with Google when the social networking site was still doing well.

In a memo to Myspace employees, outgoing CEO Mike Jones stated that: “In conjunction with the deal, we are conducting a series of restructuring initiatives, including a significant reduction in our workforce. I will assist Specific with the transition over the next two months before departing my role as Myspace CEO.”

News Corp is rushing to close the deal before Thursday, the end of its fiscal year, so the company isn't on the books for 2012. Its projected revenue for FY2011 is $109 million, while expenses add up to $274 million, according to Venture Beat.

Olympic committee to athletes: Tweet at your 'own risk,' don't 'report'

Athletes competing in the 2012 London Olympic games will be able to share their experiences through social media, but won't be allowed to use their Facebook, Twitter or other personal accounts, such as blogs, to share videos filmed at Olympic venues or for commercial purposes, according to rules announced by the International Olympic Committee, The Associated Press reported yesterday.

If the rules are broken, the IOC warned it could withdraw accreditation, shut down online operations and take legal actions for possible damages, according to Inquirer Technology. 

The rules are also clear that athletes “are not permitted to promote any brand, product or service," nor are they allowed to comment on opponents.

“Postings, blogs or tweets should be in a first-person, diary-type format and should not be in the role of a journalist,” the IOC document stated.“Participants and other accredited persons cannot post any video and/or audio of the events, competitions or any other activities which occur at Olympic venues.”

Athletes can upload still photographs taken at venues but will not be allowed to sell or distribute them for other purposes, The Sun noted. 

There are also further restrictions on the use of Olympic symbols, such as the five rings, and no connection is allowed between the Olympics and an athlete's personal sponsors or advertising, The Australian reported.

The IOC warns athletes that they are to use social media “at their own risk,” and that they "can be held personally liable for any commentary and/or material deemed to be defamatory, obscene or proprietary."

The social media, blogging and Internet guidelines for Olympians were published on May 10, but surfaced on Monday.  They come with a warning that those who break the rules will be thrown out of the games. Also, a new dedicated password-protected website, called OlympicGamesMonitoring.com, created to monitor the online and digital media behaviour of the Olympians appears to be live, but it is password protected, according to PCMag.com.

Additionally, no website URLs will be allowed to contain the words “Olympic” or “Olympics” in the primary domain, unless they have been pre-approved by the IOC, according to a report by Wired.

For the full guidelines, visit the IOC's page here.

News Corp. to sell MySpace

News Corporation is likely to sell MySpace for less than a tenth of what it paid for the social network in 2005.

The price tag for the sinking social networking site is now in the US$20 million to $30 million range, according to unnamed sources, All Things Digital reported today. News Corp is cutting 50 percent or more of the jobs and other costs at MySpace, all of which will be decided upon when an agreement is made with the buyer. Just two months ago, News Corp. said it would not accept bids of less than $100 million.

Private equity firm Golden Gate Capital and ad network Specific Media are both possible buyers, according to All Things D. News Corp. hopes to close a deal by Thursday, the end of its fiscal year.

News Corp. bought Intermix Media, which owned MySpace, in 2005 for $580 million. At the time, MySpace was the fifth most-viewed Internet domain in the United States.

WPP launches digital media advertising unit

WPP, the world’s largest marketing group by sales, has launched a digital media ad unit, a one-stop shop for clients to buy targeted, mobile and social network advertising, the Financial Times reported.

This action will help the firm to directly compete with products from Google and Microsoft.

This team, named Xaxis, will allow marketers to build up anonymous profiles of would-be consumers from different demographics, U Talk Marketing reported.

"We took a fundamentally different stance in this space than our traditional agency competitors", said Brian Lesser, chief executive of Xaxis, to the Financial Times. "We thought it was very important to have proprietary technology because we are better able to control our advertisers' data and to manage different solutions."

 

Lesser said Xaxis will work with third-parties, including Google, but will not rely on its “full technology stack,” FT.com reported.

“We are much better suited to offer competitive products that integrate with what our agencies are doing ... Google is a great partner of ours but we don’t rely on their full technology stack the way some of our colleagues at other agencies do,” he added.

Publicis and Omnicom, two of WPP’s key ricals, have both recently set up their own digital teams, FT.com reported.

FT seeing success after leaving Apple for Web-based app

In just two and half weeks since its launch on June 7, the Financial Times web app is nearing 200,000 downloads, MediaWeek reported. 

The financial news publisher was the first to break the trend with Apple’s in-app purchasing rules and explore the new web-based app on its own, through launching an HTML5 website. The newspaper publisher made it very clear it could not agree with Apple’s 30 percent sales cut of apps purchased through its App Store, and not having full access to its subscriber data, PadGadget reported.

Apple loosened its App Store policies earlier this month, but continues to take a 30 percent cut of purchases made through its platform, and gives subscribers the option to share their information with publishers - it does not automatically give publishers the data.

If the 200,000 figure download proves to be accurate, “it could help drive web app usage with other news publishers too in Europe and across the world, as many have taken umbrage at the lack of access to subscriber demographics and also the 30 percent cut that Apple takes,” The Next Web pointed out. 

“We have launched a new, faster, more complete app for the iPad and iPhone which is available via your browser rather than from an app store. We’re encouraging our readers to switch immediately to the new FT web app, as many new features and sections will be added over the coming weeks. Make sure you don’t miss out on these updates. Go to app.ft.com on your iPad or iPhone,” states the FT website, according to The Next Web.

According to a recent monthly update to its staff, John Ridding, FT chief executive revealed that the app was downloaded 100,000 times in its first week. Though the figures have not yet been independently verified, the new web app boasts more comprehensive features than the publisher’s older apps, MediaWeek reported.

Hearst launches brand image campaign

Hearst Magazines yesterday launched an advertising campaign to boost its brand image, rather than promote its individual magazines, The New York Times reported.

The campaign, scheduled to run through the end of the year, is titled “Unbound,” and includes print and online ads, as well as signs in Times Square. The ads show photos of Hearst's brands, and include QR codes and invites to a new website, my.hearstmagazines.com, where users can look at each of the company's magazines, according to mediabistro's FishbowlNY.

The campaign follows a lot of activity on the business side, such as its partnership with Scripps Network Interactive to launch the Food Network Magazine, its buyout of 100 publications from Lagardère and its takeover of digital marketing agency iCrossing.

Hulu reaches new commercial deal with Disney

Hulu has reached a new TV programme deal with Walt Disney, one of its co-owners, which will bring more commercials to shows, Media Post reported.

According to Bloomberg and Variety, the deal will result in more commercial time during a typical TV program. According to executives, News Corp., another co-owner of Hulu, recently made a similar deal.

Currently on Hulu, there are about four to six commercials in a 30-minute or 60-minute TV show. In a typical one-hour TV show, it can air twenty 30-second national TV commercial, while in a half-hour show, it can air around ten 30-second commercials.

Overall, non-programme time, including national commercials, local advertising and TV promos, totals 14 to 16 minutes for an hour-long show, or about eight minutes for a half-hour show, Media Post reported.

Both Chase Carey, president/COO of News Corp. and Bob Iger, president /CEO of Walt Disney Co., have pointed out that Hulu needs to improve how to monetise its business - they deliver fewer commercials compared to those same shows on traditional TV.

Engaging or annoying? Facebook creates 'comment' ads

Facebook plans to launch a new ad unit tomorrow, called the “comment” ad unit, Fast Company reported.

 

The new ads are Facebook's latest effort to make ads more social, but the social networking giant will have to wait to find out if users are more engaged, or just plain annoyed.

The idea for the comment ads was crowd sourced - not discovered in-house - and will aim to draw users in even more by asking them to enter responses and participate in the conversational ad format. 

When users comment on the ad, their comments will appear in their friends' newsfeeds, helping brands earn impressions. As users' friends comment, those comments can be turned into sponsored stories, Geek.com reported . And although Facebook and agencies are hoping the idea is a hit with users, it's not yet clear how users will react. There is also nothing that shows users will be able to ignore sponsored comments.

Facebook held a competition last year at AdExpo, and the comment ad, from Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett, won, according to Ad Age. Ten agencies submitted about 100 ideas, which were whittled down to the best five and voted on by a panel. Leo Burnett will have exclusive use of it for two months, and then Facebook will open it up to other advertisers.

To see how well the new formats perform in the market, the social networking site will soon launch an another competition to measure the user interactivity, according to Fast Company

This new ad feature will be offered to premium accounts only, according to a report by the  Huffington Post. 

The company also plans to create a 12-person “client council” made up of representatives from some of the biggest ad agencies that will meet four times each year and rotate membership year to year.

With Facebook showcasing ad products, the client council aims to receive feedback on ad improvements and help advise on marketing and advertising on its platform with Coca-Cola and advertising network McCann, which was the first to join, according to MarketingWeek.co.uk.

"Unlike in other advertising, we're not telling people how to think about the brand," Leo Burnett's chief innovation officer, Mark Renshaw told AdAge. "We're just asking them to participate in the conversation."

According to another report by MarketingWeek.co.uk, the social networking site also plans to build an audience insight team to help brands measure the results of their social media activity without obsessing over "fans" and "likes."

“Measuring clicks is an old display model. We need to measure awareness, affinity and purchase intent,” Carolyn Everson, Facebook vice president of global marketing solutions, told delegates at Cannes Lion.

In January, Facebook introduced Sponsored Stories, which shows user interaction with brands in the form of check-ins and “likes” in the right-hand ad column. Facebook's latest announcement comes in the same week as Twitter executives shared plans to include Promoted Tweets in users’ timelines and LinkedIn announced new ad units that include mentions of users’ follows and recommendations, Mashable noted.

Image: Geek.com

Report: Following PCs, mobiles access newspaper sites most

Overwhelmingly, personal computers are used most to access newspaper websites in 13 countries, a new report from comScore shows. This is followed by mobiles and then tablets, according to the Device Essentials reporting service, which shows digital traffic by device.

Traffic coming from devices other than computers is highest in the United Kingdom, at 9.8, followed by Singapore, at 8.8 percent.

When looking at non-personal computer devices for all online traffic, the iPhone and iPad lead. In Canada, the iPad makes up 33.5 percent of newspaper site traffic, just behind the iPhone's 34.6 percent. In Singapore, the iPhone makes up 51.9 percent, with the iPad at 26.2 percent.

Tablets running on the Android operating system are still very low – at under 1 percent in all the countries other than Singapore. However, Android mobile phones are closely following Apple devices, with 35.6 percent in the United States and 30.6 percent in Japan.

Images: comScore press release

Google to boost display ad business with more acquisitions

Although Google reaches more users worldwide than any other website, Facebook has edged past the search giant in the online display ad business within the United States.

The social media site is expected to earn more than US$2 billion in ads this year, giving it a share of almost 20 percent of the U.S. market, Mobiledia reported. Facebook is also seeing its global ad revenue grow - reaching more than $4 billion in 2010, according to eMarketer.

But Google isn't going to let Facebook lead the market - at least not without a fight.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told reporters at the Cannes Lions advertising festival last week that the display ad business has taken time to develop, and the company to continue buying up companies that specialise in display ads, Reuters reported. However, Google will look to publishers and advertisers to better understand which new services are needed.

"As the strategy develops it will become clear what the customer needs that we have not been able to build ourselves," he said, according to Reuters. "I would argue that we're doing really well there. We started off with largely text ads, and now we have this display business which is going to end up being a $10 billion, $20 billion kind of business. It will be very large."

Google is also not giving up on social networking.

The company plans to "renew its efforts on social networking, and could even link employees' salaries to the success of this yet unnamed venture. Having a social network may be a way for the company to compete with Facebook and create revenue through display ads scattered throughout the service," the Mobiledia article stated, attributing the information to comments made by Google CEO Larry Page in April.

Yahoo! is also focusing on display advertising, planning to increase its display ads in the U.S. by 13.6 percent this year,  a separate report by Reuters noted.

Earlier this month, the search engine giant purchased AdMeld, an advertising service that allows publishers to display real-time, interactive ads by sorting through various ad networks to find the cheapest possible option. The deal is estimated at $400 million. 

Admeld is expected to become part of Google's display ad network DoubleClick Ad Exchange, DailyFinance.com reported. Google's display advertising revenues from many of its online holdings, including AdSense, YouTube, Gmail, Orkut, and more.

Last autumn, Google expected to bring in $2.5 billion in ad revenue from display ads. It has also invested more than $4 billion in buying up display companies since 2007, most of which was the $3.2 billion for DoubleClick, according to a blog post by the Wall Street Journal. 

Google display-advertising chief Neal Mohan said the company “needs to be the platform that generates the most revenue for publishers, and to be transparent."

News Corp.'s BSkyB takeover could be just the beginning

News Corporation yesterday inched closer to UK government approval of its £7.8 billion buy of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc. And should the deal go through, James Murdoch has hinted that it will be the first step in a larger expansion plan, MediaGuardian reported.

Regulator Ofcom yesterday submitted its recommendation on the offer, and if government approval is gained, price negotiations are expected to begin, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Should the deal go through, News Corp. will own the remaining 60.9 percent of BSkyB that it does not already own.

Although News Corp. is viewed as one of the world's largest media conglomerate, Murdoch said the rise of technology in the digital sector means threats are coming from “much, much bigger beasts,” and competing with them will be the biggest challenge in the future. He listed Google, Apple, Deutsche Telecom, Verizon and Telefonica as examples.

News Corp.'s current 39.1 percent of BSkyB and its stake in the UK newspaper market add up to an ownership of more than 40 percent of the national media market, the Financial Times noted.

Study: Two-thirds of U.S. libraries offer e-books

More than 67 percent of U.S. libraries now offer access to e-books, up 12 percent from two years ago, the 2011 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study has found.

Meanwhile, 70 percent of libraries report increased use of their public computers, and more than half report an increase in electronic resources use. However, 55 percent of urban libraries have seen their operating budgets decrease in the current fiscal year (36 percent for suburban and 26 percent for rural), according to the study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Amazon's Kindle is working with OverDrive, currently the top digital distributor for libraries, to begin supporting library lending in the autumn, according to paidContent. Barnes & Noble has also announced it will partner with distributor Baker & Taylor, which has created library lending platform Axis 360, to “build awareness among Nook customers that digital books are available for loan from local libraries.”

The most important public Internet service is providing services for job-seekers, a majority of libraries said. More than 74 percent offer software and other resources to help people create employment materials, such as resumes.

Image: American Library Association's 2011 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study

Google reached 1 billion users in May

Google’s unique visitors in May exceeded one billion worldwide. This is the first time a website has reached that number in one month, according to comScore, Cnet reported.

The exact number of the monthly unique visitors to Google's sites was 1,009,699,000, up 8.4 percent from 931 million a year ago.

According to comScore, Google’s greatest numbers of visitors cam from India and South Africa, which contributed 14.3 percent and 13.5 percent, respectively. The lowest were from South Korea and China, which accounted for merely 0.7 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

Microsoft's sites were on the second place with 905 million unique visitors. Facebook came next with 714 million users, up 30 percent year-over-year. Yahoo! placed fourth with 689 million visitors, the Huffington Post reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, comScore's numbers are based on its "global measurement panel" of two million online users, which the firm then refines with "page view" data from 90 of the 100 publishers of Web content, though not from Google.

Image: comScore

AMI buying U.S. edition of OK!

National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. is buying the U.S. edition of OK! Magazine from Northern & Shell.

Despite its success in the United Kingdom, the U.S. edition of OK! is believed to have lost almost US$25 million last year. Its UK publisher has taken some big losses on it since its U.S. launch in 2005, as it competed with more established titles like People and Us Weekly. AMI, meanwhile, filed for bankruptcy in November last year.

So how is this a good idea?

AMI is banking on OK! and its own Star magazine being stronger together than they are apart. Their combined circulation is about 1.7 million, slightly less than Wenner Media's Us Weekly, which has a circulation of almost 2 million, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. AMI also already has the infrastructure to add an additional title.

AMI is believed to have paid between $10 million and $15 million for OK!, a source told Adweek.

Will Pottermore change book publishing?

J.K. Rowling today explained what Pottermore really is: a store. Well, pretty much.

Beginning in October, Pottermore will be the online destination for buying Harry Potter e-books and digital audio books, as well as a place for the digital generation to go for everything Potter.

Pottermore will essentially cut out e-book selling middlemen, like Amazon, paidContent pointed out. The Harry Potter e-books will be compatible with a range of devices, which means every user will get the same experience.

“We want to make sure anyone who buys it can read it on any device. We are talking to the Kindles, the Apples, the Googles, Barnes & Noble to make sure they are compatible. We set the pricing, we maintain the policy of making them available to as many readers as possible,” said Pottermore CEO Rod Henwood, according to The Bookseller.

Bloomberg Businessweek to launch Polish edition

Bloomberg Businessweek plans to launch a new edition in Poland, in association with Point Group Business Unit in the autumn of 2011, TalkingBizNews.com reported.

Bloomberg Businessweek Polska will be the first new foreign license for the magazine since its acquisition by Bloomberg LP. This new publishing agreement will help Bloomberg to expand its reach in one of the fastest growing economies in Europe.

“The magazine will extend Point Group’s portfolio to include a creative business magazine that fits perfectly with the development strategy of PMPG as a publisher,” Michal M. Lisiecki, Platforma Mediowa Point Group SA president, stated in the press release.

“By launching Bloomberg Businessweek Polska, we are going to provide our readers with business information of the highest quality and our partners with an attractive channel through which to communicate with the market.” 

Michal Kobosko, project manager at Point Group Business Unit, will serve as editor-in-chief of the new edition.

The Bloomberg Businessweek Polska will be published every two weeks featuring locally-focused business and financial content from the company’s 2,300 journalists worldwide including its Warsaw, Poland bureau, in collaboration with the Point Group Business Unit, a subsidiary of Platforma Mediowa Point Group SA, according to TalkingBizNews.

As a step demonstrating Bloomberg’s commitment to global reach and continued expansion, the magazine aims “to provide readers insight into the global marketplace and advertisers with a medium to reach an influential audience of business and financial professionals in Poland,” Bloomberg Businessweek President Paul Bascobert stated in the press release.

While the global edition of Bloomberg Businessweek recorded a 49 percent increase in advertising pages year-over-year in the first quarter of 2011, according to the Publishers Information Bureau, and the addition of 37,000 individually paid subscribers in the second half of 2010, which was up 7 percent versus the prior year, the press release noted.

The magazine also launched its first iPad app in April 2011, and received positive reviews from business and technology media outlets such as TechCrunch and Business Insider, who gave the app an average of 4.5 out of 5 stars in reviews on the iTunes store.

Group M downgrades 2011 UK ad forecast

British media investment management company Group M downgraded its forecast for this year’s ad spending in the United Kingdom. The total growth of the ad spending year-over-year was lowered to 1.5 percent, compared to the original 3.6-percent prediction, AdWeek reported.

Television and print media are the worst hit, according to the new forecast. TV ad spending growth will drop to 1 percent year-over-year, versus the initial 4-percent prediction.

Even worse off are newspapers and magazines. Total newspapers will have a yearly 8.3-percent decline, compared to the merely 1.1-percent drop initially.

Magazine market will have a 7.2 percent decline year-over-year, compared to the original forecast of 0.1 percent drop, Media Guardian reported.

“2011's UK retail sales slowdown has put a brake on advertising, at least short-term,” said Adam Smith, director of Group M.

“We always expected 2011 would be fundamentally tougher, but have had to reduce our previous forecast," he added, the Drum reported.

Yahoo! to launch celeb news site OMG! in Europe

Yahoo! plans to roll out its celebrity news and entertainment site, OMG!, in Europe next month, MediaWeek reported yesterday.

This move by the online giant is part of CEO Carol Bartz’s ongoing strategy to reverse the company’s declining growth by turning Yahoo! into a content provider. With the celebrity entertainment market driving huge traffic volumes to websites, the company says the site will reach 27 million monthly Yahoo users, according to a report by CommerceTuned.

"The launch of OMG! is another significant move by Yahoo! to engage with consumers in a relevant and meaningful way. Celebrity and entertainment news which appeals to women from ages 16-34 is a core audience for Yahoo and also our advertisers and we’re excited by the opportunities that omg! will bring us and the digital media industry," said James Wildman, managing director and vice-president sales, UK and Ireland at Yahoo!

OMG! will feature daily celebrity news and photos, blogs and interactive video content along with original content created by its in-house editorial team, lead by former OK! magazine deputy editor Julia White. The news site will also maximise premium partnerships with media brands such as Access Hollywood, 3am, Handbag.com and Company Magazine, according to MarketingWeek.

Yahoo! launched OMG! in United States in 2007. While the news site has no advertisers to announce yet, the celeb news portal will go live in the UK, Spain, Italy and Germany in July, according to MediaWeek. The source also pointed out that Yahoo! has partnered with Coca-Cola to create a digital fashion channel, Style it Light for its Coca-Cola Light and Diet Coke brands' 'Love it Light' marketing push, earlier this month.

Knight News Challenge announces 16 winners

The fifth John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's Knight News Challenge has selected 16 winners, among them “hacker/data journalists,” the Chicago Tribune, a plan to provide microloans to support journalism, and more.

This year, almost a third of the US$4.7 million in grants is going to help journalists and the public organise and analyse massive amounts of data, Poynter's Steve Myers pointed out.

The Associated Press' grant, for example, will fund a project called Overview, aimed to help journalists sift through large amounts of documents for stories. In its proof of concept, Overview scanned 400,000 documents from Iraq war logs and gave each incident a colored dot based on keywords in order to find themes. The project will receive $475,000 over two years.

Overview will is a “tool that helps make sense of the material in those caches will help journalists and citizens alike better understand the world,” and will be shared with other news organisations and groups, said AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, according to ABC News.

For the first time, Knight asked for applications in four categories when it opened the contest in the autumn: mobile, sustainability, authenticity and technology in community. More than 1,600 applications were received.

“In evaluating the projects, we looked for the best ones, independent of category. We saw a lot of ideas in mobile; not as many ideas related to business models advanced deep in the contesst [sic]. Of the 16 projects before you, only one relates to potential business models for news,” Knight's John S. Bracken wrote today.

Knight trustees made a five-year commitment in 2006, and this marks the fifth year. However, the News Challenge is expected to continue, and more details will emerge this autumn, Bracken stated.

Study: Customers want variety of channels for buying tablet apps

Just a couple weeks ago, Apple loosened its App Store policies dictating how media companies could sell their content if they also offered that content via an app in its store. Today, the Online Publishers Association released a study showing that not only do tablet users want bundled content and payment options for paid content on their tablets, but they also prefer a variety of retail channels to buy tablet apps.

The study, conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc., also shows a majority of app users are also willing to pay for content.

“79% of app downloaders paid for content in the last year, which provides a great opportunity for publishers to generate new revenue streams,” stated Pam Horan, president of the OPA. “The study also revealed that consumers prefer content bundling and payment options to buy content through a variety of sources including direct from publishers rather than only through app retail stores.”

Other findings of the study include:
- About 12 percent of the U.S. online population (between ages eight and 64) owns or uses a tablet. This number is expected to increase to 23 percent by early next year.
- 87 percent of tablet users access content and information, which is the main activity associated with tablet devices.
- 93 percent of tablet users have downloaded apps. The average users has downloaded 20.
- 79 percent of those who downloaded apps have also paid for apps in the past 12 months.
- 26 percent of all apps downloaded are paid.
- The average app downloader spent US$53 on apps last year.
- 54 percent bought tablet apps via iTunes, 46 percent on Amazon, 43 percent on Google, 29 percent from a cable company or Internet provider and 25 percent directly from a publisher.

Of those surveyed, 46 percent own an iPad and 21 percent own an iPad 2 – the two most popular tablets, making iOS the most popular operating system.

Android is the second most popular, with the Samsung Galaxy (14 percent), Dell Streak (11 percent), HP Slate (9 percent) and Archos 7 Home (9 percent). Meanwhile, the Sony Dash had 7 percent of users.

Fairfax to outsource New Zealand jobs to India

Fairfax Media is to lay off up to 45 employees in New Zealand, and will outsource those jobs to India, according to ninemsn.

"The company is considering outsourcing routine advertising make-up across its newspaper sites nationally," Fairfax NZ Ltd Chief Executive Allen Williams said.

According to a union statement, the cuts will be made throughout the country, TVNZ reported.

The company eliminated 82 jobs in May by outsourcing the sub-editing work on its major metro newspapers in Australia, according to NewsBizBlog.

Gannett's layoff announcement

Yesterday, we reported on Gannett Co. Inc's plan to cut 700 jobs from its newspaper division, or 2 percent of it's total workforce.

NewsBizBlog has obtained a copy of the notice sent to more than 20,000 employees by U.S. newspapers division President Bob Dickey: