Expedia Sales boost through Groupon

Expedia Inc. stocks rose 7.6 percent to $31.20 after announcing its second quarter results Thursday, International Business Times reported.

Expedia, which also operates Hotels.com and Hotwire.com, reported advertising revenue up 27 percent and was able to post a $140.4 million profit on $1 billion in revenue. Earning per share is 55 cents, beating Wall Street’s estimates of 49 cents.

Second quarter profits was up 23 percent from $114.3 million profit on $834 million revenue year-over-year.

Booking was one of the outperforming areas - which value boosted 19 percent to $8 billion, partially thanks to its partnership with Groupon.

The partnership, which was announced in June and went live on July 11, offered travel discounts for hotel rooms and airfare at half the cost for destinations around the world, All Things Digital reported.

Nielsen: Android still led U.S. smartphone market in 2Q

Android remained its leading position in the U.S. smartphone market in the second quarter of 2011, according to the latest data from Nielsen, Media Post reported.

"Android finds itself atop the list again with 39 percent of the market," according to Boy Genius Reports, citing smartphone market share data from Nielsen.

Apple's iOS was on the second spot with 28 percent, followed by Blackberry-maker RIM, which made up 20 percent in the second quarter.

Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined represented 9 percent, while webOS and Palm OS combined only contributed 2 percent of the market.

In terms of mobile phone vendors, Apple led in the second quarter with 28 percent of the total U.S. market, while "HTC devices accounted for 14 percent of Android market and 6 percent of the Windows Phone/Windows Mobile market, making it the nation's top vendor in both categories and No. 2 overall," Nielsen noted.

Image: Nielsen

BBC launches iPlayer in 11 countries

BBC Worldwide announced to launch its global iPlayer service Thursday. This iPad app will be first available in 11 Western European countries. It plans to enter U.S., Canada and Australia market later this year, Media Guardian reported.

The 11 countries include Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

User need to pay €6.99 (about $10) a month, or €49.99 (about $72) a year, for subscription, and then can get a limited amount of content for free, supported by pre-roll ads and sponsorship.

The global iPlayer app has some differences than the UK version, including the ability to stream shows over 3G or Wi-Fi, as well as to download programmes for offline viewing, PCMag reported.

Subscribers won't have access to all the on-air offerings. BBC said it has hired a team of editors to "curate" the content on the iPlayer, selecting shows to put on the app. It will also allow subscribers to go beyond the typical genre and title browsing by creating themed collections around subjects and events.

"This is not a catch-up service: this is a video-on-demand service," said BBC.com managing director Luke Bradley-Jones. "We will have content from the last month, but also the best from the catalogue stretching back 50 to 60 years."

Though the content at launch will be the same for all 11 countries, the BBC has the ability to tailor the content to meet special demands for each region.

"We see the global BBC iPlayer very much as another 'Channel' operating in Western Europe," said BBC spokesman Alex Fulton to PCMag. "By adopting windowing strategies for our content, we are able to ensure that our broadcast partners and Channels around the world are able to entertain their audiences with our shows."

Image: BBC

IMAX 2Q earnings plunge after expansion, weak box office

IMAX Corp. (IMAX), the operator of giant- screen movie theatres, reported 2Q earnings down 87 percent from $13.3 million to $1.8 million year-over-year, Reuters reported.

It was the biggest drop in almost three years, after the company stated that its “disappointing film performance” was partly the cause for a plunge in second-quarter profit, Bloomberg reported.

Net income plunged 86 percent to $1.8 million from $13.3 million year-over-year, according to the company statement. Excluding stock compensation and deferred taxes, earnings declined from $8.4 million, or 13 cents in the second quarter of 2010, to $4.6 million, or 7 cents a share.

“While the quarter did not live up to our financial expectations, more fundamental to the long-term value of our business is the fact that we have signed 153 theatre deals year-to-date, are installing theatres at a rapid rate and are sitting on a record backlog of close to 300 IMAX theatre systems,” according to IMAX Chief Executive Officer, Richard L. Gelfond.

The number of deals signed is up from 98 last year, and Gelfond added that IMAX plans to install 120 to 130 new theaters this year, which is slightly above expectations. However, the company’s expansion heavily relies on box office performance, which has not been strong this year, Reuters reported.

IMAX’s unique theatre experience requires the company to make longer commitments to show films than normal competitors, according to James Marsh, Jr., an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. “If the movie isn’t popular among viewers, the company could be stuck with it.”

“The slate of movies for the back half of this year was disappointing, Marsh added in an interview. “It’s hard for investors to get aggressive when you don’t have a good slate of films,” Bloomberg reported.

Image: SpinQuad

Study: Consumers pay $14 for in-app purchases on average

Although most in-app purchases are under $10, a few "whales" are willing to pay more than $20 in combined in-app transactions, according to a recent study released by Flurry Analytics.

Among all the apps surveyed, 71 percent of all in-app purchases totaled $10 or less. However, those transactions worth $20 or more contributed 51 percent of all the revenue generated.

The average amount of transaction is about $14, PC Mag reported.

This research studied "freemium" apps sold on Android or Apple iOS system. Typically users only pay $1 or nothing for the app, and then made in-app purchases for additional capabilities, maps, virtual goods, or other upgrades. Flurry particularly focused on games, where players may be asked to pay extra for access to a magic sword or other item.

"If you're a game designer, your main take away is that very few transactions—and consumers who complete those transactions—make up the bulk of your revenue," said Flurry. "Therefore, your "meta-game" should be about whale hunting."

Image: Flurry Analytics

The future of the daily deals business

More than 400 daily deals companies are estimated in the United States, and about 200 abroad, according to the recent BIA/Kelsey's Deals 3D conference in San Francisco. While Groupon is by far the frontrunner in the multi-billion dollar daily deals space, big-name competitors are nipping at their heels, and may change the way daily deals are published and redeemed.

"You can think of daily deals as a US$300 billion media market, or a US$5 to $8 trillion commerce market," said Neal Polachek, President of BIA/Kelsey.

BIA/Kelsey summarised the four key changes that will take place in the daily deals space in the next year, as reported by PaidContent.org.

1. Facebook and Foursquare have partnered with American Express for the daily deals available on their sites. When users link their AmEx accounts to their Facebook and Foursquare accounts, they can see offers targeted to them. Payment is done via AmEx card at deal redemption. As credit cards companies such as AmEx, and perhaps soon, Visa and Mastercard, enter the space, "I think we're on the leading edge of a transformation of how the marketplace exchanges money," Polachek said.

2. With the influx of big-name competitors like Google Offers, AmazonLocal and Facebook Deals, the way offers are presented will go beyond Groupon-style email to include search and social network delivery, with the ability to target well beyond geography.

3. The average daily deal user subscribes to 3.5 email newsletters, and brand loyalty is non-existent. Panel members at the conference said most daily deals offer 50 percent off a product or service. Loyalty could be enhanced by differentiating offers from competitors, providing better percent-off deals, and better customer service for both customer and advertiser, panel members concluded.

4. In the next 12 to 18 months, what will happen to the hierarchy of players? Will incumbent Groupon go the way of MySpace? Panel members speculated that LivingSocial, which is the No. 2 player, will supplant Groupon because of its innovation in the social media and mobile spaces. The panel members speculated that the crowded marketplace will consolidate, as the bigger players could Hoover up big and small players such as Yelp, OpenTable, FourSquare and distant No. 3 daily dealer BuyWithMe.

Image: Groupon

Study: YouTube accounts for 22% of all global mobile traffic

YouTube contributed 22 percent of total global bandwidth in the first half of 2011, up from just 17 percent in the same period of 2010, according to a new report from network management vendor Allot Communications.

The video site now accounts for 52 percent of all global mobile video streaming, Reuters reported.

Video streaming made up 39 percent of all mobile traffic, while file sharing, including both P2P file transfers and downloads from one-click host sites, followed with 29 percent, and web browsing with 25 percent.

Video streaming boosted 93 percent in the first half of 2011. VoIP and IM traffic gained even faster, at 101 percent, but they only represented a niche of all mobile traffic, at 4 percent.

Mobile data overall grew 77 percent over the past year, compared to 25 percent of fixed networks, PCMag reported.

Image: Words and what not

Amazon's 2Q results beat Wall Street’s expectations

Amazon posted its second quarter revenue up 51 percent year-over-year to $9.91 billion. Net income totaled $191 million, or 41 cents per share, down from $207 million, or 45 cents per share, in the same quarter in 2010, Forbes reported.

The results beat Wall Street’s expectation - 35 cents a share on revenue of $9.38 billion. The second quarter is usually the e-commerce company’s slowest season of the year. According to Thomson Reuters, Amazon is expected to generate revenue of $10.35 billion in the third quarter and $17.4 billion in the last, ZDNet reported.

According to CEO Jeff Bezos, drivers of the sales growth include "low prices, expanding selection and innovation," MSNBC reported.

Revenue from electronics and general merchandise rose 69 percent to $5.89 billion, while sales of books, CDs, DVDs and other media gained 27 percent to $3.66 billion.

Image: Ross D. Franklin / AP

Study: U.S. media planner embrace digital outdoor advertisings

U.S. outdoor ad spending is expected to have a rosy future, up from $6.1 billion in 2010 to $6.4 billion this year and $7.6 billion by 2015. The growth is bolstered by the continued relevance of outdoor to consumers’ daily lives, as well as the growing share of spending devoted to newer forms of outdoor ads which are digital, said research firm eMarketer.

According to researches from the Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA), more than 75 percent of U.S. media planners plan to incorporate digital place-based advertising for marketing this year, up more than 10 percentage points from 2010. the number will grow to 86.3 percent next year.

Most of the budgets for digital out-of-home come from traditional outdoor ad allocations. Over 50 percent of media planners said they would shift budgets from traditional to digital outdoor ads. However, only less than a quarter would like to pull money from digital to place-based media.

Image: eMarketer

Global mobile entertainment to reach $54B by 2014

Global mobile entertainment will boost from $19 billion in 2008 to $54 billion by 2014, Media Post reported.

The bulk of the business will come from music, which accounts for $21 billion over the next three years, up from merely $10 billion in 2008, according to U.K.-based firm Companies & Markets.

While music will be a big contributor, its compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) will be lower than the overall average for mobile entertainment, at 13.2 percent versus 18.8 percent, respectively.

Mobile video will grow fast from $2 billion in 2008 to $14 billion in 2014.

Asia Pacific is the world's largest mobile entertainment market right now, representing 57 percent of global revenues in 2009. Western Europe comes next with 21 percent, while North America follows at 13 percent.

The future growth will be driven by smartphones, high-speed mobile broadband networks, mobile apps and emerging markets, said the company.

Image: Ian Jones via The Telegraph

Study: Tablet access preferred for variety of content

Tablet owners in the United States prefer to read content including news, weather, music, games and information on their tablets instead of their PCs, according to a new Online Publishers Association and Frank N. Magid Associates study.

While tablets increased the access of social networking, using laptops and playing games on a variety of platforms, tablet use has also significantly cannibalised the use of newspapers and magazines and to a lesser degree, mobile devices, according to the study. (See chart, left). Survey participants declared that they prefer reading on tablets over every other reading medium, including on a computer (66 percent), mobile phone (65 percent), newspaper (58 percent), magazine (57 percent) and e-reader (54 percent).

Further, tablet users are more conspicuous consumers of media compared to mobile phone users. (See chart, right). Tablet users check email more often (58 percent vs. 43 percent), check the Internet (57 percent vs. 41 percent), watch video (45 percent vs. 22 percent), get local news (36 percent vs. 19 percent) and shop online (29 percent vs. 10 percent) and read books (40 percent vs. 7 percent).

Images: Frank N. Magid Associates, Online Publishers Association

Virgin Media unveils 1.5Gbps broadband trial

British cable company Virgin Media unveiled a 1.5 Gbps broadband connection on a trial basis in a section of London. It is the world’s fastest broadband connection and approximately 250 times faster than the current average in the United Kingdom, the company said, Reuters reported.

The service, if rolled out successfully, will be a great improvement on the broadband infrastructure to both consumers and businesses. With the current average broadband connection, if more than three people in a typical family all surf online at once, perhaps with movies streaming and music downloading, it can clog things up a bit. But with 1.5gbps theoretically it would be possible to have ten users in one place all watching HD, 3D movies at once and still have room left for video conference, Rapid News Network reported.

Other companies also taking part in the 1.5Gb trial include BespokeBanter.com, an online media outfit, and soproductions.tv, a video production company.

Image: gizmodo

Google+ users reach 20 million in 3 weeks

After only three weeks, Google+, Google's answer to Facebook, has reached 20 million members, according to comScore extrapolations. Adweek reports that the invitation-only version of Google+ has not been marketed yet leveraging Google.com's powerful 1-billion monthly visits.

"I've never seen anything grow this quickly," said Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, quoted in the Wall Street Journal. "The only other site to reach this kind of user accumulation is Twitter back in 2009. But it happened over several months," he said.

comScore employs a panel-based methodology, and claims 2 million people are on their global panel. The research company then extrapolates from the panel numbers and projects a global usage number. Comparatively, Twitter has 200 users and Facebook has 750 million users.

Flipboard and Condé Nast to launch ads

Flipboard, the social media reading app for iPad, has launched a new advertising programme, The Telegraph reported.

It has struck a deal with publisher Condé Nast to display full-page ads in several titles. The first wave of ads appears in The New Yorker - Readers will start seeing branded content from American Express throughout the virtual magazine on their Flipboard app from today, AdWeek reported.

In October, a second round of ads from Lexus will be in Bon Appétit, Wired, and The New Yorker, with additional titles to be added throughout this year.

Number of ad pages offered will be limited, and each will direct to the brand’s Web site or Facebook page.

Flipboard will manage inventory and Condé Nast will maintain the relationships with advertisers directly. The two parties will share revenues, according to a press release announcing the partnership.

According to Flipboard’s Marci McCue, the app offered users a “much more beautiful way to read web content” and it’s a new way for publishers “to monetise web content with no banners [adverts], but instead full-page brand advertising between the pages,” The Telegraph reported.

NYTCO 2Q revenues down but paywall promising

New York Times reported its total revenues in the second quarter down 2.2 percent to $576.7 million year-over-year, mostly because of the 4-percent drop in overall advertising revenues to $302.3 million, Media Post reported.

The decline was partly due to the 6.4-percent drop in print ad revenues.

Retail advertising and classifieds dropped 8.9 percent and 8.1 percent to $60.6 million and $46.5 million, respectively, while national advertising gained 1.8 percent to $159 million.

Total digital ad revenues rose 2.6 percent to $84.6 million, thanks to a 15.5-percent boost at the company's News Media Group.

Most significantly, NYTimes.com’s new paywall contributed significant revenues, which is expected to bring in $34 million by the end of the year, according to Outsell analyst Ken Doctor.

Vorarlberger Medienhaus: A regional newspaper conglomerate on the brink of becoming a multimedia company

By Tim Christiansen

Vorarlberger Medienhaus is facing two critical challenges: ongoing digitalisation and identification of new growth markets.

But Eugen A. Russ, owner and managing director, sees the Austrian-based VMH as on its way to becoming a lean, digital media company. He says VMH not only invests in news, but also pursues a portfolio strategy.

VMH's business operations include newspapers, printing presses, Internet, telephony, book trade and radio. VMH Group comprises more than 60 newspapers, numerous online propositions and radio stations in Austria, Hungary and Romania. Moreover, its subsidiary, Quoka, is the market leader in the classifieds market, publishing 18 weekly papers in Germany, with circulations of 600,000 copies monthly.

The financial crisis did not greatly affect the Austrian newspaper market; it suffered by only 2 percent from 2007 to 2009. On average, Austrian publishing companies achieved a 9 percent gross operating surplus in newspaper publishing in 2007, due to low paper prices and stable subscriptions in Austria.

VMH must enter new markets to find new revenue. The most important future growth segments for VMH are Eastern Europe and its digital business. Russ says he expects print to grow only through an increase of VMH's market share, and sees the future of VMH in online niche markets. For example, VMH owns mascus.de, the most important website for construction vehicles in Europe.

Russ pursues a strict digitalisation strategy and wants VMH to earn 25 percent of its total revenue with digital content. Currently, 50 percent of VMH’s employees work in the online business division and it employs 50 engineers to maintain Web and tablet applications.

“The leading websites in Europe display local content,” Russ says. VMH is therefore uniquely positioned due to its local focus. Russ sees the future of monetisation in high quality content needs.

“High quality content will find a buyer, but online news needs a different business model,” he says, adding that he doesn’t believe advertising alone is sufficient.

Although the iPad could offer the ideal solution, Apple demands a 30 percent share and there exists significant national tax in Austria. Russ says he believes increased ownership by Apple in news distribution would threaten the industry entirely, as it relies on democracy and a diversity of perspective.

The biggest strength of VMH is its entrepreneurial workforce and profit-centred approach.

“Every entity in VMH has to be profitable.” In the long run this would make VMH more successful than companies that do not separate between online and offline business, he says. “Newspapers won’t be dead in the future – at least not in Europe ... the newspaper industry faced several technological disruptions like TV already, but it always found a way to survive.”

This interview and more will be available in the World Newsmedia Network's upcoming World Newsmedia Innovation Study. To secure a free copy of the report, please take our survey, available in nine languages.

Weekly news round-up: Digital, print, and everything in between

Google made the news throughout the week, for its blocking, and then re-indexing of, Belgian newspapers, to its Google+ social network and its second quarter profits. On other fronts, television, print and online properties continued seeing success on tablets, especially the iPad.

On Monday, Google began re-indexing the websites of Belgian newspapers that accused the search giant of deleting their content just to get back at them for a copyright infringement case. Google, however, said it was following court's orders, and began re-indexing the sites after they agreed to waive potential penalties for appearing in Google search.

Google revealed its second quarter earnings Thursday. Revenue was up 32 percent year-over-year to US$9.03 billion. Profits reached $2.51 billion, up from $1.84 billion year-over-year.

Unofficial data from Experian Hitwise showed that Google+ is the fastest growing social network to date, reaching 18 million users Thursday and receiving 1.8 million total visits last week. Those numbers are expected to grow even faster when the site opens to the general public.

On the mobile device front, Time Warner pushed forward with its “TV Everywhere” strategy, as its CNN Worldwide became the first 24-hour news network to stream live to tablets and mobile devices. To access the live video on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, users must subscribe to a multi-channel video service, such as AT&T, Comcast, Cox, DISH Network, Suddenlink or Verizon.

Also in mobile, New York Times CEO Janet Robinson announced Thursday advertising on the newspaper's iPad app has sold out through the end of the third quarter, and the online paywall is seeing rising subscriber numbers. The NY Times iPad app has been downloaded 2.3 million times since it was launch in April 2010, and the ad space has sold out even though most content is closed off to non-digital subscribers.

Time Magazine announced this week its launch of “all access” bundles, allowing subscribers to pay once, and get access to three channels Time magazine publishes on: print, Web and tablet. The subscription strategy change follows similar moves by Time's sister publications, Sports Illustrated and People, in the last year. On Thursday, Time also put up a paywall, making the formerly almost-free website inaccessible to non-subscribers. However, weekly magazines will be made available for free three months past the publication date.

Study: One-fifth of TV commercials are HD

High definition commercials now make up one-fifth of all TV commercials, almost double the share year-over-year, Media Post reported.

According to a new study conducted by Extreme Reach, for the second quarter of 2011, the spike is due to lower distribution costs, more local TV adoption of HD commercials and a simpler execution of HD spots in overall campaigns.

Low-cost, cloud-based services have lowered costs for some business segments by 30 percent, said Extreme Reach. Right now, 94 percent of local TV stations able to take HD commercials use cloud-based services. Overall, 44 percent of local TV stations and 63 percent of cable operators are HD commercials-capable, versus 27 percent and 50 percent in the previous year, respectively.

Extreme Reach pointed out that though only major brand advertisers had used HD commercials, now even regional and smaller marketers are also adopting HD into their campaigns.

"Advertisers had been in a holding pattern for a while when it came to HD. The Q2 numbers reaffirm what we've heard from advertisers for a while: When key industry hurdles to adoption become less pronounced, you'll see more and more HD ads on TV," said John Roland, CEO of Extreme Reach.

Image: HDTV Biz News

The Daily releases new version

iPad-only newspaper The Daily has released a new version in order to make navigation easier, paidContent reported today.

The News. Corp.-owned tabloid now allows users to navigate from the front cover instead of a carousel, offering a table of contents that shows stories in each section, and returns to where the reader left off, instead of being made to begin from the front again.

Other iPad publications making waves are iPad versions of print publications. Business Insider previously included the following in its “10 iPad Magazines That Are Killing Print” list: The New Yorker, Wired, O, Popular Mechanics, Esquire, Self, Time, People, Sports Illustrated, and the Zinio digital newsstand.

Google+ the fastest growing social network yet

Google+ is growing quickly, with unofficial stats from Experian Hitwise showing the site had 1.8 million total visits last week, and was the 42nd most-visited social networking site in the United States as of July 16. This likely will increase further when it opens to the public, USA Today reported today.

As of yesterday, the site has reached 18 million users, founder Paul Allen, formerly of Ancestry.com, announced on his Google+ profile yesterday, according to the Inquirer. This is up from 10 million estimated users on July 10.

Currently, the site's users are from the “early adopters” crowd, with 57 percent of visitors for the four weeks ending July 16 being males, and the biggest age group being those 25 to 34, accounting for 38.7 percent of visits, the Experian data shows.

Top social media site and Google+ rival Facebook continues to draw in more women, especially those in the mothers category, but Google+ is expected to follow those trends when it matures, Forbes noted.

Gannett’s 2Q print ad revenues down, TV flat

Gannett reported its print advertising revenues and profits down in the second quarter of this year due to continuing declines across all major ad categories, Media Post reported.

Broadcast television advertising revenues basically remained flat.

Total publishing revenues decreased 4.9 percent from US$1.03 billion to $977.1 million year-over-year, with advertising revenues fell 6.5 percent from $692.2 million to $646.9 million over the same period.

The broadcasting unit held steady, at $184.4 million, up slightly from $184 million in the same period in 2010.

TV revenues, in particular, gained slightly from $177.5 million to $177.7 million.

In the second quarter, the sweet spots for Gannett went to digital advertising, which boosted 12.6 percent to $173.4 million. Including digital properties associated with its publishing and TV divisions, total digital revenues rose 12.6 percent to $276.2 million, which contributed 21percent to the company's overall revenues.

NYT iPad app ad space sold out, paywall subscriptions up

The New York Times is expecting climbing digital revenues for the rest of the year. Today CEO Janet Robinson announced that advertising on the newspaper's iPad app has sold out through the end of the third quarter, and the online paywall is seeing rising subscriber numbers.

The NY Times iPad app has been downloaded 2.3 million times since it was launch in April 2010, and the ad space has sold out even though most content is closed off to non-digital subscribers, paidContent reported.

The paywall, launched in March, now has 224,000 digital subscribers, The Times said this morning. This number includes people being charged an introductory rate of 99 cents for the first four weeks, but does not count the 765,000 people who activated digital access that comes with their home-delivery print subscriptions, according to AdAge.

In addition, 57,000 subscribers pay to receive the publication on other devices, such as the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle, The Times reported.

“We also continued to post solid year-over-year gains in digital advertising revenues at the News Media Group in the second quarter. In addition, during the quarter the rate of home-delivery circulation declines slowed moderately, as we observed an uptick in new home-delivery orders and a decrease in attrition following the launch as print subscribers of all frequencies receive all digital access at no additional cost,” Robinson said in a statement, according to AdAge.

However, the Times Co. reported overall losses for the second quarter, mainly due to a decline in print ads.

Revenue was down 2.2 percent, to US$576.7 million, on a 4 percent advertising downturn. However, a 2.6 percent increase in online ad revenue helped to ease the pain of a 6.4 percent print ad decline.

Image: Crenk.com

Google 2Q revenue reaches $9 billion

Google revealed its second quarter earnings Thursday. Revenue was up 32 percent year-over-year to $9.03 billion. Profits reached $2.51 billion, up from $1.84 billion year-over-year, Media Post reported.

In the first quarter of 2011, Google’s profits totaled $2.3 billion, while revenue reached $8.58 billion, techDygest reported.

The sites owned by Google contributed $6.23 billion, or 69 percent of total revenue, in the first quarter of 2011. This represents a 39 percent growth compared with $4.5 billion in the first quarter of 2010.

AdSense programmes generated $2.48 billion, or 28 percent of total revenue from partner sites, which is up 20 percent in the first quarter. Aggregate paid clicks from search campaigns, increased 18 percent year-over-year and down 2 percent from the previous quarter.

The average cost-per-click, including clicks to ads served on Google sites and the AdSense partner sites, boosted 12 percent over-over-year and rose 6 percent compared to the previous quarter.

Image: Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP

Daily Mail increases cover price as ad sales drop

Daily Mail is lifting its weekday cover price to make up for declining advertising revenue, Bloomberg reported.

The price will be up to 55 pence from 50 pence starting next week, according to the company statement on PR Newswire. Prices will stay unchanged for the Saturday edition and the Mail on Sunday.

"The continuing high cost of newsprint means it is necessary to increase the cover price of the newspaper," according to the company statement. It was the first price increase for the paper since April 2008, The Telegraph reported.

Ad revenue of the newspaper unit for the 13 weeks ending on July 3 is 7 percent lower year-over-year. In June alone, it had been down 9 percent, according to the company.

The Daily Mail is the second most popular paper in the United Kingdom, with an average net circulation of 2,068,632 as of the end of May, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Time Magazine Launches "All Access" Bundles

Come Thursday, Time magazine subscribers will pay once, and get access to three channels Time magazine publishes on: print, Web and tablet. The subscription strategy change follows similar moves by Time's sister publications, Sports Illustrated and People, in the last year.

Also on Thursday, Time will erect a paywall, which will make the formerly almost-free website inaccessible to non-subscribers. Weekly magazines will be made available for free three months past the publication date.

Time has gone around the iTunes Store, and will sell iPad Apps through their own website. Prospective subscribers will order bundled subscriptions on Time.com, which allow the company to retain 100 percent of the subscription revenue as well as the reader data. Under the Apple App Store plan, Apple takes 30 percent of the subscription price and some or all of the subscriber data. Time's apps also are available for Android devices, such as HP and Samsung Galaxy, which have no such rules.

The move is following a trend among publishers to monetise their digital content, particularly online and on tablets. According to a recent Online Publishers Association study, two-thirds of U.S. publishers either charge or expect to charge for apps in the next year.

Image: Time Warner

CNN now streaming live to iPad, iPhone

Time Warner pushed forward with its “TV Everywhere” strategy, as its CNN Worldwide today became the first 24-hour news network to stream live to tablets and mobile devices.

To access the live video on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, users must subscribe to a multi-channel video service, such as AT&T, Comcast, Cox, DISH Network, Suddenlink or Verizon, paidContent pointed out.

To access CNN and HLN online, users can go to cnn.com/video, click on the “Live” tab and log in through a cable, satellite or telco provider with a username and password.

Image: CNN

Google to re-index blocked Belgian newspapers

Google today has begun re-indexing the websites of Belgian newspapers that accused the search giant of deleting their content just to get back at them for a copyright infringement case, PCMag reported.

After winning a suit against the search engine for posting links to their articles on Google News without permission, the newspapers, part of the group Copiepresse, was completely excluded from search results on Friday, The Associated Press reported. Copiepresse sued the search giant in 2006 for copyright infringement for linking to the articles without permission or payment on, but said Google was retaliating by removing the them from its main search index as well.

Google on Friday said it is just following the court's orders. It could be fined €25,000 each time the newspapers' websites appear, but it would re-include Copiepress newspapers “if they would indicate their desire to appear in Google Search and waive the potential penalties,” spokesman William Echikson said.

Since the ban began on Friday, traffic to the newspapers' websites dropped, as Google's market share in Belgium's search market is more than 90 percent, according to ghacks.
 

"We are delighted that Copiepresse has given us assurances that we can re-include their sites in our Google search index without court-ordered penalties," Google said in statement today. "We never wanted to take their sites out of our index, but we needed to respect a court order until Copiepresse acted. We remain open to working in collaboration with Copiepresse members in the future."

Sun Media withdraws newspapers from Ontario Press Council

Sun Media, the biggest newspaper publisher in Canada, has pulled its 27 papers out of the Ontario press council (OPC), complaining about the "politically correct mentality" of the media watchdog, MediaGuardian reported.

"The editorial direction of our newspapers, especially our urban tabloids, is incompatible with a politically correct mentality that informs OPC thinking, in the selection of cases it hears, and the rulings it renders," Glenn Garnett, vice-president of editorial at Sun Media, wrote in a letter.

The Toronto Sun was recently being criticised due to a photograph it published of Prince William's wife, Kate, at the moment a gust of wind lifted her dress.

Editor-in-chief James Wallace defended the publication, saying it delivers "news with edge and attitude" and the photograph was deemed to be "compelling and newsworthy."

According to Jeffrey Dvorkin, executive director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, the departure is “a blow to the accountability of Sun publications and does not bode well for the company going forward,” Postmedia News reported.

Social media and new forms of content change how journalists work at The Telegraph

By Matthew Bethell

The creation of a multimedia content hub where journalists can collect photos, video and engage with their audience’s user generated content is giving rise to dynamic stories and increasing direct online sales.

Edward Roussel, online editorial director at The Telegraph in London, has cause for optimism.

The Telegraph was one of the earliest publications in the United Kingdom to clearly define the main challenge facing the industry; remaining economically viable in an environment where the market is “stagnating,” and keeping newspapers focused on their core editorial role while remaining “relevant to the digital era,” Roussel said.

Early diagnosis has enabled the Telegraph to embrace the organisational challenge of digital transition with a gusto that surprised many industry analysts, and countered the stereotype of the flat-footed, establishment broadsheet.

Appointed by the Telegraph Media Group in 2006, Roussel has overseen the transformation of the organisation from a traditional news gathering and publishing structure to a first truly integrated news operation, producing content for print and online from the same newsroom. At a time when “readers expect to take active part in the story, to respond to it and contribute it,” the capacity for social media to engage readers in the journalistic process is a significant area that the Telegraph wants to build on.

Similarly, the way content is packaged and published across multiple formats is seen as key to capitalising on the opportunities offered by digital, and in particular mobile, a major growth area in terms of audience.

After years of consistently saying for years that newspapers need to adapt to more lean times by investing in what they do best and “outsourcing the rest,” Roussel says he has become The Telegraph’s leading Web evangelist. But his enthusiasm for new technology and its potential to change the journalistic process is not glassy eyed. He consistently notes that the key to developing the traditional editorial process, which remains the primary “legacy” of the Telegraph’s output, is to integrate it more with the digital space; primarily multimedia, social media and mobile devices.

For Roussel, the period of rapid growth online for newspapers is not entirely over “but the very fast growth spurt we’ve had in recent years is beginning to tail off” and “the new growth will come from mobile,” he says.

A content hub to connect everyone

The Telegraph does not envisage print disappearing entirely because there is a “hardcore” group of people who will not migrate to digital platforms and must be catered to, Roussel explains. However, there is an appreciation at The Telegraph that any changes made to the way news is delivered, like through mobile, tablet apps, multimedia and more, also need to be matched by additional changes to the way new technology contributes to the journalistic process.

As such, The Telegraph has developed a “content hub,” which provides an interface that will access both content management systems for digital publication and for the newspaper and “allow journalists and editors to access a depth of content and put in relevant articles, stories, pictures and videos far more readily than they can now,” Roussel explains.

By “breaking down barriers” and enabling journalists to more readily retrieve, link and publish additional material, the journalistic process becomes increasingly integrated, efficient and user friendly, he says.

Social media, and in particular user-generated content and audience interaction with journalists as stories develop, compliment the integrated content hub.

The Telegraph is capitalising on social media in three main areas; encouraging readers to distribute their content, engaging users in the story via rating and comments, and through “crowd sourcing,” or encouraging readers to contribute and join in with the journalistic process. This can be anything from sending in photos of snow scenes to getting readers to analyse data sets posted by The Telegraph.

The newspaper is also turning to direct sales and more targeted forms of advertising as revenues in other areas, like print, decline. In general, Roussell said he believes that newspapers across the industry will spend the medium term “seeking to get a better balance between subscription and advertising revenues.” He also sees there being activity in the area of retail and direct sales to the interactive online audience.

Roussell’s vision is establishing a “truly multimedia” content process, creating a social place where debate and exchange of ideas can take place, and being able to produce a “Telegraph experience of equal quality” across “core areas which are the Web, tablets and smartphones.”

With increased emphasis on alternative revenue streams and a continuing focus on editorial excellence, The Telegraph is hoping that by creating a “very social place” it will also create a “very profitable place.”

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