Fairfax unveils iPad apps for Sydney Morning Herald, The Age

Fairfax Media has launched iPad applications for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and will begin charging for subscriptions through the apps in the future, The Australian reported today.

Each app is expected to cost AU$8.99. Fairfax has said it will roll out a three-tiered access model: free content, free content for which registration is required to view it and paid content.

The Age’s iPad app resembles its print edition, because it is meant for readers to spend time with it, whereas the website is for a quicker browsing experience, said iPad editor for The Age David Dick. It will be free under a sponsorship deal with Telstra until Nov. 30.

“We see it as something that people will read in the morning while they commute," he said, "and we expect them to look at the website during the working day and then we will update a lot of the content by the time people are commuting back home.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that readers of both apps will be able to share articles via social media, save them to read later, leave comments, watch videos and photo galleries, download weekly sections and magazines and read updated content throughout the day. The sports sections come with live scores, while business sections will have updated stock figures.

TweetDeck founder feared monetization efforts

TweetDeck’s creator Iain Dodsworth had a “big fear” that monetizing the social media service would drive away users, which is the reason he turned to raising funding over selling ads.

“If I see too much advertising, I turn off; it’s to the detriment of the quality of the product. I raised funding for this company just so I didn’t have to throw adverts at people and put them off,” he told BBC Radio 5live this morning, paidContent reported.

Unfortunately, a business can’t run on good intentions alone, and so it turned to targeting, hoping users would be interested in the content and wouldn’t find it to be a turn-off, he said.

“We’ve thought about this. If we were to put a World Cup column, sponsored by brand X, that seems a title bit more sophisticated than just slapping a banner ad right in front of you and distracting you. Because this audience is so savvy, whilst they won’t stand for certain low-quality advertising, they are interested in high quality.”

Last week, Twitter confirmed it bought TweetDeck. Many speculated that Twitter would kill the third-party developer if it bought it, but Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote: “In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love.”

A recent report from Sysomos showed that 42 percent of all tweets are made using unofficial Twitter services and apps, including TweetDeck, International Business Times reported.

European social game developer nets $24 million

The largest online social games developer in Europe announced today it has received US$24 million in funding, bringing its total capital raised to $31.5 million.

The Berlin-based wooga creates games for Facebook users which attract 30 million players each month. The funding will be used to produce new social games, a press release stated.

The Series B investment made in wooga games is being led by Highland Capital Partners, followed by Tenaya Capital and current investors Balderton Capital and Holtzbrinck Ventures.

wooga doesn’t get nearly as much attention as rivals Zynga and EA, TechCrunch pointed out.

However, games created by wooga (which stands for “world of gaming”) include Monster World, Diamond Dash and Bubble Island. It has doubled its user base from 14 million to 30 million monthly active users this year, and is now the third largest game-maker on the Facebook platform.

Image: The Diamond Dash Game, by wooga

UK-based online TV venture to close

Online television venture SeeSaw will be closed down, as it has been unable to find an investor or buyer, MediaGuardian reported.

“[T]hird-party internet TV aggregators have struggled to compete with broadcasters' own in-house on-demand services, and SeeSaw failed to gain a significant following compared to rival offerings such as the BBC's iPlayer, ITV Player and Channel 4's on-demand service, 4oD,” the report explained.

Owned by media services and communications infrastructure company Arqiva, the property is expected to close around 20 June. It was launched in February 2010 using assets of ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide’s Project Kangaroo, which Arqiva bought for about £8 million.

Initially, it offered 3,000 hours of free programmes. Three months after its launch, it also began offering paid content, with another 1,000 hours of programming.

Report: U.S. Q1 online ad hit record high

U.S. online ad revenue reached a record high of $7.3 billion in the first quarter, up 23 percent year-over-year, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers Thursday, TIME reported.

"This demonstrates that digital media is an increasingly popular destination for ad dollars, and for good reason," said IAB chief executive Randall Rothenberg, AFP reported.

"As Americans spend more time online for information and entertainment purposes, digital advertising and marketing has emerged as one of the most effective tools businesses have to attract and retain customers," Rothenberg added.

Image: Robert Kohlhuber/Getty Images via Planet Green

HuffPo: Blogger wrote for fame, not money

Lawyers for The Huffington Post on Friday moved to dismiss Jonathan Tasini’s lawsuit that claims the news website owes money to its unpaid bloggers, paidContent reported.

The HuffPo says Tasini wrote for the website for fame and exposure to larger audiences, not for money. The site, created by Arianna Huffington, also pointed out that Tasini and the HuffPo had a written agreement: the sites terms and conditions, which give the website the right to publish content from its bloggers without paying them. In all, Tasini wrote more than 200 items for the website, knowing he was doing so for no monetary compensation.

paidContent noted that the judge may give Tasini a chance to amend his complaint. Tasini has also hinted in the past that other HuffPo bloggers may come forward.

Tasini filed the US$105 million lawsuit after AOL paid $315 million for the HuffPo, stating that the site’s bloggers (there are more than 9,000) are what made the website worth buying in the first place.

“TheHuffingtonPost.com has been unjustly enriched by engaging in and continuing to engage in the practice of generating enormous profits by luring carefully-vetted contributors, with the prospect of ‘exposure'…” part of his complaint reads.

Image: Wikipedia

UK firm buys controlling stake in Time Out New York

London-based Oakley Capital Investments and its buyout arm Oakley Private Equity have invested £14.2 million pounds, or US$23.2 million for a 65.7 percent stake in Time Out New York, Financial News reported.

Oakley Capital spent £11.3 million for a 50 percent stake in Time Out London in November 2010, to help expand the listings magazine publisher online.

Time Out, established in 1968, is a weekly magazine published in 35 cities focus on culture and entertainment, with an audience of 16 million.

Time Out New York and Time Out London control the worldwide rights to the publication brand except in Chicago, according to the firm, Bloomberg reported.

“The interest is the switch between print and digital. It’s such a go-to brand. People read it to go do something,” said Peter Dubens, director of Oakley Capital, in a telephone interview to Bloomberg.

According to Dubens, the magazine could generate revenue by selling tickets and products online. Time Out London have added daily online deals, which is similar to what Groupon offers. Time Out would like to build more websites for cities including Los Angeles, Miami, Berlin and Paris. It hopes to bring the total to 50 from 35 today, Dubens added.

Image: MediaGuardian

E-reader and tablet roundup: What we learned this week

In our wrap-up of this week in e-readers and tablets, we learned that:

- More than 20 million e-readers will fly off shelves and into the hands of U.S. consumers by the end of the year, giving the devices a penetration rate of 8.7 percent of adults in the United States. By next year, 12 percent of all U.S. adults will own an e-reader, according to eMarketer.

- Barnes & Noble announced on Wednesday the release of its new Nook, called the Simple Touch Reader. The Simple Touch Reader is WiFi-only, because 3G is not important to the consumers the e-reader is targeting, which are those “turned off by buttons, keyboards and complexity.” It is also lighter, weighing less than a paperback book (at 7.5 ounces), and has a six-inch display and a battery life of two months. It is priced at US$139 and will begin shipping June 10.

- Condé Nast released iPad subscriptions for GQ and Wired on Tuesday. A subscription for a month will be US$1.99, and for a year will cost $19.99. Print subscribers will have automatic access to iPad editions. Those wishing to buy a single issue can do so for $3.99.

- It was a big week for the Nook. On Monday, it was reported that female readers are embracing magazines on the Nook Color over the iPad. Sales of titles Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, O, The Oprah Magazine, Family Circle and More outperform sales on the iPad.

Internet leaders to G8: Don’t regulate Web

Regulation will not work when it comes to the Internet, and governments should leave it alone: This was the basic message to government leaders at the Internet session of the G8 Summit in Deauville, France, yesterday from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and other Internet bosses, MediaGuardian reported.

Internet leaders have been at odds with political agendas of government leaders, especially French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is looking to implement more Web regulations, specifically intellectual property protections.

“Yes, we should protect intellectual property; no, we shouldn't create a situation by which the Internet cannot grow and cannot develop," said Maurice Lévy, CEO of advertising group Publicis, according to MediaGuardian.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama, among others, joined the Internet leaders and Sarkozy at a roundtable discussion, at which a final statement was drafted.

The United States is one of several G8 countries not in step with Sarkozy’s initiative, and wary of international regulations of the online sector.

According to Agence France-Presse, a draft G8 final declaration calls for governments to take on the role of “creating an environment in which the Internet can flourish in a balanced manner,” as well as “respect for the rule of law, human rights, fundamental freedoms and the protection of intellectual property.”

Image: The Associated Press, via the BBC

Report: 80% of Android apps are hardly ever downloaded

Eighty percent of paid Android applications have been downloaded less than 100 times, new research from Distimo has found. Free apps are more popular, with only 25 percent of them being downloaded less than 100 times.

The only app with more than 50 million downloads in the Google Android Market is Google Maps, making it the store’s most popular. This makes sense, as maps are one of the most-utilised functions across all smartphones. Meanwhile, 96 other apps have been downloaded more than 5 million times.

Comparing Android to Apple, just two paid apps have been downloaded more than 500,000 times on Android worldwide to date, while six apps in Apple’s App Store for iPhone have been downloaded that many times in just two months, in the United States alone.

In the games category, just five paid games in the Google Android Market have more than 250,000 downloads worldwide. Comparatively, Apple has 10 paid games that were downloaded more than 250,000 times in the United States alone in just two months.

“It is more challenging for developers in the Google Android Market than in the Apple App Store to monetize using a one-off fee monetization model,” Distimo explains.

Graph: Distimo

Foxtel, Austar merger raises competition uncertainties

The planned nearly AU$2 billion merger between pay television operator Foxtel and its regional counterpart, Austar, is on track to create one of the largest media businesses in Australia.


It has also raised a red flag for competition watchdogs, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today.


The competition regulator the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been suspicious in Telstra’s stake in Foxtel, and the impact it has on competition through bundling. Telstra owns 50 percent of Foxtel; James Packer, Kerry Stokes and Rupert Murdoch own the other half.


The proposed deal raises three issues: the first two have to do with “Telstra’s media strategy and its relationship with the other Foxtel shareholders,” The Australian’s James Chessell wrote.


The third “area of uncertainty” is regulation: “Opinion among considered observers is that the deal raises interesting issues for the ACCC to consider … there is plenty of evidence to support the argument a merger of Foxtel and Austar will not significantly reduce competition. But expect the issue to be explored thoroughly by the ACCC.”

E-reader ownership to grow 20% this year

More than 20 million e-readers will fly off shelves and into the hands of U.S. consumers by the end of the year, giving the devices a penetration rate of 8.7 percent of adults in the United States, eMarketer has predicted.


By next year, 12 percent of all U.S. adults will own an e-reader, such as a Nook, Kindle, Sony Reader.


Opportunities to advertise on the devices are also growing, thanks in large part to the introduction of the Kindle with Special Offers, the first ad-supported e-reader, launched this spring, the eMarketer report pointed out.


“Naturally, marketers will want to avoid disrupting the reading experience, but ads on the Kindle screen saver and homepage appear to be hitting the spot where the interests of advertisers, publishers, device-makers and consumers converge,” stated eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna, author of the upcoming report “Epublishing: Books, Periodicals and Devices."

Microsoft’s Mango aims to connect people, not apps, but will it sell?

Microsoft yesterday unveiled its latest Windows Phone mobile operating system, called Mango. Some of its 500 new features are aimed at gathering information from across apps to create conversations, rather than leaving information in different silos.

Using a smartphone can often be a “sea” of different apps, “from calls, texts, email and instant messages to status updates, Tweets, check-ins, photo posting and tagging. To help people stay on top of that growing complexity, the Mango release organizes information around the person or group people want to interact with, not the app they have to use,” the Mango press release states.

The new features are also hoped to improve multitasking and make apps and the operating system work more efficiently together, PCWorld reported.

The update will be free for all Windows Phone 7 customers, but they won’t be able to get it until autumn, after the OS official launches.

Windows Phone 7 is “struggling to capture developer interest,” but unfortunately it may be “too little, too late,” paidContent wrote. “The company’s main hope is that its deal with Nokia … can put Windows Phone 7 handsets on store shelves across Europe and other partners (Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE) can help make up the difference elsewhere in order to get volume around the world … but that’s likely not going to take place in the U.S.: phone makers like Samsung and HTC with prominent U.S. businesses are much better known for their Android handsets, and have spent much more time and money promoting those devices.”

The Guardian (based in the UK, not the U.S., as paidContent is) disagreed, reporting that the Windows Phone will likely be one of the three top smartphone platforms in the next few years, competing with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, and surpassing RIM’s BlackBerry:

“Its user interface really won't matter. It's not Mango that will make it sell. It's Nokia [which Microsoft has partnered with]. Quite what its market share will be in the US and Europe - and whether it will be as large as in other regions - is less sure, but (reality check) those regions aren't the world,” the report stated. “A prediction? Windows Phone should easily get 20% of the smartphone market by the end of 2012. It could conceivably do better.”

Image: Microsoft

Study: 60% of TV watchers simultaneously toy with their mobiles

It is no surprise that people consume other media, such as smartphones, laptops, or iPads, while watching TV. According to a new study conducted by IPG Media Lab and ad platform YuMe, the most common distraction goes to mobile phone, Business Insider reported.

The study targeted 48 TV watchers from the Los Angeles area – the sample size is small, but it could provide a glimpse of the potential futures on media consumption.

According to the study, six out of 10 TV watchers toyed with their mobile phones while watching TV, while another 33 percent watched with their laptops open. Another 12 percent utilised the time to “do work,” TIME reported.

Only six percent chose to watch TV without any distractions.

This may indicate an opportunity for marketers to leverage consumer ad experiences across different platforms simultaneously, Business Insider noted.

Image: YuMe

Twitter buys TweetDeck, but won’t kill it

Twitter confirmed today it has bought TweetDeck, after months of rumours that the sale would happen, PCMag reported today.

The sale is believed to be worth about US$40 million, making Iain Dodsworth, the Twitter app’s founder, an overnight multimillionaire, the Guardian reported.

Many speculated that Twitter would kill the third-party developer if it bought it, but Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote: “In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love,” according to PCMag.

A recent report from Sysomos showed that 42 percent of all tweets are made using unofficial Twitter services and apps, including TweetDeck, International Business Times reported.

Image: TweetDeck

Press freedom group: Mugabe has ‘stranglehold’ on broadcasting

Zimbabwe’s president keeps a “stranglehold” on broadcasting in the nation, which has just one broadcast station airing on four radio wavelengths and two TV channels, the Media Institute for Southern Africa announced today, on Africa Freedom Day, The Associated Press reported.

The government has made reporting difficult, with the enactment of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which has been used to arrest and intimidate independent journalists, and has been used to prosecute several, according to World Press.

The government in recent years has also shut down newspapers: The Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday in 2003, The Tribune in 2004 and The Weekly Times in 2005. The Daily News resumed publishing in March, but has since been subject to attacks.

Earlier this month, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released a statement condemning the arrest and holding of Mzwandile Ndlovu, who was charged with reporting a fictitious story.

“Ndlovu was just covering a matter of public interest, without voicing any opinion. His arrest is unacceptable and we call for his immediate release. The independent newspapers that recently obtained licenses must also be able to work in complete freedom and their reporters must not be harassed,” the statement said.

Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, who has held office since 1980, is on RSF’s list of Predators of Press Freedom, released on 3 May, World Press Freedom Day. Overall, the country ranks 123 out of 178 on the latest worldwide press freedom index.

Image: Robert Mugabe, via topnews.in

Zuckerberg: Facebook will expand across platforms

Facebook's future expansion will be through building platforms for developers, from the gaming, news, music, movie and other industries, Mark Zuckerberg, the social network's 27-year-old founder and CEO, told the e-G8 Summit in Paris today.

Going forward, Facebook will continue to focus on its core competencies of social media and technology, and will be inclusive of technologies from specialised companies in the bespoke industries that can build games and interactive content for Facebook's platforms.

"We get software development and social dynamics," he said. "We focus on building really good experiences for these things."

Zuckerberg credited the meteoric rise to 500 million users worldwide to its focus on users' transparent connectivity with friends and families, while other social media sites may operate under the guise of secrecy.

"The magic formula is sharing with friends and family. The basis of being grounded in reality makes us popular," he said. "A lot of other social media sites don't focus on who you are."

Facebook users' recommendations about restaurants, consumer goods, movies and more carry a lot of credibility with their family and friends, he said. This has caused a change in the way people consume movies, books.

"The biggest thing is that ideally, transparency ensures that the best things win. It's a more fair ecosystem than before."

The inevitable questions about privacy issues related to data gathering by Facebook were also discussed.

Zuckerberg told the audience that: "I think people choose their own boundaries. Some share a huge amounts and some not so much. Maybe some share privately. This is the balance. Some share photo albums. Others share where they are."

New Nook has 1 button, touch screen

Barnes & Noble today announced its new Nook, called the Simple Touch Reader, targeting customers “turned off by buttons, keyboards and complexity,” paidContent reported today.

“The Kindle 3 has 38 buttons,” said B&N CEO William Lynch. “That’s 37 more than the new Nook.”

The Simple Touch Reader is WiFi-only, because 3G is not important to the consumers the e-reader is targeting, he said. It is also lighter, weighing less than a paperback book (at 7.5 ounces), has a six-inch display and a battery life of two months. It is priced at US$139 and will begin shipping June 10, according to Reuters.

News of the new e-reader comes less than a week after Liberty Media offered $980 million for Barnes & Noble. And on Monday, it was reported that female magazine readers prefer Nook Color, with titles geared toward women on the Nook Color outperforming sales on the iPad.

Image: Baltimore Sun

Reuters to offer Investigative News Network content

As traditional newsmedia outlets have cut investigative journalism budgets in recent years, investigative efforts have found a variety of other business models, and popped up in new spaces around the world.

Thomson Reuters today announced it has partnered with the non-profit Investigative News Network to add long-form watchdog journalism to its platform.

"Publishers are telling us investigative news is extremely valuable, but seems to be the first thing cut when resources get tight," said Chris Ahearn, president of Media for Thomson Reuters. "The new relationship with INN is another step towards addressing the market's need and providing our clients with stories they won't find anywhere else."

The INN offers investigative and public service journalism for local, regional and national audiences, and is made up of more than 50 news organizations. Currently, 30 INN members have signed up for the investigative news offering, and will distribute their content through the Reuters Media Platform. These include the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, the Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network and the St. Louis Beacon, according to Reuters.

The arrangement “creates a new kind of partnership that reflects the changing ecology of news,” explained Margaret Wolf Freivogel, editor of the St. Louis Beacon. “The nonprofit news organizations are members of the Investigative News Network, itself a young organization that includes many small, fledgling operations dedicated to watchdog reporting as well as several older, bigger groups. All are interested in greater reach and impact for their work.”

Groupon CEO unveils the secrets of his start-up

In only three years, "deal of the day" company Groupon is the fastest growing company in the world, in 500 cities in 46 countries and with 7,500 employees, mostly local sales representatives.

Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason closed the day of presentations and panel discussions at the first e-G8 Summit in Paris, telling the audience that the Chicago-based Groupon's secret for success is a focus on customers.

"We put ourselves in the shoes of the customers every day," Mason said. "We have to make Groupon the coolest, most user-friendly company. The company is run by irrationally entitled Gen Y people. We try to imagine that customers have that same mentality. One benefit of not being in Silicon Valley is that you don't look at your customers with skepticism."

Groupon gets a 50 percent margin from each deal. Mason said the merchant only pays if the customer purchases a Groupon.

The daily deal company also knows the profile of its customers: About 70 percent are urban women, mostly young, and many offers are geared toward this customer. About 90 percent of all Groupon offers are successful as reported by advertisers, Mason said.

Another key to ramping up the company quickly and successfully is that hiring thousands of people required a specific profile and training for each person, worldwide.

"We hire entrepreneurs who can follow our playbooks. We hire people who can do the hiring, and we find people who can share the information about hiring well. Once you figure out the playbook, the model works so well. Maybe it's even easier than it seems," he said.

The "push" model of daily deals pushed to customers'' e-mail boxes with permission is now being supplemented by a "pull" model called Groupon Now (groupon.com/now). The new geographically-based offers are being tested in the Chicago market. If a customer wants dinner now, for example, he can search for current offers in his geographic area. Advertisers can also offer deals on the fly that would feed into the deals offered to customers seeking a restaurant in their neighbourhood now.

"We are trying to build a true local e-commerce marketplace," Mason said. "While serving in our role as curators, we make it easy for customers to try businesses that aren't the big brand."

Mason said the serendipity associated with receiving a deal of the day in their e-mail boxes has helped some customers experience activities they would have never experienced, like yoga or sailing. "We are catalyzing passions. Customers never imagined rock climbing, but find they love it."

Condé Nast releases iPad subscriptions for GQ, Wired

Beginning with their June issues, monthly magazines Wired and GQ will offer iPad subscriptions by month or by year, Poynter’s Jim Romenesko reported today.

A subscription for a month will be US$1.99, and for a year will cost $19.99. Print subscribers will have automatic access to iPad editions. Those wishing to buy a single issue can do so for $3.99.

“Finally. A year ago, when we launched the Wired iPad app, we promised that subscriptions were on their way. And indeed they were—it just took a while for the right path to become clear (much traveling between New York and Cupertino paid off),” Wired’s Chris Anderson wrote today.

Magazine publishers have butted heads with the technology giant, which has wanted to keep subscriber data and operate as the direct link to subscribers, rather than allowing publishers to maintain subscription data, just as they would with print subscribers. Talks between publishers and Apple have broken down in the past, but recently Time, Inc. and Hearst Magazines announced deals with Apple.

Terms of the deal between Condé Nast and Apple have not been made public.

Last week, Next Issue Media, the joint venture of Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc., released seven titles in a digital store. The seven titles are a preview of what is to come, and currently they are only available on Samsung’s seven-inch Galaxy Tab from Verizon Wireless in the United States.

Image: Wired

Sarkozy addresses 1,500 Internet executives at e-G8

French president Nicolas Sarkozy launched the first e-G8 Summit in Paris today to implore the 1,500 Internet pioneers, start-up executives and movers and shakers from around the world to continue their dedication to entrepreneurship, but to exercise responsibility to expand the Internet and digital media availability to all.

"Freedom of exppression is the driving force of democracy," Sarkozy said. "It's a tremendous responsibility for you and us (in government)."

Sarkozy called upon the group to formulate an action plan to present to the G8 Summit, with the eight most powerful developed country's heads of state, to be held in France later this month.

"It would be a contradiction to leave government out of this massive discussion," he said.

The Internet business and its spin-offs represent an average of 3.4 percent GDP among developed countries. Because of the impact on each country's economy, the Internet is a key issue for each country's leadership. Sarkozy peppered his 45-minute presentation with advice to Internet companies moving forward.

"Do not let monopolies emerge where older ones have been dismantled," Sarkozy said. "Do not let the technology you have created affect the freedom of elementary rights. Do not undermine security and integrity."

Several Internet luminaries asked questions of Sarkozy.

Jeff Jarvis, professor of journalism at New York University, asked the president to consider a "Hypocratic oath" of "do no harm" when formulating a governmental policy on the Internet, to which Sarkozy emphasised no harm is or should be intended in such a policy.

The opening session was followed by a session with two McKinsey & Company consultants who summarised the explosive growth of the Internet worldwide, and the significant impact on the global economy. The last morning panel session included Internet heavy-hitters, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google; John Donahoe, CEO of eBay; Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of Vivendi; Nen Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent; and Suni Mitalia, chairman of Bharti Airtel. The executives, moderated by Verwaayen, discussed wide ranging issues that would become part of the G8's lofty agenda.

Schmidt explained that the advent of platforms have been a main driver for the Internet's meteoric rise, including blogging, e-commerce and smartphone and tablet applications. These are content platforms, with direct access to the end user, Verwaayen said.

"What is important is what the millions of users can do with the platform," Donahoe said.

Banking services on mobile phones have changed the way banking is done in India, with customers accessing their own "personal" branch on their millions of mobile phones, Mitalia said. The same phenomenon is going on around the world, including the developing world, such as Africa, where many citizens have never even visited a bank before.

"We have to upgrade services," he pointed out.

Schmidt agreed, saying: "We must remove the barriers, dig trenches and raise poles to make more mobile connections."

Female magazine readers prefer Nook Color

Female magazine readers may be embracing the Nook Color over the iPad, with sales of titles Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health and O, The Oprah Magazine, outperforming sales on the iPad, Time reported today.

Meredith Corporation has found sales of its Family Circle and More are double on the Nook Color over the iPad. The magazine publisher has said it is planning to add more titles to the device.

Fifty-six percent of tablet owners are male, while 55 percent of e-reader owners are female, data from Forrester research shows, according to The New York Times.

Women buy three books for every one book men buy, and Nook Color markets the Nook Color to females, The Times pointed out. Ads show women and girls reading and relaxing with the device, and in a video on Barnes & Noble’s website, a woman gives a guided tour on how to use the device.

Driving traffic and e-commerce: How Facebook says it helps

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan wrote today that Facebook has sent him some figures related to media websites using Like buttons and other social plugins.

Facebook claims that:

• The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.
• People who sign in with Facebook at The Huffington Post view 22% more pages and spend 8 minutes longer than the average reader.
• When a Ticketmaster user posts a specific event they are attending, or may want to attend, to Facebook, it generates $5.30 of direct ticket sales.
• [Clothing retailer] American Eagle added the Like button next to every product on their site and found Facebook referred visitors spent an average of 57% more money than non-Facebook referred visitors.

For more figures, visit Sullivan’s article on SearchEngineLand.com.

But not everyone agrees that Facebook is the next big thing in e-commerce.
A report by Forrester Research, out last month, stated that “likes” don’t necessarily translate to revenues.

Average Facebook metrics for click-throughs was only 1 percent, and its conversion rate was 2 percent, the study noted. Comparatively, e-mail marketing has a click-through rate of 11 percent, and a conversion rate of 4 percent.

An analysis of online traffic by comScore last month found that Facebook and MySpace combined account for about 20 percent of all advertising traffic. However, they carry an average cost per thousand impressions of 56 cents – nearly $2 less than the Internet overall.

IPTV to hit 70 million households in 2014

IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) adoption has been prospering over the past six years, with a 92.4 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and the subscriptions are expected to reach more than 70 million in 2014, according to SNL Kagan, TMCNet.com reported.

The key driver of the medium’s growth will come from video-on-demand service, as well as a continued push by both video programming retailers and TV networks for TV Everywhere deals, Media Post reported.

The biggest IPTV market is still Western Europe, which will hit 26.7 million homes by 2014. China follows up, with 12.4 million subscribers by 2014, with the U.S. and Latin America come next.

IPTV video service revenues will boost from $12.9 billion in 2010 to $27 billion in 2014, which making it 11 percent share of all global subscription-TV revenues, compared to 6 percent share in 2010, Media Post reported.

"Although IPTV presently accounts for just 6 percent of the world's pay-TV subscribers, the platform is fueling hyper-competition and video service innovation in major markets globally," according to Julija Jurkevic, media and communications analyst at SNL Kagan.

"Telcos often provide the spark igniting consumer interest in multiscreen services, HD and VOD. Generating parallel support for investment in next generation broadband networks," she added. 

Image: Getty via The Guardian

Online review site intern wins in court

A former unpaid intern for online review site My Village has won the right to be recognised as a paid worker by British courts, AdWeek reported today.

Keri Hudson won the right to back pay after the website did not come through with training and other stipulations that would have warranted her as working for free. Her case was funded by the National Union of Journalists’ Cashback for Interns campaign, which won her £1,025 for five weeks’ work at the national minimum wage rate, plus pro rata holiday pay, according to MediaGuardian.

Hudson started at My Village in December, after responding to an advertisement for an unpaid intern. After not receiving training or induction, and promises of being paid never came through, she was still working for free 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., editing and uploading content to the site, as well as managing six other unpaid interns.

The court’s decision shows that in Britain, even if the original agreement was for a free volunteer, if an intern does real work and does not receive certain training, he or she is entitled to pay.

“This judgment says that if someone is taken on as intern, and is doing a proper job rather than just being trained, then they will be regarded as a worker for the purposes of the national minimum wage,” Roy Mincoff, the NUJ’s legal officer, told MediaGuardian.

My Village denies taking advantage of young, unpaid workers, and has said it will appeal the judgment, AdWeek noted.

In the United States, the number of unpaid internships has increased in recent years, all while job openings has been on the decline. The issue was reported on last year by The New York Times, which found that violations of unpaid internships are widespread, and minimum wage laws are frequently ignored.

Other than interns, bloggers have also begun speaking out about what they say are unfair practices. Perhaps the most notable case has been at the Huffington Post, where former blogger Jonathan Tasini has led a group filing a US$1.05 million lawsuit against the site.

Arianna Huffington has said the site gives bloggers exposure, while many of the bloggers say the website profits from their work, and doesn’t give them a cut.

NY Times encouraged by online paid model

New York Times Co. is "very encouraged" by subscriptions for NYTimes.com, according to CEO Janet Robinson at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference Wednesday, Wall Street Journal reported.

The company’s shares was up 9.3 percent to $7.86 Wednesday after the CEO’s speech.

According to Robinson, more than 100,000 subscribers have signed up so far, and 728,000 home delivery subscribers have linked their accounts to their digital accounts, which assures them of free Web access, ABC News reported.

"We're seeing some very, very strong results. And it's important to note that we took a long time preparing for our paid model. We're very glad we did because I think the results are reinforcing that preparation has paid off," Robinson added.

Image: crenk

Verve Wireless execs: How to launch a successful mobile strategy

Mobile is about local audiences and local content, and it's the fastest growing platform – both great news for news publishers, executives from local mobile advertising firm Verve Wireless told the Blinder Group and Suburban Newspapers of America's Revenue Leadership Summit in Chicago today.

The top four uses for mobile are news, traffic, sports and weather, said Bill Gannon, general manager of local sales for Verve. “Local will own mobile,” he said. “Today, eyes are on the phone, not ears ... In the next two and a half years, more people will access the Internet with a wireless device than with [a PC].”

Art Howe, chairman and co-founder of Verve Wireless, gave attendees a list of 10 essential steps to launching a mobile strategy:

1. Understand Mobile will be the number 1 screen for news and advertising.
“This is happening much, much, much faster than you think,” he said. “By early next year, more people will be accessing your digital content with a mobile device than with the desktop.” More mobile devices are being sold today than personal computers, and publishers must act on this opportunity to connect with users.

2. Understand mobile is not “Internet Lite.”
You need apps, and the cost of creating them is going down. Mobile functionality is different than accessing content via a computer, and that means

3. Make revenue generation priority #1.
In the early days of the Internet, revenue was not made a top priority, and if news publishers are to succeed, they can't repeat those mistakes.

4. Appoint a mobile manager.
This person must be at the director level or higher, have access to the publisher, and be able to obtain cooperation of Internet technology staff and the digital advertising team. “It's not just a part-time diversion of the Web guy. It can't be,” he explained.

5. Don't try this at home.
Publishers must serve audiences and advertisers, not technology. Hire developers who can do it better.

6. Develop a strategy.
Make sure your strategy encompasses all devices – you can't focus on iPhones, iPads or Android devices only. You also need your content – video, photos, text, etc. - to work well on each device it is viewed on.

7. Offer more than just headlines.
When a lot of mobile sites started off, they were pretty primitive. Today we can make it an experience for audiences. You don't have to go tablet crazy today, because it's still a fairly small market. Howebver, advertising is very high value, and you will have to do it. “Frankly, it's a gift to publishers,” he said.

8. Above all, keep it local.
You want to be a credible reference for all things local. It's good for you and your advertiser, because it gives audiences what they want, when they want it.

9. Include local advertising.
Because mobile is all about local, selling local audiences to local advertisers is important.

10. Set mobile goals and train for success.
Newsmedia staffs are excited to reach audiences, and at the same time give those audiences and advertisers what they're looking for. Great training will make for great successes.


Image: Verve partners with local media providers across the United States

Liberty Media bids almost $1 billion for Barnes & Noble

Liberty Media announced late yesterday that it has offered US$980 million for bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, paidContent reported.

The offer values B&N at $17 a share, 20.4 percent more than yesterday's closing price of $14.11. However, the stock increased after news of the bid broke, increasing 18.5 percent, to $16.73.

B&N has a quickly growing digital bookstore chain, accompanied by a top selling e-reader, the Nook, which is second to Amazon's Kindle.

The book seller's online revenue was up 52 percent last quarter, to $319.4 million, as the Nook began to pay off, Telegraph.co.uk reported.

LinkedIn share prices skyrocket

The value of professional social networking site LinkedIn is way, way up, the San Jose Mercury News reported. On Thursday, shares of the Mountain View-based site shot up 109 percent from their offering price.

LinkedIn is the first top social networking brand to sell its stock publicly. Facebook, Twitter and Zynga are expected to have their own IPOs over the next year. The site's big first day are likely to encourage other social media sites to make public stock market debuts, and it also may fuel fears of another IPO bubble

When the shares closed at US$94.25 each yesterday, the one-day-old public company was valued at $8.9 billion, the Wall Street Journal explained today.

“It really is the sign of an irrational exuberance associated with anything that has social in it,” social media analyst Josh Bernoff, senior vice president of Forrester Research, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “What you're seeing here is enthusiasm that goes way beyond what the prospects are for the company itself.”

SNA Foundation's 'innovation mission' yields 8 lessons

The Suburban Newspaper Association traveled to newsmedia companies in the United States and Canada May 1-6 to learn about new and sustainable business models, revenue growth, digital-first strategies and new content strategies.

The trip's destinations included Deseret Publishing Company and Deseret Digital, MIT's Center for Future Civic Media, Journal Register Company and Metroland Media/Torstar Corporation.

Visits to the companies yielded eight lessons, SNA president Nancy Lane told the Blinder Group and SNA's Revenue Leadership Summit in Chicago today:

1.Intense commitment to ongoing training in all areas of the business.
2.Legacy reps can and should sell digital products (with some exceptions). All companies that were visited believed this and are seeing success with it.
3.Digital-only staff/expertise is required for certain products (some believed that this was true for many digital products, others are not convinced).
4.Community contributor networks add critical value.
5.New content strategies are critical to the digital transformation.
6.Creative combinations/leveraging assets is the next huge revenue opportunity.
7.Create new businesses; don't try to innovate existing businesses.
8.Bonuses and incentives are important to digital success.