Robert has been reporting and analysing the intersection of technology and media since 1995. A former BBC News reporter, he launched paidContent in to Europe in 2007 and, as international editor, covered global digital media companies. He has written regularly about online culture. digital publishing and communications for Wired News, E-consultancy and Journalism.co.uk, as well as for NME and New Media Investor. He has taught university online journalism, regularly facilitates industry events and has been seen talking about industry developments in outlets like Sky News, Channel 4 News, BBC Radio, Time magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal and Guardian Tech Weekly. Robert has developed social media engagement strategies for public bodies including a UK government agency.
The next big game console could be… a small game console. TV gaming specialist PlayJam wants to move into hardware by launching a portable indie box. But could GameStick be the next PlayJam? Read more »
Oodle was one of the largest digital classified ad operators. Now it has fallen in to multiple hands after Adzuna snaps up UK assets of the firm recently sold to QVC. Read more »
The good news: digital formats now make up a quarter of UK entertainment sales thanks to 2012 growth. The bad: ongoing physical decline on the high-street means overall sales are shrinking. Read more »
Despite a new agreement with Google, Belgian media will launch their own shared user management and payment system, reducing the amount of free content on their sites. Read more »
Barnes & Noble and Microsoft welcome Pearson to the Nook Media table as the education publisher lays down $89.5 to help secure distribution. But Nook is already set to miss targets set during its recent spin-out. Read more »
Mail.ru is quitting its ambition of building a Russian Twitter, having failed to build sufficient scale. Instead, it’s aiming to consolidate its ownership of a leading social network. Read more »
Early indications show a big hike in ebook sales, a glut of new iPad owners and a transformative effect for one game studio — it’s another Christmas in which new device gifts give an uplift to content sales. Read more »
The MP3 player saved the music business. But now consumers are replacing dedicated music players, ebook readers and compact cameras with multi-purpose smartphones. All hail the new Swiss Army knife. Read more »
Sacrebleu! IPTV adoption in France is greater than anywhere in the world — and becoming more so. But that doesn’t mean the French consume the most internet video. Here is why its market is failing to take advantage. Read more »
Yahoo is indeed looking closely at Summly, a mobile news app run by a 17-year-old entrepreneur/developer in London. While the deal may go through, it’s a little hard to understand what Yahoo sees in the app — especially if its creator is not along for the ride. Read more »
Folks already use the internet more than newspapers to get their national news. Now the internet is on the verge of toppling even TV, research sugests. Read more »
Orange has reportedly asked banks to find a US investor for Dailymotion, as the French video site embarks on a subscription video by embracing the growing paid kids’ content trend. Read more »
Five years after its $280 million acquisition, the music service is still struggling to turn a profit for CBS, if latest efforts to tactically abandon and charge for royalty-incurring personalised radio are anything to go by. Read more »
A majority of Chinese internet users say they pay for digital content. That finding is likely a demographic quirk — but may nevertheless mean a welcome market opportunity for vendors. Read more »
Google wants to take its tablet magazine storefront global. But, while its media partnerships executive Madhav Chinnappa expands mobile initiatives, he faces proposed European legislation that could impact on Google News’ website. Read more »
Now too big to be run by just its small team, the LeWeb tech conference sells to specialist events giant Reed Midem as it plans more international events in the future. Read more »
They’re the format from another decade. But the growing popularity of animated .gifs has compelled several new production tools to launch — the latest, from a heavyweight, could validate the moving images even further. Read more »
The Danish firm has been building a platform for consumers to review independent online retailers. Now it wants to break America. But does Trustpilot need to work hard on improving its own visibility, or just syndicate its reviews to Google? Read more »
Google’s mid-sized Android tablet is set to be used in a carrot-and-stick approach to selling digital news subscriptions, after The Times and Financial Times become the first to woo readers with cheap and free Nexus 7s. Read more »
Apple’s ‘hobby’ of improving the TV-viewing experience has graduated to ‘intense interest’. But what chance does Cupertino have of working with broadcasters? More in Europe than at home, analysts say. Read more »
Spotify labels relations director Will Hope addresses questions over supposedly low payments artists receive from plays on the service — and why Adele boycotted Spotify for so long. Read more »
Spotify is a great way to listen to 18 million tracks. Now it has plugged its biggest hole – discovering them. But its solution owes more the expert curators than to Facebook’s social graph. Read more »
How is Spotify shaping up in the U.S. now that it has been stateside for a year? CEO Daniel Ek had some interesting numbers to share Thursday at an event in New York. Read more »
Bargain tablet with your news, guv’nor? News International’s customer sales director explains how the publisher aims to drive paid digital subscription bundles by leveraging device proliferation — and more discounts are coming in 2013. Read more »
A growing crop of vendors is trying to provide rental access to multiple ebooks for a monthly subscription, just like Spotify and Netflix. But what are the numbers that lay behind the idea’s success or failure? Read more »
Many more viewers say they will change their pay TV service in 2013 — but, despite greater planned adoption of new internet TV replacements, research suggests subscribers are more likely to simply remove channels from their packages. Read more »
Music labels can expect prolonged life for the track download format to come from new overseas markets, as Apple launches iTunes Store in 56 more countries, introducing a legal store to fast-growth and difficult territories. Read more »
Subsidized reading devices are a reality for digital content publishers. News Corp’s Times is giving a big discount off Google’s Nexus 7 to folks who pay for its news each month. Read more »
WSJ chief Robert Thompson will lead News Corp’s new-look publishing unit as Greg Clayman takes the digital reins — but is isolating the news business from the shelter of movies a recipe for media success? Read more »
News Corp concedes its pioneering tablet-only news title is not popular enough to continue as anything other than a learning exercise, marking the failure of one aspect of Rupert Murdoch’s tablet odyssey. Read more »
In a world of £9.99 tablet newspaper subscriptions, two UK red-tops are ditching their cover price entirely for their debut iPad editions. Does this free digital move point the way for the industry? Read more »
Mad Men are moving their money – the internet will take more advertising dollars than newspapers and magazines combined by 2015, according to latest forecasts. Read more »
Russia’s new internet blacklist agency is busy naming “illegal” sites ISPs must block. But the government says search engines should not be blocked for pointing to those sites with excerpts of illegal content. Read more »
TV advertising remains healthy, but platform operators want a bigger slice of the pie. Next year, some will introduce targeted advertising to their set top boxes, promising greater granularity and more effectiveness to marketers. Read more »
Weblogs and social channels not affiliated with newspapers can breathe a sigh of relief. Tweets and blogs don’t have enough heft to be considered ‘news’ media like print, says the judge leading recommendations to heighten UK ‘press’ standards. Read more »
People don’t expect trustworthy online journalism like they do in print, says the judge making recommendations about British media. His view may seem antiquated to some, but it may see digital publishers dodge new regulation. Read more »
The nine-month-long inquiry in to British press standards says newspapers’ ethical standards have caused ‘havoc’, so a new self-regulator is required to hold them to better account. Read more »
Tablet content is seeing higher engagement than that desktop web. But can tablets do the same for advertising, whose classic banner format is ‘cratering’? Read more »
Google exists because, by and large, it is allowed to excerpt web pages without being held liable as a publisher. Now moves in Germany and Australia threaten both of those core facts. Read more »
Many publishers are beginning to realize the prospect of selling stuff to readers. Women’s magazine Grazia is the latest to try, by reorienting its iPad edition as a fashion and beauty salesroom. Read more »
