Magine aims to be a cloud pay TV service without the box
Tomorrow’s pay-TV box could be a handheld device or an in-TV app, if Magine, a new Swedish service using existing consumer gadgets and cloud distribution, gets its way. Read more »
Russia’s new web-blocking agency begins its work
photo: Shutterstock / KTS7077
Is this the great firewall of Russia? Free-speech campaigners oppose a new agency that is blocking objectionable content. But, so far, outlawed sites contain child porn and drugs, not political dissent. Read more »
PRSS aims to be a low-cost iPad magazine factory in the cloud
Indie travel publisher TRVL didn’t like the software it had to use to make its free, iPad-only magazine – so it built its own. Now TRVL is giving away PRSS, hoping to kickstart other would-be moguls, and make a buck of its own. Read more »
The Telegraph brings web meter, mobile subs to overseas readers
Payment meters win another exponent with news The Telegraph will require subscriptions from non-UK readers for 20 monthly articles and app access. Can this strategy of charging its biggest online audience pay off? Read more »
As paid content booms, will ad opportunities shrink?
photo: Aaron Amot
Numbers of people paying for digital content will take off thanks to new media devices, Forrester forecasts. If paid content becomes commonplace, will publishers turn their back on advertising, and what should marketers do instead? Read more »
The very long tail – how magazines could make their archives sing
A magazine is making its 1,000-issue, 90-year archive available to digital subscribers. The model could light the way for expert content publishers, who may be sitting on an archive gold mine – if they can start producing future-proof digital content today. Read more »
Paywall provider Piano buys cookie-beater to build a better meter
photo: Shutterstock / Aperture 51
Central Europe’s Piano Media has tried to build nationwide shared “paywalls” for dozens of news sites. Now it is acquiring a technology startup to offer news meters that can’t be defeated by deleting cookies. Read more »
Domino’s aims to eat in to Netflix with its own VOD offering
photo: Domino's
Movies are now the content of pizza. At least, for Domino’s, which is trying to incentivise booming ecommerce orders with complementary digital films. But, compared with dedicated VOD services, this initiative is a sloppy giuseppe. Read more »
Google News wars are here again: Schmidt vs France on ‘news tax’
What happens in Belgium doesn’t necessarily stay in Belgium. Now Google News is facing a Brazilian boycott and France is threatening to copy a German-style tax on excerpting its newspapers. What’s an aggregator to do? Read more »
ITV slowly rolling toward paid VOD launch
photo: ITV
UK commercial broadcaster ITV has long funded its free shows with advertising. Three years after declaring its intention to charge online, it is now finally publicly testing a paid VOD service. Read more »
Local news super roll-up: UK publishing rivals may face future together
photo: Shutterstock / mangostock
From the death spiral of ad downturn, digital audience migration and a thousand cuts, one man emerges to try some long-expected consolidation in the local news market. But can the proposed Local World company get going? Read more »
FT digital subs pass 300,000, growing readership and revenue
The Financial Times’ digital subscriber sign-up continues apace, as the paper finds more money and more readers in paid digital content whilst the advertising market looks weak. Read more »
Penguin Random House aims to attack digital, emerging ebooks markets
Last week’s report is now confirmed, after Pearson and Bertelsmann took the weekend to hammer out a merger of their book publishers. But what is the rationale behind the big deal? Read more »
Nordic news publisher Schibsted buying in to ebook service Riidr
Scandinavian newspaper publisher Schibsted is keeping up its efforts to diversify and attract user payments by investing in a regional ebook service. Read more »
German publishers want to buy Xing, dump online games
Magazine publisher Burda wants to take complete ownership of LinkedIn rival Xing, while rival Axel Springer is selling a games site to focus on its growing online content and classifieds business. Read more »
The Future’s weekly and service-based for iPad mag publisher
photo: Adam Tinworth / Flickr
Magazine publisher Future is exploiting iPad by offering a tablet production service to rivals and by identifying a new weekly publishing schedule for its monthly print titles and rolling news sites. Read more »
Russians happy to pay for Mail.ru’s games and gifts
In Russia’s fast-growing internet scene, Mail.ru is successfully marshalling its diverse arsenal of social network and game services to attract paying users, while its social advertising prospects turn down. Read more »
Lovefilm’s Kindle inclusion helps Amazon’s global content ambitions
photo: Getty Images / Spencer Platt
Amazon’s global content strategy is becoming a step broader and more integrated through greater distribution for its Kindle range and inclusion of its video service Lovefilm on UK devices. Read more »
Updated: Homeless hawk codes, not content, as charity mag adds digital edition
photo: The Big Issue In The North
Going digital-only may not suit all publishers yet, but some organisations for which paper publishing has been a means to an end are now increasingly going digital. Latest is a title on which homeless people depend for an income. Read more »
Italian publishers’ online ad firm financed to develop new formats
The exclusive provider of ad services to a host of Italian online publishers is taking on money to fund development of new ad formats. Read more »
Yelp buys Europe’s Qype for $50 million to globalize its local reviews
photo: Flickr / roboppy
In the online local listings and reviews segment, US big boy Yelp is giving a five-star review to Hamburg-based peer Qype – and buying it to expand the breadth of its business overseas. Read more »
Mobile boom means big challenges for Vevo’s global roll-out
One of the many digital content services going global is music video outfit Vevo. Certain new countries mean a mobile-first approach – but that puts services at the mercy of a mobile ad ecosystem they say is still playing catch-up to desktop. Read more »
Movie streaming comes as part of UK’s pricey first 4G network
4G mobile networks promise fast content access out of the home. The UK’s first such network is bundling movies and free WiFi access – but will consumers pay the 4G premium? Read more »
Music service Rara faces challenge to turn free in to $0.99
Music service Rara has spent the last 10 months quietly tweaking its offering following a quiet launch. Now it will start going live properly. The catch? Every user is going to have to pay to play. Read more »
Google, Yahoo see contrasting fortunes in South Korea
photo: Seoul: skinnylawyer // Android: Robert Andrews
While Yahoo pulls out of South Korea citing “challenging” conditions, Google is seeing strong mobile revenue growth. What is the difference leading to contrasting fortunes? Read more »
Musicians get paltry pay from worldwide digital play
photo: s_bukley / Shutterstock
Download and streaming services are playing British musicians’ work to digital audiences around the world. But songwriters’ royalties from the overseas exposure are tiny – and they are going to stay that way. Read more »
Google News faces mass newspaper boycott in Brazil
photo: barkaway
A skirmish between Google and newspapers over crawling of news headlines suggests Latin America’s digital publishing sector is maturing. But can Google keep publishers sweet enough to exploit opportunities in the fast-growing Brazilian market? Read more »
Music supplier 7digital takes $10 million to do on-demand, radio
photo: 7digital
The digital vendor that powers music services for Samsung, HTC, RIM and others is taking on investment to expand its offering from downloads to streaming, radio and more. Read more »
What The Guardian really thinks about newsprint
‘Dead trees’ aren’t dead – they’re just dying. As news publishing’s funding dilemma grows more acute, everyone seems to know what The Guardian should do. Plenty of opinions were floated this week, as the paper denied it will stop printing. Read more »
Pearson sorry for downing 1.45 million teaching blogs
Talk about an overreaction. When education publisher Pearson spotted some infringing material on one weblog, its takedown by a host company felled a million more. Pearson apologises, but pokes the host for over-zealousness. Read more »
‘Russian CrunchBase’ raises $3 million to showcase RuNet startups
TechCrunch’s CrunchBase has become a repository of information about tech startups. Now a Russian outfit wants to replicate the model, connecting investors with Russia’s fast-growing scene for a monthly subscription. Read more »
Guardian hires first digital strategy director to grow online business
photo: Joi Ito / Flickr
The Guardian is filling a gap in its digital leadership by hiring Zeit Online chief editor Wolfgang Blau as its first ever digital strategy director. What will he do to grow the brand online? Read more »
Tvinci raises $4.5 million to pitch its mobile TV platform worldwide
As TV and telco operators mull their mobile and tablet options, another software vendor is hoping to get their attention, funding itself for a larger worldwide push. Read more »
No more daily deals, new digital newspaper focus for Trinity Mirror
He quit HMV’s digital turnaround. Now new Trinity Mirror CEO Simon Fox says the UK news publisher must become leaner and abort its new Groupon clone to fund better apps and websites for its newspapers. Read more »
Newspapers go to Rio for growth and discovery
photo: barkaway
As domestic newspaper circulation shrinks, The New York Times and Financial Times are launching editions for Latin America in Brazil. But why is one in print and the other digital-only? Read more »
Guardian CEO says digital opportunity is “fantastic” but revenues are lagging
The Guardian still has time to innovate before it really must turn a profit. For now, its boss has given accountants an assessment of its commercial position that is an “open” as its journalism. Read more »
Investors like New York Times‘ ‘paywall’ progress
photo: Corbis / David Brabyn
Wall Street is flocking back to The Gray Lady, as analysis convinces investors to buy a New York Times that is wringing more money out of readers in print and online. Read more »
US app ads help fund Chinese mobile ‘propaganda’
photo: Robert S. Donovan
US politicians want to outlaw Chinese mobile phones – but China’s state news agency is happy to use an American technology vendor to power its mobile advertising ambitions. Read more »
Spotify seeking to be big in Japan
photo: Shutterstock / Paveonephoto
It’s the world’s number-two music market, but Japan is not yet replete with music subscription services. Spotify wants to change that, aiming to launch there in the new year, paidContent learns. Read more »
Monetizing BitTorrent helps Australian newspaper keep down video costs
photo: Shutterstock / gcpics
Sydney Morning Herald publisher Fairfax was spooked by the escalating cost of licensing video for its new TV site. So now it’s adding cheaper content by legalising BitTorrent videos on producers’ behalf. Read more »
