The Financial Times is hoping that at least 35 staff members will accept buyouts as it attempts to prepare for a digital-first future. That future includes hiring 10 new digital employees and being choosier about stories, editor Lionel Barber wrote Monday in an email to employees. Read more »
Many adult sites and social networks require users to be 13 or 18 to use their services. The UK fined Playboy for not doing enough to enforce these rules while, in the US, attitudes have taken a different direction. Read more at GigaOM »
A year after it launched as a skunkworks project inside music data company The Echo Nest, trendy social music site This Is My Jam is “looking at options” for going independent — as well as getting ready to launch some fun new site exploration features. Read more »
Apple TV users in Germany got some content of their own Friday: Watchever, the new streaming video subscription service from Vivendi. The move could open the door to more region-specific content deals for Apple TV. Read more »
Rhapsody is taking the fight for music subscribers to Spotify’s home turf: The U.S.-based service is going to launch in 16 European countries this spring. Read more at GigaOM »
Optism already offered carriers a handy way to get into the mobile advertising game, but the addition of network-derived location data through a tie-in with French firm Intersec makes the platform significantly smarter. Read more »
The French ISP has been told by French digital economy minister Fleur Pellerin to stop blocking online ads, because she is ‘very attached’ to the open internet. However, she also hinted that she may not be entirely in favor of net neutrality. Read more »
Berlin-based ebook company Txtr expects its no-frills e-reader, the Beagle, to retail at €9.90 or less, subsidized by mobile carriers. The five-inch Beagle runs on 2 AA batteries and has no WiFi. The device hasn’t yet launched, but here’s a video review from the blog Good E-Reader. Read more »
The latest firmware update for Free’s set-top box adds a beta ad-blocking feature, which turns on by default when the user resets the device. If this was deliberate, it’s an interesting development for an ISP already embroiled in a net neutrality investigation. Read more »
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 »
After users complained about bad online video experiences, France’s telecom regulator launched an investigation trying to figure out if a local ISP was blocking YouTube or if it was just underinvesting in its network. A decision is expected soon, and could have worldwide repercussions. Read more at GigaOM »
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 »
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 »
RCS Libri, the second largest book publisher in Italy, has partnered with Italian train company NTV to make ebooks available for free to passengers. The ebooks can be read through devices installed on the trains, or on personal laptops, tablets and smartphones. Read more »
Amazon is bringing Kindle Singles — “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length” — to the United Kingdom. The U.K. store will include new e-singles from popular British authors, as well as many from U.S. authors. Read more »
It will soon become legal in the UK to copy music from a CD to an iPod, show copyrighted texts on an interactive whiteboard and use copyrighted works in a parody. In other words, this reform was sorely needed. Read more »
As newspaper book sections shrink or disappear, the Guardian is teaming up with the Amazon-owned Audible.co.uk to sponsor much of its books content in print and online. The companies are also launching “The Guardian Audio Edition,” a free weekly selection of articles read aloud. 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 »
The media made a terrible error in identifying Ryan Lanza as the Sandy Hook shooter — a mistake amplified by social media. But while we may not be able to prevent these blunders happening elsewhere, we have to take responsibility for our own actions. 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 »
Google and Belgian news publishers announced a deal that will put an end to their copyright dispute. Google says it is not paying the papers for content — so then why is money changing hands? Read more »
The European Commission has officially reached a settlement with Apple and four publishers on ebook pricing. The terms of the settlement mirror those in the U.S., but will primarily affect only the U.K. since other European countries have fixed price laws for books. 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 »
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 »
Consumers in Austria could be forced to pay rights holders for accessing cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, if an authors’ rights group has its way. The plan is being vehemently opposed by a group of CE makers and internet companies. 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 »
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 »
U.K. literary agency Curtis Brown will publish over 200 titles exclusively through Amazon in a program designed to break U.K. authors into the U.S. market. Curtis Brown is working with Amazon “White Glove,” a little-known service aimed at literary agents. 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 »
Lord Justice Leveson’s high-profile inquiry into phone hacking and unethical behavior by the British press never really tackled the big problems at the heart of the news industry. And what’s worse is that this huge error wasn’t a mistake — but the result of willful ignorance. 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 »
Rumors of the death of the digital music industry are greatly exaggerated, says former Last.fm executive Matthew Hawn. While there may not be much room for profiting from recorded music any more, an entire generation of companies are building a different, more exciting future. Read more »
Amazon will begin publishing original books in Europe, the company announced in a letter to literary agents Wednesday. Victoria Griffith, Amazon’s head of West Coast publishing, will move to Luxembourg, while Larry Kirshbaum will assume leadership of both the Seattle and New York imprints. 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 »
Russia’s new internet blacklist may not be the only force threatening available of Google’s business in the country. If new reports are to be believed, Mail.ru also wants to stop using Google’s search service. Read more »
Backed by Skype co-founder Janus Friis, Futureful is a content discovery tool that’s not dissimilar to StumbleUpon, only more heavily based on semantic tagging and machine learning. It’s due to launch in the U.S. in January. Read more »
