Mobile technology and social networks aren’t just disruptive to existing industries like communications and media, they are also helping the change the way that students learn and how education is delivered both in North America and around the world. And the disruption is just beginning. Read more at GigaOM »
E-reader company Kobo is expanding to South Africa and hopes to make up 50 percent of the country’s small ebook market within a year, competing against Amazon’s Kindle. Read more »
Google Play users won’t have to upload every single song to their music locker anymore. Google just introduced its own version of iTunes Match, which identifies songs on a user’s hard drive and then unlocks them in the cloud. The main difference: Google’s version is free. Read more at GigaOM »
Scandinavian newspaper publisher Schibsted is keeping up its efforts to diversify and attract user payments by investing in a regional ebook service. Read more »
In an attempt to gain a larger slice of the ebook market, struggling Sony is launching a virtual book club. 25 “VIP members” will be chosen to receive a free Sony Reader and ebooks in exchange for promoting the book club online. Read more »
Freemium app revenue is now dominating premium for developers on both iOS and Android, said App Annie. The analytics firm said that freemium apps generate 69 percent of the worldwide iOS app revenue and 75 percent of global Android app revenues. Read more »
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 »
Amazon is opening the Japanese Kindle Store, with over 50,000 Japanese-language titles, on Thursday. The company is also taking preorders for the Kindle Paperwhite, Fire and Fire HD in Japan, and they will begin shipping in November and December. Read more »
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 »
A new Pew report on young Americans’ reading habits and library usage finds most of them reading ebooks on cell phones or computers — but the data is nearly a year old. Read more »
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 »
Apple introduced a bunch of new products Tuesday, October 23rd, including the anticipated debut of the iPad Mini as well as a new iPad, extremely thing new iMac, and a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Here’s how events unfolded in San Jose, Calif. Read more at GigaOM »
In the investor call following Yahoo’s third quarter earnings report, new CEO Marissa Mayer laid out her vision for the company going forward. “The best days lie ahead,” she said. “We intend to do great things and we intend to win.” Read more »
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 »
Amazon has apparently discontinued the Kindle Touch, which started at $99, in favor of the new Kindle Paperwhite, which starts at $119 and is still experiencing 4- to 6-week shipping delays. The company also discontinued the 9.7″ Kindle DX this month. Read more »
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 »
Rovio, whose “Angry Birds” app has been downloaded over 1 billion times, announced its first book app, a $0.99 iPad cookbook called “Bad Piggies’ Best Egg Recipes,” at the Frankfurt Book Fair Thursday. “We’re looking for millions of downloads,” CMO Peter Vesterbacka said. Read more »
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 »
Startup BookShout lets users import their Kindle and Nook books into its iOS, Android and web-based social reading platform. But the function doesn’t work very well yet, and it seems as if it’s only a matter of time before Barnes & Noble or Amazon shuts it down. Read more »
At the Frankfurt Book Fair on Tuesday, Berlin-based Txtr announced a tiny e-reader that will cost under €10 when subsidized by mobile carriers. With the Beagle, the company aims to convert the 80 percent of global mobile phone users who don’t already read ebooks. Read more »
UK mobile ad spending is more than doubling year-on-year, according to new figures, as two more vendors in the space take on new financing to exploit the sector’s growth opportunity. Read more »
Barnes & Noble and Microsoft have finalized their previously announced partnership, which spins B&N’s digital and college businesses off into a subsidiary that will now be called Nook Media. Microsoft is investing $300 million in the new company and retains a 17.6 percent stake. Read more at GigaOM »
Whilst adding Viacom as a US investor, Zeebox wants to augment The X Factor not just with tweets but with a parallel live tablet video stream. Is this second-screen convergence, or just multimedia overkill? Read more »
Amazon’s new e-reader, the Kindle Paperwhite, started shipping on Monday but is already sold out. Customers who order one today won’t receive it for four to six weeks. Read more at GigaOM »
The New York Times is introducing an HTML5 web app for the iPad that will offer digital subscribers another way to access content outside the Times’ website and native apps. The Times said the app is experimental and part of its larger NYT Everywhere strategy. Read more »
At a New York ad event, Google executives explained how ad buyers should invest in small screens. The presentation contained hype and nonsense but very few practical suggestions. Read more at GigaOM »
I spent a week testing Amazon’s new e-reader, the Kindle Paperwhite, which starts at $119. The verdict: The front-lit screen improves the reading experience all day long, not just at night, making this a big step up from the Kindle Touch. Here are my review and video. Read more at GigaOM »
Cliptamatic, a new mobile video app, is designed to make sharing short premium video content easy. The app is starting with sports, election and comedy clips but will soon include TV and movie clips. Read more at GigaOM »
Fans who preordered the ebook edition of J.K. Rowling’s new book, “The Casual Vacancy,” are in for a disappointment today: Due to a file formatting mishap, It’s basically unreadable on e-readers. Read more »
Barnes & Noble’s new Nook HD tablets, priced starting at $199, aim to stand out from the pack with reader-centric features and enhanced reading experiences for magazines and catalogs. The company’s goal is to drive book discovery and purchasing through the tablets in new ways. Read more at GigaOM »
Thirst Labs is working on a new version of its iPhone and iPad apps that removes the Twitter timeline and mentions from options available, but the app’s news reader still has nice features to offer, assuming it can bring in more news sources outside of Twitter. Read more at GigaOM »
Google added new Japanese reading features to its ebooks app yesterday and is now selling the Nexus 7, ebooks and movies through the Google Play store in Japan. Kobo expanded to Japan in July, and Kindle is expected to launch there in October. Read more »
Google is adding some new features to its Android ebooks app, including highlighting and annotation, translation, dictionary definitions and geographic information. Google Play Books for iOS lacks these features for now. Read more »
Much digital news consumption is moving to mobile devices. But the money isn’t yet following. UK publishers say slow-coach ad agencies still wedded to desktop web ads are at fault. Read more »
Consumers’ desire to consume content on mobile applies to video just as much to display. YouTube’s head product developer shared what this means for content makers and for advertisers. Read more »
At GigaOM’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Jack Buser, Sony’s senior director of PlayStation digital platforms, talked about why Sony developed the PlayStation Mobile platform for PlayStation games that can, for the first time, be played on devices not made by the Japanese company. Read more »
Walmart has announced that it will stop selling Kindles in its stores and on its website, suggesting that as it beefs up its own e-commerce strategy it does not want to turn sales over to a competitor. Target also stopped carrying Kindles in May. Read more at GigaOM »
One of the recent crop of mobile personalised news aggregators is being acquired by an RSS advertising company looking to take its ads in to smartphones. Read more »
Is Instagram the next best place for advertising? VenueSeen, a startup based in Columbus, OH, is aiming to crack the nut on marketing brands via Instagram, by taking advantage of the platform’s exclusive, organic nature and integrating brand engagement with user content. Read more at GigaOM »
Adobe sounded the death knell for Flash on Android last month. Deciding there is no viable alternative video technology, the BBC is keeping Adobe’s alive through its own workaround app. Blame Android fragmentation. Read more »
