European parliament advised to reject global anti-piracy agreement
A global trade agreement on anti-piracy measures may need a re-think after the European Parliament was advised to vote against it. Read more at GigaOM »
Celebs must clearly identify sponsored tweets, UK body says
Nike falls foul of UK advertising regulators because sponsored tweets for which it paid two top footballers were not obviously marked out as marketing. Read more »
Want U.S. TV shows to succeed abroad? Take them online
Hollywood likes to sell its TV programming in big bundles, leaving foreign broadcasters with lots of shows too edgy for prime time audiences. So why not just take them online? That’s what Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 has been trying this year, and the results have been promising. Read more at GigaOM »
Lagardère buying shopping site LeGuide.com for €98.2 million
photo: Corbis
French magazine and book publisher and broadcaster Lagardère, which underperforms in digital media, has succeeded in acquiring a majority of shopping site LeGuide.com to bolster its efforts. Read more »
Mobile cloud DVR app BooxTV snapped up by Finnish telco
The idea of third-party services that allow online TV recording may have proved controversial in some quarters, but now a Finnish telco is acquiring just such a thing. Read more »
YouView racing to be in homes for Olympics
photo: YouView
For what its worth at this point, the much delayed big UK IPTV joint venture YouView may finally be ready to meet a version of its revised and somewhat arbitrary target of launching in time for the London 2012 Olympics. Read more »
Content with your groceries?: Tesco buys music streamer We7
photo: Corbis
Turns out, supermarkets want to rule the UK’s digital media roost.
Tesco is buying up plucky online music service We7 as the latest plank of its digital ambitions. Read more »
Twitter just threw a lifeline to the content industry
Twitter’s deal with SoundCloud to embed audio in tweets isn’t just a deal that gives the Berlin music startup a ton of exposure: it’s a signal that while Twitter may carry a threat for media companies, it could be a serious alternative to Facebook. Read more at GigaOM »
Pinterest investor Rakuten buys its way in to European VOD
It seems the world has a new digital media M&A power player. Fresh from buying Play.com, Kobo and a piece of Pinterest, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is acquiring Spanish TV and movie streaming service Wuaki.tv. Read more »
Google’s e-book deal could slow rise of Amazon Kindle in Europe
photo: Google
Google announced a major deal in France that clears the way for the sale of millions of e-books that have been caught in legal limbo until now. The deal could spur digital publishing in Europe and shape control of the continent’s fledgling e-book market. Read more »
Readmill boosts independent e-books with new features
Berlin startup Readmill’s iPad-based social reading app has got plenty of attention. Now it’s getting a significant update that will make it simpler and easier to use for everyone — including making it more useful for independent publishers to hook themselves in to. Read more at GigaOM »
Meet the Q&A site where people pay $150 for answers
Forget Quora: Swedish startup Mancx is trying to put a twist on question and answer sites by getting people to pay real money for the information they receive — and it’s just raised another $1.65m to expand. Read more at GigaOM »
First Spotify app gets funded: Soundrop raises $3M
Soundrop became the first app on Spotify’s app platform to secure major funding this week, and its investor is none other than Northzone – a company that also led the music service’s early funding round. But Soundrop has big ambitions that reach well beyond Spotify. Read more at GigaOM »
What will the global e-book market look like by 2016?
photo: Flickr / Mr. iMaax
New data from PwC’s media report projects that e-books will make up 50 percent of the U.S. trade book market by 2016. What will happen in the rest of the world during that time? PwC gave paidContent an exclusive look at the new report’s e-book data. Read more »
Dailymotion buy-out could boost Orange’s IPTV efforts
Orange could benefit from a set of relationships with content owners in its revised approach to digital content distribution if it buys the remaining stake in video service Dailymotion as French reports suggest. Read more »
Thomson Reuters acquires Apsmart for mobile product development
photo: Corbis / Noel Hendrickson
Thomson Reuters is acquiring London-based mobile development outfit Apsmart to build more of its apps for business professionals in-house. Read more »
iPad magazine bundler LeKiosk tries to crack UK, Italy
To Zinio and iTunes Newsstand, now add another iPad magazine aggregator. LeKiosk, which launched in France in January 2011, is now launching in the UK on Monday, and is seeking funding for further internationalisation. Read more »
Viva Hispania: HuffPo, Deezer, Yahoo court Latin dollars
photo: AP Images
Economic growth has created a new middle-class ‘digital Latino’, observers say. Now three big internet brands are embracing Spanish and Latin American audiences with local launches this week. Read more »
Germany’s Springer buys stake in Poland’s top web portal
photo: Galushko Sergey / Shutterstock
German news publisher and multimedia conglomerate Axel Springer is laying down an increasing amount of cash to re-invent itself as a digital player. Now it is buying a position in one of Poland’s most popular web portals, Onet.pl. Read more »
FT’s Grimshaw: Digital subs will soon beat print circulation
Rob Grimshaw runs The Financial Times’ digital operations. He talked to me about HTML5, premium digital content and digital overtaking print in this short video on the fringes of last week’s paidContent 2012 conference. Read more »
Sold for £87 million, but can MoneySavingExpert.com keep savers sweet?
photo: DECC
One of the poster boys for online specialist entrepreneurial journalism is selling to a price comparison website. But can independent personal finance guru Martin Lewis keep his legion followers happy? Read more »
Wires become books, paid becomes free for Queen’s Jubilee
photo: NASA
Some UK publishers are trying their hands at new digital experiences to milk the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne this weekend. Read more »
Yandex bets on iPhone to get Russia paying for music
Moscow-based search engine Yandex is hoping to steal a march on international rivals with a new music subscription app for the iPhone — but it’s gambling that users will be ready to stump up cash for the service in a country where paid-for digital music is […] Read more at GigaOM »
Playfish co-founders take on more VC to fund learning games
An interactive education and books crossover started by some of the founders of Zynga’s main social gaming rival is taking on $4 million in venture funding. Read more »
Google wants greater French acceptance after winning TF1 copyright case
Google is waving its victory in front of French culture makers, after emerging winner from a copyright infringement case brought by France’s largest TV network. Read more »
Slovakia’s news payment system going large in July
photo: Shutterstock / Leoco
Piano Media, the joint web news payment system operating in Slovakia and Slovenia, is preparing to launch in a third, larger market this summer, after recently taking funding for globalisation. Read more »
Facebook doesn’t just want world domination: it needs it
Facebook’s rise has come on the back of astonishing international growth — but it needs to keep expanding everywhere, and in every way, to keep up with investors’ expectations. Where can it find the silver bullet? And how will it happen? Read more at GigaOM »
‘Russia’s Facebook’ loses: court confirms it breaks copyright
Russia’s leading social network, Facebook copycat vKontakte, loses an appeal against a copyright conviction – is that an opportunity for Mark Zuckerberg in Moscow? Read more »
Why Plastic Logic failed — despite the e-book boom
Ten years ago, Plastic Logic looked like it had all the elements in place to become a world-beating startup. Now it’s ditched its attempts to become a household name and decided to focus on licensing its technology instead. So where did it all go wrong? Read more at GigaOM »
Russia’s state piracy monitor could empower copyright owners
photo: Flickr / yeowatzup
Russia’s government has commissioned the building of a system which would let copyright owners identify unauthorised use of their works online. Read more »
How mobile networks are policing the web — badly
Mounting evidence suggests Europe’s mobile operators are becoming increasingly censorious, thanks to haphazard adult content filters that are applied to millions of users. The result? De facto, unregulated censorship that screens out thousands of legitimate websites, including GigaOM. Read more at GigaOM »
Betting big on live sports data, Perform lays €120 million on RunningBall
photo: Perform Group
Fresh from its IPO, the increasingly good-looking online sports video and betting outfit Perform is buying big to add live match data to its services. Read more »
Japan’s Docomo buying mobile content powerhouse Buongiorno for €224 million
photo: Buongiorno
Japan’s largest mobile telco is about to buy in to mobile media content in Europe and farther afield, by acquiring one of the space’s pioneer companies. Read more »
Apple TV rumor mill makes millions as iTV ‘confirmed’
photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Apple may not be buying a high-design German home entertainment device maker, but that doesn’t mean investors in the rumoured target company won’t make a killing – and it doesn’t mean it won’t still have a part to play in Apple’s iTV. Read more »
Fan service Moviepilot steams into Hollywood with $7m round
The Berlin-based IMDB rival Moviepilot, which is already working with film studios to give them better understanding of their projects’ fanbase, has secured funding to put a sales team in LA Read more at GigaOM »
Beyond the birds: Rovio finally ready to diversify?
Rovio may fancy itself as mobile media’s Disney, but only now is it looking at follow-ups to its Mickey Mouse, Angry Birds, as it goes on talking up a future IPO. Read more »
Nevermind austerity; European startups get public funds
photo: Shutterstock / Glovatskiy
Technology investment funds operated by several national and regional governments have largely survived the chop. Here are their latest investments. Read more at GigaOM »
Britain looks at ISP block for adult content — again
photo: Shutterstock / olly
Britain looks set to re-open the question of how adult internet content is regulated, as embattled Prime Minister David Cameron scrambles for ways to shore up support from the conservative heartland. Read more at GigaOM »
MTV will have a hard time charging Brits for VOD
MTV UK has upgraded its MTV OD on-demand platform with catch-up TV shows transmitted in the last seven days – but it may be challenged to make a success of it. Read more »
Science research may be freed from journals’ ‘unhealthy’ paywalls
The UK government has told academic journal publishers it will make freely available online the publicly-funded research they currently charge for, labelling “paywalls” “deeply unhealthy”. Read more »
