Head of digital for the Guardian Media Group Simon Waldman hits back with both barrels today at John Duncan and his assertion in a previous issue of Press Gazette that online teams have ‘conned’ unsuspecting newspaper boards into making investments in online publishing. Here are some key quotes from his piece in today’s Press Gazette: “The current forecasts for growth in the UK market indicate that, on average, digital spending
Today I’ve been reading Rex Hammock’s Weblog (thanks Voidstar for the link) who writes about how Facebook it’s not really the Holy Grail for either social networking or being the ultimate tool for collaborative working and tracking. He calls it’ “geek play”, and I agree. He says: Facebook is not even close to being what will ultimately be that thing which alters fundamentally the way in which we relate and
Jaman, California-based company that offers full length movies for either downloads or rental via a P2P client is planning to launch a European arm. The move is prior to an expansion of its programme of buying up rights to “mid-tail” independent and niche films. Unlike Joost, which is really aimed at TV viewers, Jaman is going for audiences who want successful independent film (the kind of thing “Trainspotting” was once
There are some fascinating lessons to be learned from the closure of BackFence.com in the US. I think the most salient come in the comments to this story, namely that: • “Hyper-local is about utility and networks of people, not citizen journalism” • “they approached the problem from the top down rather than working to organize and shape existing natural local networks and chatter” • “See the existing 72,000+ public
About-nokia.com: According to Finnpanel 1.6 million Finns (older than 9 years) have a radio on their cell phone. That’s 36 % of the finnish population (in 2005 the figure was 17%).
The BBC reports on research by Danah Boyd which found that Facebook users come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college while MySpace users tend not to have gone on to further education. While “class” in the US does not map directly to income it is more about social life and networks. Hence Facebook users tend to be white and education oriented while MySpace teenager tend to
Qualcomm’s MediaFlo says it will beat DVB-H installations by year end. MediaFlo expects to overtake its TV-to-mobile rivals by the end of the year, helped by distribution and take-up on two main US wireless networks (Verizon and AT&T), a surge in Italy and its Korean DMB system. Speaking at BroadcastAsia, Omar Javaid, VP/business development for MediaFlo said MediaFlo also has a commitment from Japan’s KDDI to start transmissions, while Nokia’s
This is thin stuff. “There is increasing buzz around buzz.” Oh, come on. You guys need to realise that online identity in the form of a MySpace or Facebook profile is as much content as anything someone might ‘upload’. Furthermore, microblogging a la Twitter is the tip of the ice-burg. When ‘uploaders’ include those who are happy to blog in just 140 characters (many more than the blessed 8% I
This is the text of a speech I gave at the PSFK London conference on Friday, June 1, 2007. It’s about how media owners now face some very harsh realities against both technology companies that put the power to publish in the hands of the ‘audience’ and smaller, cheaper to run media startups. There’s a little story about the first stirring of how a new kind of cheap to produce,
No wonder Google has acquired RSS management service Feedburner. FeedBurner publishes feeds for PC World, Computerworld, Macworld, Reuters, USA Today, AOL, Newsweek and many many more big and small publishers. That means the bulk of the content from these sites passes through Feedburner, and what does Google love? Content and data, but especially eyeballs. According to TechCrunch (following an unconfirmed rumour on Vecosys) Feedburner is in the closing stages of