The launch of the Time Out Manchester site today will be followed by Edinburgh at the end of October, Leeds and Glasgow in November. Bristol and Birmingham will launch in early 2015. Each new city will have its own local editor who will curate content from local experts. Rob Martin is the editor and digital content producer for Time Out Manchester and Time Out Leeds. Time Out is also launching an extensive blogger network to run on individual city sites. This will cover a number of topics such as food, drink, music, art, style and entertainment.

New research from Yahoo reveals that mobile users are twice as likely to engage with advertising when it sits contextually within a stream of content. The brand's mobile native advertising study shows that smartphone users are twice as likely to agree that if content is engaging they do not care if it's an ad. It also reveals that 85% "visually engaged" with an advert, meaning that a user saw a native ad when presented in a content stream, which is 21% higher than on other types of display ads on mobile.

Sky is the latest brand to sign up to Twitter's Amplify ad format as it looks to fully integrate its content and sponsors in an online environment. Speaking at an IAB Digital Upfronts event, Sky head of futures David Fisher said the new partnership will enable Sky to bring content from across its portfolio -- including sport and entertainment -- in front of the Twitter audience and create opportunities for the Sky brand, the rights and partner sponsors. The Amplify platform, which launched in May 2013, is now live in 10 countries.

The chairman of Google has delivered a snub to the firm's competitors by naming e-commerce site Amazon as the search engine's biggest rival in a surprising speech in Berlin on Monday. Eric Schmidt said: "Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo. But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon. "People don't think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon....they are answering users' questions and searches, just as we are."

A global radio industry coalition backed by the BBC and the Government is aiming to put pressure on smartphone manufacturers to build tuners into handsets to serve younger audiences and boost flagging take-up of DAB. Broadcasters hope the initiative will encourage major smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple to include DAB hardware in new handsets and help ensure the future of broadcast radio.

AB InBev, the brewer that owns Stella Artois, Budweiser, Corona and Beck's, called a European media review in June. Other agency groups believed to have competed for the business are Publicis Groupe and Havas Media. Dentsu Aegis already works with AB InBev in the UK. The European business -- including major markets of France, Germany, Spain and Russia -- will be led by Vizeum's global team in the UK, with the exception of Germany, which will be handled by sibling agency Carat.

Unilever, Red Bull, Mondelez, Samsung, BMW, Procter & Gamble and Volkswagen are among the advertisers that have signed up to join Facebook's new EMEA "client council." Facebook has published details of the council and its rationale on a blog post. It will help Facebook align its business priorities with the marketing needs of brands -- for instance, by fostering greater levels of creativity in copy and imagery used in campaigns on the social network.

Last month, Ofcom refused a request from Evgeny Lebedev's ESTV Ltd -- the provider for London Live -- to make changes to its programming that would have made it considerably less local. Following this decision, ESTV Ltd submitted a second request. The local TV channel proposed reducing its local programming repeats from 10 to six hours a day, and from an hour and a half to zero in peak time (6 p.m.-10.30 p.m.). This request was significantly more limited in scope than its previous application. Ofcom has accepted the change.

Starcom MediaVest Group UK (SMG) has created a London Operations Team (LOT) tasked with refining and rolling out new board strategies directly into the agency. From next week, LOT will consist of 11 senior staff members resulting in a raft of senior promotions designed to bring the next generation of key leaders to the forefront of the agency. The introduction of LOT and the promotions are attempts by co-CEOs Steve Parker and Pippa Glucklich to help kick-start the Publicis Groupe agency's new phase of growth.

Apple's and Google's popularity show no signs of waning after they became the only two companies to have a brand value of more than $100bn. The iPhone maker secured its spot as the world's most valuable brand with a value of $118.9bn, a 21 percent year-on-year increase, according to brand consultancy Interbrand. Google trailed its tech rival with $107bn valuation, a 15 percent jump. Coke came in at third place with a valuation of $81bn. The brand was knocked off the top spot by Apple last year.