Within five years, The BBC will be completely repositioned as a Web-first media broadcaster. So, Matthew Postgate, the BBC’s technology chief, tells the Financial Times. “It’s my job over the next five years to put in place the production foundations to be Internet first,” he said Media groups “are going to have to learn lessons if they’re going to be in a position to compete with organisations that were born in the digital age.” 

To better understand its readership and their consumptive behavior, Vox Media has acquired the data specialists at OpBandit. “OpBandit tracks information about readers and their behaviour and uses it to determine the best content to show them on a publisher’s site,” The Financial Times reports. “It allows us to be a much smarter publisher,” according to Trei Brundrett, chief product officer at Vox. 

Ahead of the next presidential election, Funny or Die is coming to Washington. “The comedy Web site responsible for getting President Obama between two ferns is opening a Washington outpost,” The Washington Post reports. “Funny or Die’s new D.C. office will be helmed by Brad Jenkins, who was a leading liaison between Hollywood and 1600 Pennsylvania as an associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement.” 

Bloomberg Businessweek checks out a few startups trying to take on Craigslist and its control of the online classifieds market. There’s VarageSale, which just raised $34 million from venture funds Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. “OfferUp, another marketplace that, like VarageSale, focuses on tailoring its interface for smartphones, has raised more than $60 million from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.” 

Determined to protect U.S. businesses and consumers from foreign cyberattacks, President Obama just signed an executive order allowing for targeting sanctions. The order establishes “the first sanctions program to allow the administration to impose penalties on individuals overseas who engage in destructive attacks or commercial espionage in cyberspace,” The Washington Post reports.