M&M Global
Continuing with its reset strategy, the "Best of Now" campaign aims to position MSN UK as a one stop shop for the best of what the web has to offer. It is the first consumer focused campaign since the strategy's launch in November. The site updates as part of the campaign include prominent positioning for trending stories taken from the blogsphere and social media sites, a curated twitter list and data visualisations based on the day's top stories. The campaign will also be using Facebook advertising centred around a 'now calculator' that assigns users a 'Now' score based on how …
The Local
Spotify was launched in 2008 and has become the world's largest and fastest growing music service of its kind. After launching in the U.S. in July 2011, the company reached its 2.5 million subscriber milestone during the autumn and released an iPad app earlier in May. The company now boasts more than 10 million active users and more than three million paying subscribers. Spotify is currently available in 15 countries around the world: Germany, U.S., UK, Sweden, France, Spain, Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand.
Bloomberg
Rising competition from online services like Netflix and Amazon's Lovefilm has loosened BSkyB's dominance over first rights to show films, the Competition Commission said Wednesday in a statement, in a reverse of its earlier findings. The regulator provisionally found in August that BSkyB's control over the market led to higher prices and reduced choice for subscribers. The commission said previously that it was considering forcing BSkyB to resell movie content to rivals. In response, BSkyB is bringing out its own Web-television service, dubbed Now TV, to gain new customers.
The Telegraph
The account, @spacehijackers, is run by a group of anti-capitalist activists who regularly protest in a variety of ways against big corporations. Their latest campaign is against the Olympic Games and within the last two weeks, the group has changed their Twitter biography to read: "the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Olympic Games". The group's account has also adopted a new Twitter avatar and wallpaper design - featuring a doctored version of the official logo of the London Olympics. A spokesman for the group, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Telegraph that the account, which has been active …
Journalism.co.uk
When ITV News launched a new website two months ago the site started presenting news in a way that was radically different from before. Made by Many, the company which re-invented the site, wanted to "make a news service that answered the question: 'What would news be like if we had networked digital media (and digital cameras and phones and laptops) but there had never been newspapers or broadcast TV news programmes?'". They came up with a "digital native" news format that includes tweets and other social media content from the broadcaster's correspondents, experts and eye witnesses.
Press Gazette
The main focus of the UK's biggest-selling regional newspaper in ten years' time will still be on print, Express & Star executive editor Mark Drew has told the paper's readers. The paper's commitment to print is in contrast with rival regional publisher Johnston Press, which sees its future as "digital first" and this month converted five of its dailies into weeklies. Drew, who has more than 20 years of experience in journalism, also said there was "no reason to doubt" the Express & Star would ever follow Johnston's lead and become a weekly paper.
The Australian
Quickflix has announced it has launched an application for the iPhone and iPad enabling users to access the companys digital streaming service whereever they are. The app allows Quickflix subscribers to view unlimited movies and television shows instantly, on-demand from the company's library of content. The Quickflix app is available now available from the Apple App Store.
The Guardian
The publisher of Fast Car and Metal Hammer is also reporting a GBP700,000 pre-tax loss largely to continuing problems with its US business. Future said on Tuesday that total revenues for the six-month period fell 11% year on year to GBP61.1m as the company slipped from a GBP1.2m profit to a GBP700,000 loss. However, UK revenues grew by 1% year on year to GBP47.8m as the company hailed reaching the much sought-after tipping point of the decline in print revenues being balanced by growth in digital.
Daily Deal Media
Retail research agency Conlumino says "smart TV" purchasing is on the rise. Up to 25% of UK consumers will make online purchases from interactive TVs before the end of 2014. The research was conducted for eBay, and stated that because eCommerce is becoming the "norm" now, once everyone hops on board, buying habits will shift and consumers will make small changes in the way they access online purchases. EBay spokesperson Angus McCarey expects that Interactive TV shopping will serve as a refreshing addition to eCommerce and mobile commerce, and will provide continuity, so that consumers will embrace the format.
The Telegraph
In excess of 3,000 people were polled by Digital Spy, a large UK entertainment site, in a bid to discover British people's TV viewing habits. The report found that in spite of on-demand and catch-up options, 75% of TV viewers prefer to watch content live. More than a fifth polled (20.5% now watch live TV on their iPads - while 26.5% access live programmes on iPhones and 8.9% on Android-powered devices. Sky still steals the top spot as the preferred platform for catching up with programmes, with 57.5% of audiences preferring to use the pay-TV platform.