A joint study by Easynet and Ipanema Technologies has found that a majority of CIOs and IT bosses block access to social networks and video-sharing sites during office hours, with UK business leaders marginally more likely than their continental counterparts to restrict Internet usage during the work day. Facebook is the most blocked website with 69% of British-based administrators prohibiting in-office access, while 62% give the red light to YouTube.

Several leading UK internet service providers have refused to sign a code of conduct designed to guarantee "full and open access" to the net. Ten ISPs including BT, O2 and Talktalk backed the agreement promising not to restrict or block content unless there was a reason to deploy "reasonable traffic management practices". But Virgin Media said the principles set out were too vague while Vodafone said the code was "impractical". Everything Everywhere also opted out.

Virgin Media's internet TV service TiVo signed its millionth customer this week, helping to boost half-year sales figures. These were up 3.3% to GBP2.03billion in the six months to the end of June, with profits at GBP72m after the number of clients paying for its superfast broadband (30Mb and above) increased by 459,800, to 1.3 million, in the three months to June 30. Operating cash flow rose 2.7% to GBP789 million but second quarter disconnections were worse than expected at 14,700.

Exotic vacation destinations provide rich source material for photographers, and yet they are also often places where people are in real need. That's a situation new Berlin startupPhotocircle is trying to help improve - by providing a deeper link between the two worlds. It's a very simple idea: If a photographer has taken a fine-art-quality snap somewhere around the world, they can upload it to Photocircle for consideration, choose the markup they'd like put on it and the percentage of that markup they'd like to see donated to charity.

The message, which began to hit people's phones on Monday, reads: "Sum1 paid me to kill you. Get spared, 48hrs to pay $5000. If you inform the police or anybody, death is promised." It directs people to a Yahoo email account which police have now disabled. The fraud is believed to be the work of an organised crime gang.

The figure was released by the Swedish streaming company to mark the first anniversary of its launch in the US. Spotify chose not to reveal how many US users it has managed to attract in its first 12 months. However, it did also disclose that 27.8 million songs have been shared by its users across a range of services. Unsurprisingly Facebook was the service that most people chose to share song recommendations with each other - as Spotify teamed up with the social network at the same time it launched in the US in a bid to boost its membership …

The paper has announced that an online make-over is coming soon. And it's fair to say it has been badly in need of a revamp for some time. It says its new look, with a colour coding system and more video content, will contain tools to improve navigation. By introducing icons for Facebook and Twitter, it will also enable users to share articles. A short video gives a hint of the so-called "new dawn" promising bigger pictures and and "the hottest celebs."

In a move to counteract leaks, organisers emblazoned a Twitter hashtag #savethesurprise on screens inside the Olympic Stadium on Monday, urging people to use that tag to build a buzz before Friday, and participants hoped this would work. "The ceremony is very emotional, very British, with quirky humour. And it will have surprises, even for the critics," said Dikaia Chatziefstathiou, who researches the Olympic movement at Canterbury University and is dancing in the opening ceremony.

The Trinity Mirror company behind the Daily Record and Sunday Mail, as well as around 20 local newspapers, has launched the first phase of a process which will see the production of all its publications and websites centralised under one roof. Around 30 of its local newspaper production staff, who were once housed in various bases around Scotland, have now been transferred to the company's Glasgow HQ. There they are being trained in a new editorial system that has been developed in part by Trinity Mirror journalists.

Research by digital communications agency, The Group, reveals that audiences are increasingly connecting with UK businesses on social media networks. The study which looks into how Britain uses social media shows that LinkedIn has become the most popular social media channel for FTSE 100 companies. Nearly 90 organisations are actively using accounts to connect with 1.9 million people on the site. Between December 2011 and June 2012 the number of users on LinkedIn connecting with FTSE 100 companies grew by 35% resulting in two users per second connecting with FTSE 100 companies on LinkedIn.