Regional newspapers might have reported another disappointing set of print sales figures in the first half of this year, but their websites have surged in popularity. Many regional newspapers reported double-digit readership boosts, compared to a year ago, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Wednesday. Some titles, including the Manchester Evening News and Sunderland Echo, grew their number of daily online readers by a third year on year.

Spotify more than doubled its revenue through 2011/12 after expanding to new countries like the U.S.. But the cost of doing so ballooned by the same proportion. The company spent 97% of the the EUR187.8 million it earned. So annual loss widened to EUR45.4 million. In its 2011/12 Luxembourg filing, the company acknowledges: "In a low-margin business dependent on rapid growth to cover fixed costs, it is crucial that the group continues to penetrate existing and new markets as quickly as possible..."

Britain's biggest department store will be the first retailer outside the United States to sell the bookstore chain's e-reader, selling the devices at each of its 37 stores. The Nook has emerged as the main rival to Amazon's Kindle range in the United States. The cheapest model costs $99, or around GBP63. The cheapest Kindle costs $79 in America, but carries advertising. In Britain the cheapest Kindle is GBP89 but advertising-free. Barnes & Noble has not revealed pricing for its British launch.

A German consumer watchgroup announced that Facebook's App Centre was releasing user data to third parties without receiving user consent.According to Reuters, Germany's largest consumer lobby group has given a September 4 deadline for the network to fix the alleged problem or they will seek legal action. Gathering personal information without a user's consent is a violation of Germany's Telemedia Act.

Between July 2011 and June 2012, the phone hacking scandal was the subject of one in five British journalists' tweets, found the 'News Tweet Index', published by communications company Portland. 'Murdoch', 'hacking' and 'NOTW' [News of the World] dominated journalists' discussions on Twitter over the last 12 months. Portland said its index "highlights the power of Twitter as an open forum for public debates. The microblogging site breaks open discussions that would previously have been held behind closed doors."

Someone in the BBC has sat down and really thought about the online space. I've already touched on how the British broadcaster is building a foundation on the social networks in advance of the opening episode this Saturday (Trusting Social Media And The Asylum of Doctor Who Fans). But what happens outside the UK as the Asylum of the Daleks episode finishes and the Internet explodes in speculation about the Dalek Badger (honestly... it's not a spoiler)?

The broadcaster has acted to "future proof" its online presence with the new responsive technology, which essentially resizes and reorganises the content for the specific platform on which it is being viewed, such as smartphones and tablets. The redeisgned site is also now prepped for "future innovations" such as converged TV, said Channel 4. ITN, which produces Channel 4 News, said last month that it intended to adopt responsive design on its video site. But it is thought that no current UK news programme has so far adopted the technology online.

Facebook's bold list of changes will put more pressure on advertisers to come up with compelling content and integrate themselves further into consumers' lives. The big loser? The "Like," which will have a smaller role in marketing, industry analysts say. One big change is that Facebook has added a control in the top right of each story that users can check to unmark a top story. Facebook will use that information over time to automatically edit the feeds.

Less than two weeks after agreeing to pay a $22.5 million fine for violating the privacy of the users of Apple's Safari web browser, Google is beefing up its privacy team to make sure that past mistakes aren't repeated. The search giant has posted a job notice to its website for a data privacy engineer for its privacy "red team." According to the listing, the privacy engineer would be responsible for ensuring that Google's products operate in a manner that protects the privacy of its users.

IAC/InterActive Corp. IAC won a month-long bidding war for the question and answer website -- for $300 million. Four weeks ago, Answers.com had signed a letter of intent to take About.com off the Times' hands for $270 million. The president of Answers.com, Peter Horan, had previously been the CEO of About.com. The interactive media and ad company plans to integrate About.com into its own search engine and question-and-answer service, Ask.com.