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.

We understand that Monday was a bank holiday, at least in Britain, so we put together this special issue designed to share what is happening in online media on the other side of the Atlantic, specifically in the U.S.

It took a couple of days, but Google has finally responded to the $1-billion-plus jury verdict against its partner Samsung Electronics for infringing on Apple's patents. Its take on the impact of the verdict on its popular Android mobile software: Most of the claims don't relate to "the core Android." "The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims," Google said in an emailed statement.

Cromwell Schubarth reports, in the Nashville Business Journal, that according to the study, 70% of the Fortune 500 CEOs have zero presence on social media. Most surprising was the lack of engagement on LinkedIn, the social network targeted at the business community. Cromwell says that only 26% of this group use LinkedIn, and of that group, only 36% have only one connection, and only 10% have at least 500 connections.