Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar, claimed the popularity of the low-end Nokia 610 handset is driving sales in key markets such as Italy and France. According to Kantar, the Windows Phone platform saw growth rates of 6.6% in Italy, 3.5% in France and 2.3% in the UK. The research firm said that in Italy, Windows Phone now holds a double-digit market share, 10.4%, a first in the European market."

According to the UK state broadcaster, the new service will be offered as a Web application for mobile and desktop customers, along with an iOS app followed by Android service. BBC Programmes and On-Demand general manager Daniel Danker said BBC iPlayer Radio is radio for an audience that expects to access the broadcaster's content anywhere. "It's also radio for an audience that wants greater choice and control," Danker said.

The new channels will be launched by a variety of European production companies and are in addition to the 100 channels launched in the U.S. last year. Like the pre-existing American channels, the European channels will be a mix of celebrity-oriented, niche, and established programmes. It is part of YouTube's strategy, which began a year ago, to try to attract television viewers and advertisers by helping to produce high-quality videos that cater to niche interests.

Citizen journalism site Blottr today announced the planned launch of a content syndication network, which will enable subscriber news outlets to access Blottr content an hour before it goes out to others. The network, called NewsPoint, "provides global news content to publishers and news organisations around the world, captured and reported in real-time by those witnessing the event at the scene", according to a release.

Former Exeter Express & Echo editor Marc Astley, who left the paper three months after it switched from a daily to weekly last year, has set up a new website in the city called The Exeter Daily. Astley is planning to roll out the network to other towns and cities across the UK, with several locations already earmarked by the team behind The Exeter Daily. Astley's ambition is to make the website the "number one news and information provider" in the area, providing a mix of UK, local, sports and business news, with a particular emphasis on charities, students, families, …

A police detective unmasked by "The Times" as the author of an anonymous blog after a reporter hacked into his e-mails has been awarded GBP42,500 damages by the publisher of the newspaper. Richard Horton, a detective constable with the Lancashire Constabulary, who was the author of the awardwinning NightJack blog about the realities of policing, had sued "The Times" for "damages for breach of confidence, misuse of private information and deceit."

Mondelez International, the snacks business spun out of Kraft Foods which owns Cadbury, has created a new chocolate bar combining Cadbury Dairy Milk and US brand Oreo. The bar, called Cadbury Dairy Milk with Oreo, will be available from this week. It will be a milk chocolate bar containing a creamy filling with Oreo cookie pieces. Mondelez believes that combining the two bars is a natural fit, which will help raise the reputation of each bar individually.

Mulberry has launched its Brilliant Britain website as a "love letter" to Britain following an inspirational year of Britishness. Following from the British government's GREAT campaign which promoted Britain on an international scale, Mulberry aimed to celebrate quintessentially British landscapes, architecture, crafts food, people, traditions and innovations with a 'live' guide.

Google's shows you a broken robot. Twitter has a team of its mascot birds trying to lift an elephant. Error pages -- that online limbo you go to when you click a broken link or there's a problem with a website -- have become very creative, even cutesy. But now an initiative in Europe wants to make them more useful. Missing Children Europe has partnered with Belgian NGO Child Focus to ask companies to donate their websites' error pages to help spread the word about missing children.

Quebec drugstore chain Familiprix Group has pulled one of its television ads after it was criticized for allegedly fostering gay-bashing. Quebec City-based Familiprix moved quickly Thursday to yank the controversial ad, which shows a pharmacist on the sidewalk using the mirrored window of a bobybuilding gym to lick his lips and wipe away excess ice cream from the cone he's been slurping.