Digital Media News (week 08)
Date:
22 February 2013
Our round up of the week's biggest digital media news in Scotland and beyond
Local industry news
From The Courier
"A Dundee games developer has been nominated for a Bafta videogames award. 4J Studios… has been nominated in the best
family game category for its X-Box 360 version of Minecraft. The development team behind Lego Lord of the Rings, which includes Dundee audio providers Euphonious, has also been nominated in the best family game category as well as the best British game field". On the subject of awards, on the 12th of February Virgin Media announced that Minecraft for Xbox 360 won Best Downloadable Game of 2012 at the Virgin Media Awards."
From mobile entertainment
"Augmented reality specialist Zappar is currently working on a Comic Relief campaign for Red Nose Day 2013, while Mind Candy has now enlisted the firm to bring its Moshi Monsters Light Buddies key rings to life. There are 12 Light Buddies available, and the Zappar Android/iOS app will allow parents to pacify children as the key rings are animated on device screens."
From Scotland on Sunday
"Scottish games companies are taking advantage of a resurgence in the market as demand for free-to-play titles drives employment and ¬creates new opportunities. Reloaded Productions, based in Edinburgh, California and North Carolina, has successfully resurrected All Points Bulletin… Hunted Cow, are set to release a completely new MMO game, the fantasy-themed game, Eldevin, in weeks. The Elgin-based firm said it has 4.6 million regular users waiting for the launch."
From Scotland on Sunday
"A Scottish digital marketing agency that specialises in making websites more visible to search engines is opening an office in New York after tripling its sales last year. Edinburgh-based QueryClick, which launched five years ago, says the new base will allow it to service accounts with United States-focused clients such as Hunter Boots and Lochcarron more conveniently."
From the Herald
"An ambitious Scottish audio company backed by the Scottish Investment Bank and in its first year of product sales has been sold to a Californian computer hardware group. Simple Audio, founded five years ago in Cathcart, Glasgow, by four former executives of high-end audio company Linn, has developed a networked HD music streaming system which sells below the £1000 level at which Linn products begin. It has been acquired in a "multimillion-dollar deal" by Corsair, which makes high-performance products primarily for PC gaming enthusiast."
From the Scottishgames.net
"Quartic Llama… has just completed work on a new project with the National Museum of Scotland, designed to help visitors enjoy the organisation’s new viking exhibit. Vikings! Training School helps would be Norse invaders to hone their skills and learn the ways of Viking warriors, craftspeople and navigators."
General industry
From the Guardian
"Pink is a colour associated with good health and in the past the salmon shades of the Financial Times's pages seemed to signal some immunity from the circulation ravages suffered by other national newspapers. However, the FT has been undergoing a digital revolution – one that editor Lionel Barber says requires continual editorial change and which may see the importance of those pink pages fade, replaced by the dominance of online news."
From the Wall Street Journal
"A Texas county is set this fall to open one of the nation's first entirely digital public libraries, an information storehouse where people will be able to check out books only by downloading them to their own devices or borrowing electronic readers."
From the Next Web
"The Brit Awards 2013 are to be Shazam-enabled. The music ceremony which is the UK’s version of the Grammys, will be broadcast live with opportunities for viewers to ‘Shazam’ the program to access exclusive content… When music fans use the Shazam app to tag the show while it is being broadcast, they should be able to see content behind the scenes of the show, material with guest presenters and more from the acts involved in the ceremony."
From Venture Beat
"The statistics around mobile gaming are becoming staggering... The numbers suggest that a sweeping shift is happening in the industry… Much of the excitement is, of course, focused on the growth of iPhones and iPads and their Android counterparts. The app economy is creating jobs for small studio developers at a time when the big console game companies are hurting… In 2012, revenue earned from apps will approach $10 billion, with games taking over 80 percent of the pie, Flurry reported."
From Venture Beat
"PlaySpan took a deeper look at four key payment trends that will have a positive impact on the future of game development… 1) Gamers are using multiple channels to make payments, 2) Alternative payments offer appealing features and benefits to gamers, 3) In-app purchases dominate the growing mobile platform, 4) Digital wallets gain acceptance, but there are strong differences between genders."
Reports
From the Guardian
"Digital publishers in Britain believe there are reasons to be cheerful. A survey conducted among members of the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) found that there has been a shift from cost-cutting to revenue growth. Advertising revenues grew 12% in the final quarter of 2012, according to the latest AOP "digital publishers revenue index."
From Digital Media Wire
"Nearly 6 trillion display ad impressions were delivered across the web in 2012, though an average of 30% of them were never actually seen by their target audiences, according to a new report about the U.S. digital landscape by comScore. The company’s annual “Digital Future in Focus” report examines the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce, and what these trends mean for the year ahead."
Events
From Creative Edinburgh
"The digital landscape is fast evolving, driven by the proliferation in devices & platforms through which content is created and shared. This is increasingly having greater influence on how creative businesses & practitioners operate… This conference will explore cross digital platforms as new drivers of creative business and the opportunities/ challenges that digital production and distribution have for creatives in Scotland"
The event takes place on 21 March at the Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh.
From Nesta
"We are hosting 4 events across Scotland in Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The One Day Digital events are organised by Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation. We are supported by Nominet Trust, Think Big with O2 and the Scottish Government. Our delivery partners include BBC, STV, Mozilla, MAKLab, the University of Dundee, Coder Dojo, Quartic Llama and Young Rewired State."
And finally
From Quartz
"Simon Tian says he has in-hand a working prototype of something nearly unprecedented in consumer electronics: a smartphone the size of a watch. Not just a smart watch, but an actual, fully-featured smartphone running Google’s Android software that straps onto your wrist. Along with his team of nine at the Montreal, Quebec-based startup Neptune, he’ll be unveiling it in mid-April. Tian is only 18 years old—the founder and youngest member of Neptune."