Digital Media News (week 32)
Date:
30 July 2012
Weekly bulletin collating public sector, industry and company news for creative industries by David Hartley.
Public sector
From the Scottish Government
"Details, including cost and number of downloads of the 'four mobile apps commissioned by the Scottish Government's Digital, Marketing and International Team. They are Robert Burns, SG News, St Andrew’s Day, and Queen of Scots (Diamond Jubilee). The first three are available in iPhone and Android format. Queen of Scots app is iPhone only.'"
Local industry news
From The Next Web
"Urban Airship, the firm known for providing push messaging services, and predictive analytics specialists GamesAnalytics, today announced a strategic partnership that should help games developers attract the attention of their users.
"GamesAnalytics' predictive modelling can be used to determine which gamers are most likely to churn, which are the most social and which are most likely to pay for virtual goods in order to target promotions and offers that increase retention and drive revenue."
From All Media Scotland
"A Glasgow-based independent TV production company is to screen on the internet two one-day international cricket matches involving Scotland. The matches - versus Canadam in Edinburgh, on Monday and Wednesday - are to be broadcast by QuipuTV."
From The Scotsman
"Dating website operator Cupid still has 'plenty of scope' for further takeover deals this year after yesterday tying the knot with a French peer. The Edinburgh-based company, run by serial technology entrepreneur Bill Dobbie, will be sitting on a war chest of nearly £11 million come the end of the year to fuel further takeovers, according to analysts.
"In its latest deal, Aim-quoted Cupid will buy Assistance Genie Logiciel (AGL) from private equity fund Financiere PES for €3.7m (£2.9m)"
From Business 7
"Findmypast will be competing in the US with market leader ancestry.com IT and web hosting firm Brightsolid is launching its family history division Findmypast in the United States.
"Brightsolid's online publishing division, which also includes genesreunited.co.uk, scotlandspeople.gov.uk and friendsreunited.co.uk - which it bought in March 2010 – collectively have 18 million registered users."
From allmediainscotland
"What is believed to be the first mobile app for local weekly newspaper in Scotland is being launched by the newspapers group, Clyde and Forth Press. The publisher – behind titles such as the Greenock Telegraph and the Dunfermline Press – is tomorrow launching an app for its Helensburgh Advertiser newspaper.
The launch coincides with a new app for the evening newspaper, the Greenock Telegraph, and – says Clyde and Forth – it 'is the start of a sequence of similar apps being rolled out for all of the group's paid-for titles.'"
General industry
From Tech Crunch
"A milestone reached as the world of old media continues its push in a digital direction: the storied, pink-sheeted daily newspaper the Financial Times, read by 2.1 million readers daily, today said digital subscribers now outnumber those in print, and that digital revenues now account for half of all sales in the FT Group. And what’s more, sales actually grew rather than declined."
From Venture Beat
"The common belief is that Zynga has social games locked up on Facebook. But the social network is eager to dispel that idea, even if Zynga has 243 million monthly active users, or more users than the next top five players combined, according to AppData.
"Sarah Brooks, the game strategic partner manager at Facebook, said in a talk at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle that plenty of new players have engaged in social games in the past year. She said more than 130 games have over 1 million monthly active users (MAU) on Facebook."
From The Next Web
"Apple has announced a total of 410M iOS devices sold, with more than $5.5 billion in payments to developers. In addition, the company has also shared that there are now as many as 255k iPad apps in the App Store, a feat that Apple reached for the iPhone back in 2010"
From Venture Beat
"Failing is common in the game industry. So learning from it is pretty important, especially in an era when games are more like never-ending services than finished products.
"That was one of the lessons from a panel at the IGDA Summit, which is part of the Casual Connect conference in Seattle. Panel moderator and entrepreneur David Edery, the CEO of social game studio Spry Fox, asked game industry veterans how they've dealt with failure and pivoted toward success in their careers."
From Tech Crunch
"The Apple iOS is surging ahead of the Google Android platform for enterprise development, according to survey results from Appcelerator, the mobile platform development company.
"In the largest survey of its kind, Appcelerator developers were asked what operating system is best positioned to win the enterprise market. Developers said iOS over Android by a 53% to 38% margin. Last year, in its second quarter survey, the two companies were in a dead heat for the enterprise market, tied at 44%."
Reports
From The Next Web
"Social networks have already revolutionised the way that we interact online, becoming the Internet itself for many, but the ‘Facebook Effect’ has gone beyond communication and is changing the way money is made on the Web, with $16.9 billion set to be generated from social sites this year, according to a report released by Gartner.
"The analyst house predicts that social media-based ad revenue will hit $8.8 billion this year. That aside, social gaming - which the firm notes doubled its revenues between 2010 and 2011 - is likely to fetch $6.2 billion."
From Mashable
"Global revenues from social media are projected to hit $16.9 billion in 2012, a 43.1% jump over the previous year, according to Gartner. The bulk of that will come from advertising, which will contribute $8.8 billion. Social gaming revenue is next at $6.2 billion and subscriptions account for another $278 million. The researcher predicts 'moderate growth' for the segment in coming years."
Compiled by David Hartley