Digital Media News (week 33)
Date:
06 August 2012
Weekly bulletin collating public sector, industry and company news for creative industries by David Hartley.
Public sector
From The Telegraph
"Music, film and e-book copyright licensing will be streamlined to help boost the digital economy under proposals unveiled by the Government. A report commissioned by the business secretary Vince Cable called for an online 'Copyright Hub' to act as a one-stop shop to allow digital download and rental services, to ensure they are not infringing copyright. Rights holders will also benefit from greater sales of their work, it is claimed.'"
Local industry news
From The Drum
"Broadcaster STV has teamed up with DisneyPixar to launch a multi-platform media campaign to promote new-release, Brave, in Scotland. The campaign, negotiated by Carat, will consist of a combination of television ads, Brave themed sponsor-bumpers within channel sponsorship on 3 and 4 August, video-on-demand ads, online and mobile takeovers."
From Scotland On Sunday
"Serial technology entrepreneur Graham Duncan has snapped up a website-hosting business in Glasgow. Duncan's latest venture, Broadband Cloud Solutions (BCS), is paying a "six-figure sum" to buy the hosting division of NSDesign, the marketing company that lists Highland Spring, law firm Harper Macleod and Scottish Enterprise among its clients."
General industry
From The Next Web
"On the BBC Internet blog today, Cait O'Riordon, Head of Product for Sport and 2012 at the BBC writes about record-breaking digital viewer stats… 7.8 million global browsers headed for bbc.co.uk/sport on Saturday with 5.6 million UK browsers - a global record. On Sunday both global and UK records were broken as 8.3 million global and 6.1 million UK browsers were logged at the same site."
From Tech Crunch
"In the mobile application ecosystems offered by the iOS and Android platforms, there's now a booming 'middle class' of mobile application developers, according to new data from analytics firm Flurry. Even the long tail is benefiting - something that goes counter to traditional industry trends, which tend to see wealth established at the top as an industry matures."
From The Metro
"Digital book sales have outstripped traditional print sales in Britain for the first time. So far this year, 114 downloadable Kindle titles have been sold for every 100 hardback and paperback books, said online retailer Amazon.co.uk, which started selling Kindles just two years ago."
From The Guardian
"The switch to digital television is not yet complete, but UK households could be forced to adjust their sets again with a parliamentary inquiry now forecasting a second wave of switchover, this time from the airwaves to the internet. The government should draw up plans to have every channel, including those from the BBC, broadcast over the internet, freeing up the spectrum for other uses such as mobile phones, the House of Lords suggested on Tuesday."
From The Guardian
"In the third in a series of essays on digital media and publishing, Ewan Morrison, who will appear at the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference, claims that as the project to monetise social media falters the self-epublishing industry's defects will be laid bare."
From Venture Beat
"Most of the top grossing apps design social features into their apps as part of their core strategy. Why? In his key note at GamesBeat Zynga’s Chief Executive Mark Pincus stated that users’ retention rates doubled compared to the average game’s retention rates when acquired through social. Not only do compelling social features dramatically increase user retention, they also help drive down user acquisition costs."
Reports
From W3i
"It's no secret that the App Store's top grossing charts have shifted from paid apps to free apps. A recent market summary from Distimo reports that when looking at aggregated revenue derived from the top 100 highest grossing apps in all countries, total revenue more than tripled over the past two years. The increase was totally attributed to free apps with in-app purchases, which revenue grew from 7 percent in June 2010 to 68 percent in June 2012."
From The Next Web
"It's high time for some competition in the tablet device space, after new data suggested that Apple holds a whopping 85 percent share of the market. That in mind, the release of Google's Nexus 7 tablet and unveiling of Microsoft Surface are set to bring a dose of serious competition at right on time. The indicator of Apple's dominance comes from figures pulled together by Pingdom, using data from Statcounter that analyses Web usage from tablet devices worldwide."
Events
From The Drum
"Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is to be the headline speaker at an upcoming technology festival being held in Edinburgh. Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 alongside Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, will discuss his life at Apple, his views on entrepreneurism, and the future of computing and the web at The Turning Festival at the end of this month."
Compiled by David Hartley