Media

A film about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange moved a step closer after studio producers Barry Josephson and Michelle Krumm picked up the screen rights to the upoming Julian Assange biography The Most Dangerous Man in the World by award-winning Australian writer Andrew Fowler. The book details Assange’s life.

Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, software developer and Internet activist. He is the founder, spokesperson, and editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks, with the stated purpose of creating open governments.

Assange has worked as a computer programmer and was a hacker during his youth. He has lived in several countries, and has made public appearances in many parts of the world to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism.

Assange founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006.

BBC iPlayer broke records for the third month in a row, topping over 145 million requests for programmes during December 2010.

This new record is up 27% from December 2009 and includes new individual records for total amount of TV requests (89.7 million), total requests for programmes through BBC iPlayer on Virgin Media (23.9 million) and total requests for programmes through BBC iPlayer on Sony’s Playstation 3, (7 million) up 31%, month on month.

Daniel Danker, General Manager, Programmes and On Demand, said: “These figures are a fantastic way to start the new year and I’m looking forward to building on these while we continue to evolve and improve BBC iPlayer. In December we saw huge growth of BBC iPlayer on game consoles, connected TVs, and mobiles phones. We’re seeing impressive audience appreciation for our TV and mobile experiences, and I anticipate that growth on these devices will significantly outpace traditional BBC iPlayer use in 2011”

Top Gear continued its dominance at the top of charts for the Top 20 most popular TV programmes in December with almost 1.3 million requests for each Top Gear special, while Lord Alan Sugar’s search for his new apprentice proved popular with the final five episodes all landing in the top 10. Rounding out the top 10 most requested programmes were Matt Lucas and David Walliams’s new airport based comedy, Come Fly With Me charting at number five, with over 780 thousand requests for episode one and the traditional Christmas Day episodes of Doctor Who and EastEnders, receiving over 700,000 and 600,000 requests respectively.

Google has introduced two new news story author meta-tags for Google News: syndication-source and original-source.

The original-source meta-tag will identify the news outlet that breaks a story, while syndication-source is for everyone who repeats the story.

“Each of these metatags addresses a different scenario, but for both the aim is to allow publishers to take credit for their work and give credit to other journalists .

Although these metatags are already in use by our systems, you may not notice their impact right away. We’ll need some time to observe their use “in the wild” before we can make the best use of them. But we’re hopeful that this approach will help determine original authorship, and we encourage you to take advantage of them now.”

More info: http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/credit-where-credit-is-due.html

Apple® today announced it will expand its revolutionary iAd? mobile advertising network to the UK and France this December, with Germany to follow in January. iAd will launch in Europe with iAds from L’Oréal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Perrier, Unilever, Citi, Evian, LG Display, AB InBev, Turkish Airlines and Absolute Radio. Since its US launch in July, iAd has emerged as a powerful new way for advertisers to reach millions of iPhone® and iPod touch® users right in their favorite apps, while providing a significant new revenue stream for developers. iAd has signed on over half of the top 25 leading US national advertisers in just four months,* with a projected 21 percent share of US mobile display advertising revenue for 2010 according to research firm IDC.**

“We’re thrilled to add leading global brands to the iAd Network in Europe and create even more great opportunities for developers,” said Andy Miller, Apple’s vice president of iAd. “In just four months, we’ve doubled the number of advertisers on the network and thousands of developers now have a valuable new source of revenue.”

“As the world leader in the beauty business, L’Oréal aims to create the most meaningful connections between its brands and its customers, so iAd was a natural choice,” said Marc Menesguen, L’Oréal’s Head of strategic marketing. “We’re thrilled by the quality, the interactivity and the depth of iAd’s user experience, giving us an unparalleled opportunity to reach and serve the most engaged and discerning customers at the digital forefront of beauty, hence our choice of Lancôme to lead our iAd campaign.”

iAd, which is built into iOS 4, lets users stay within their current app while engaging with an ad, even while watching a video, playing a game or using in-ad purchase to download an app or buy iTunes® content. With user engagement times averaging more than 60 seconds per visit, iAds combine the narrative quality of TV ads with the interactivity of digital for something entirely new.

Advertisers can learn more at advertising.apple.com. Developers who join the iAd Network can easily incorporate a variety of advertising formats into their apps. Developers will receive an industry standard 60 percent of the iAd Network revenue, which is paid via iTunes Connect. Developers can visit developer.apple.com/iad to join the iAd Network or to learn more about the iAd platform.

* Advertising Age “100 Leading National Advertisers” rankings for 2009 by spend, June 20, 2010.

** US mobile display advertising 2010 forecast, published by BusinessWeek.com, September 26, 2010.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Tailoring to those who struggle with the ability to set-up and operate an Internet Radio Station and stay within budget, Broadcasting4Free.com is a new website with up-to-date information on free software and plug-ins. Making strides towards becoming a more encompassing “how to” website, they have recently added a step-by-step Guide to Internet Broadcasting using all free software and plug-ins.

Launched in September 2010, Broadcasting4Free.com is a website dedicated to providing the Ultimate Guide to Internet Radio Broadcasting, which when followed, will guarantee the smooth setting-up and operating of an Internet Radio Station without spending a dime for the required tools. Collis Kitt, the site’s owner and operator, has since implemented a related company blog where updates will be posted on a timely basis.

“I looked into the issue of broadcasting for free, and my research just confirmed that in these trying times, using free tools can be just as effective in getting the job done as the paid version,” said Kitt. “In the past all that were available to us have proven to be costly. However, this site was launched to offer useful information and tips to overcome this obstacle.”

Constantly updating the site, Kitt will always be adding tips, information and reviews based on recent research and newly available findings.

“The ultimate goal of the site is to provide a guide which will have you up and running quickly,” said Kitt. “The focus right now is on broadcasting for free, but this will gradually expand to information and products related to monetizing your Radio Station.”

Dedicated to customer satisfaction, Kitt ensures that the site will always have the most helpful, up-to-date, and effective information. Customer support will play a major role in assisting those who encounter technical obstacles.

“I want the best for my customers, which is why I’m tapping into the resources offered by established organizations. By picking the best of what they offer and providing them all in one place, my site offers convenience and trustworthiness,” said Kitt. “Whether you need information about why you are not up and running or what tools will combat that problem, our site is the place to get an answer quickly.”

For more information, please visit http://www.Broadcasting4Free.com

About BTM Media Group.
BTM Media Group. is the parent company of Broadcasting4Free.com – Launched by Collis Kitt, of Atlanta, Georgia.

Collis Kitt
http://www.Broadcasting4Free.com
(404) 507-2861

InMobi (http://www.inmobi.com), the world’s largest independent global mobile advertising network and Plus1 WapStart (http://www.wapstart.ru), Russia’s largest mobile advertising network, announce a partnership offering InMobi advertisers access to mobile ad impressions and consumers in the Russian and CIS markets via WapStart’s 600+ million ad impressions monthly.

Through this integration, advertisers on InMobi’s network will have easy and effective access to Russian mobile ad impressions and consumers, creating a convenient point of entry for global brands into the fast-growing Russian mobile market. Russian publishers, participants in the Plus1 WapStart network, will automatically receive access to the global advertising campaigns targeted for Russia and other CIS countries through InMobi’s advertiser sales efforts in six regions and offices around the world.

Rob Jonas, VP Managing Director Europe and Middle East at InMobi commented: ” WapStart is a great addition to our partner list in over 125 countries and will improve advertiser ROI through increased consumer reach in the Russian and CIS markets. Large global brands have shown new interest in these markets and we are pleased to see WapStart joining our network. WapStart was chosen for its extensive, well-established publisher network and sophisticated platform allowing for a quick and reliable integration.”

“We’re happy to partner with the world’s largest independent mobile ad network”, comments Oleg Pavlioutchenko, Managing Partner of WapStart. “During the last year we have been integrating with prominent global players as a part of our growth strategy. The idea is simple – we want Russian publishers to have direct and easy access to world-class advertisers. This will benefit the whole Russian mobile eco-system. Most importantly, consumers will see more interesting and relevant advertising. With an improved consumer experience, publishers will benefit from higher revenue (i.e. increases in eCPM) allowing them to focus on improving content and services, which will in turn attract even more consumer attention. Finally advertisers will get access to new consumer audiences and sales. Russia is a large and untapped mobile market on the verge of explosive growth and we believe these steps will accelerate growth in the region”

James A. Martin has written an interesting article – Small Business SEO: 10 Ways to Optimize an Online Newsroom at SmallBusinessComputing.com

The article features 10 tips and marketing strategies to help your small business develop and maintain a high-impact, search-engine-optimized newsroom.

Well worth a read for website owners who want to rev up their site with dynamic online news.

Full article at: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/emarketing/article.php/3900956

Flipboard today announced it has acquired Ellerdale, the real-time Web intelligence company. The acquisition concurs with the launch of Flipboard, a social magazine designed for iPad, which provides a faster and more visually engaging way to discover, view and share content from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Ellerdale, founded in 2008, has developed a Web Intelligence technology that applies semantic analysis to large, real-time data streams to extract relevant and valuable information. To date, Ellerdale has indexed over 6 billion messages from around the social Web and currently processes nearly 70 million messages per day. This technology and data set will be become the relevancy engine for the next release of Flipboard, enhancing the reader?s experience by always surfacing the most important and personally interesting information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Designed from the ground up for iPad, Flipboard creates a magazine out of a user?s social content. With Ellerdale?s technology, future versions of Flipboard will be able to extract, categorize and feature highly relevant and hot trending content from across a variety of social networks. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Ellerdale has developed an impressive solution for understanding the ever-increasing stream of social data coming at us every day,” said Mike McCue, CEO and co-founder of Flipboard. “This technology will add deep relevancy for our readers, enabling us to present social content in a way that is not only more beautiful, but also more meaningful. It?s a great combination.”

Arthur van Hoff, co-founder of Ellerdale, is joining Flipboard as the company?s new chief technology officer. Van Hoff, who played a major role in the development of the Java programming language at Sun Microsystems, and was founder of six high-tech companies, including Marimba, Strangeberry and Zing, will spearhead Flipboard’s technology strategy.

“Combining the two companies creates a situation in which one plus one equals three, bringing together Flipboard?s innovative front-end with Ellerdale?s powerful real-time relevancy engine on the back-end,” said Arthur van Hoff, co-founder of Ellerdale and Flipboard?s new chief technology officer. “Our technology will play a key role in providing readers with the content that matters most to them.”

Mike McCue and Evan Doll founded Flipboard earlier this year and received $10.5M in funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures. The founding team members come from Apple, Netflix, Tellme/Microsoft, Aardvark and Adobe. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ABOUT FLIPBOARD

Flipboard is the world?s first social magazine. Inspired by the beauty and ease of print media, Flipboard?s mission is to fundamentally improve how people discover, view and share content across their social networks. Start reading your magazine by downloading Flipboard at www.flipboard.com. The company is based in Palo Alto, California.

ABOUT ELLERDALE

Ellerdale applies Web Intelligence technology to make data more relevant and valuable. Ellerdale has developed and licenses a Web Intelligence platform optimized for large, real- time data feeds. The company was founded in 2008 by Jens Christensen and Arthur van Hoff.

Founded by Mike McCue, former CEO of Tellme, and Evan Doll, former senior iPhone engineer at Apple®, FlipboardTM began a quest today to transform how people discover and share content by combining the beauty and ease of print with the power of social media. Flipboard also announced the immediate availability of it?s Flipboard App for iPadTM, a social magazine that brings to life the stories, photos, news and updates being shared across Twitter and Facebook. Flipboard?s first public demo will happen at the FORTUNE Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado.

“With over 1 billion messages posted every day, social networks are quickly becoming the primary way people discover and share content on the Web. The result is a huge influx of incoming messages and links people must sort through across multiple web sites just to stay up to date,” said Mike McCue, Flipboard?s CEO. “We believe the timeless principles of print can make social media less noisy, more visually compelling and ultimately more mainstream.” Designed from the ground up for iPad, Flipboard creates a magazine out of a user?s social content. Simply launch Flipboard and “flip” open the cover to get started. From the Table of Contents readers can view their sections and personalize the magazine.

The Facebook and Twitter sections let readers quickly flip through the latest stories, photos and updates from friends and trusted sources. Because Flipboard renders links and images right in the magazine, readers no longer have to scan long lists of posts and click on link after link – instead they instantly see all the stories, comments and images, making it faster and more entertaining to discover, view and share social content.

Flipboard also lets readers easily create sections around topics or people they care about. Choose from Flipboard?s suggested sections on topics such as sports, news, tech and style, with content hand-curated from popular and interesting Twitter feeds. Or, create an entirely new section by searching by topic, person or Twitter list to make Flipboard even more personal.

The Flipboard App is available for free at www.flipboard.com or from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore/

Burson-Marsteller (B-M) today announced the results of a research study into the use of social media by twenty leading brand name companies in Australia. The study examined online stakeholder engagement via corporate blogs, official Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter.

“The research suggests that a large number of companies have dipped a toe in the social media arena without following through. The study revealed a lot of inactive accounts, which could suggest ad-hoc efforts with no clear strategy for online stakeholder engagement,” said Daniel Young, Director, Burson-Marsteller Australia.

“There are however some leading lights within the twenty companies that we studied. These organisations are featured in the report. These best practice examples are leveraging social media in an integrated fashion to deepen relationships, personalise their brands and provide customer service.”

The study examined 20 companies as identified by Interbrand in its ‘Australia’s Best Brands Report’ for 2009. The Interbrand study ranks the top 20 Australian companies by brand value based on financial and marketing metrics.

40 per cent of the companies surveyed have at least one Twitter account. 44 per cent of these Twitter profiles are inactive and many are not upated frequently. 50 per cent of the companies surveyed have established official Fan Pages within Facebook, the most widely used social network in Australia. However, 15 per cent of these Pages are inactive.

“Only 20 per cent of the companies surveyed have a corporate blog,” continued Daniel. “Corporate blogs provide businesses with a controllable and direct form of communication; it’s therefore surprising to see the relatively low levels of adoption in Australia.”

“Many of the companies surveyed have focused their efforts on one social media channel suggesting that Australia is still in an experimentation phase when it comes to online engagement and digital PR programs.”

The B-M Report: ‘Social Media Use by Australia’s Best Brands’ is available via SlideShare and the B-M Australia website. The study builds on Social Media Use by Fortune 100 Companies, published by Proof Digital Media and Burson-Marsteller in July 2009.

The report is available via Slideshare and the B-M Australia website. This study is the first part in a two part research project. Part two will focus on corporate websites and newsrooms.

About the Study
The analysis looked to identify how top Australian companies are using key social media platforms to communicate and engage directly with stakeholders, specifically:

• Twitter: The study tallied official Twitter accounts for Australia’s Best Brands.
• Facebook: The study identified and analysed official corporate presence of Australia’s Best Brands on Facebook. The study examined corporate pages, but not third party groups and fan pages.
• Blogs: The study examined whether and how Australia’s Best Brands are using branded corporate blogs to communicate and engage with stakeholders.

The study examined 20 companies as identified by Interbrand in their Australia’s Best Brands Report, which was published in March 2009. The analysis does not include independent subsidiary brands that do not share a name with the parent company. The 2009 Interbrand study is available here.

About Burson-Marsteller
Burson-Marsteller (www.burson-marsteller.com), established in 1953, is a leading global public relations and public affairs firm. It provides clients with strategic thinking and program execution across a full range of public relations, public affairs, advertising, and web-related services. The firm’s seamless worldwide network consists of 57 wholly-owned offices and 44
affiliate offices, together operating in 58 countries across six continents. Burson-Marsteller is a part of Young & Rubicam Brands, a subsidiary of WPP (NASDQ: WPPGY), one of the world’s leading communications services networks.

Unlock a world of friends, entertainment and games from the comfort of your couch, displayed on the best screen in the house, using Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE. Tomorrow, Xbox LIVE members around the world will have their Xbox 360 console transformed and plugged into the best value in home entertainment, with access to Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and Zune video with instant-on HD, all right in their living rooms.
• Facebook.2 Update your status to share what movie, game or entertainment you’re enjoying, connect with friends, and view their Facebook stream, status updates and photos on the big screen — all seamlessly integrated and custom-built for Xbox 360. You can even compare your Xbox LIVE and Facebook friends lists to see which of your friends are on Xbox LIVE.
• Zune. Zune video on Xbox LIVE offers a full-fidelity experience with instant-on HD in 1080p and 5.1 channel surround sound. No waiting for downloads or buffering, it’s there at the press of a button. You can also share the experience with up to seven friends through voice chat and Avatar integration on the TV screen — it puts a whole new spin on movie night.
• Twitter.2 Stay in the know by discovering, posting and replying to tweets right on your Xbox 360. You can even view friend profiles, trends and conversations, or search to see who’s tweeting about your favorite game.
• Last.fm. 2 Discover more music and explore endless personalized radio stations with Last.fm on Xbox 360. Skip, “ban” or “love” tracks to create your perfect mix. We’ve even built in “Gamer Stations” with game-related types of music selected specifically for the gaming community. (Available in the U.S. and U.K.)

Don’t have an Xbox 360 console? Now, more than ever, Xbox gives you great ways to stay connected and share fun and entertainment, starting at $199 (U.S.).

Why:

Microsoft is continuing to evolve Xbox LIVE to bring more games, more entertainment and more social experiences all from a single device. As a Gold member on Xbox LIVE, you get access to Facebook, Last.fm and Twitter, providing you with a pipeline of content that is always being updated and refreshed. For just over $4 per month, Xbox LIVE Gold Membership is hands-down the best value in home entertainment.

When:

Launching on Nov. 17

1 Xbox LIVE Gold Membership and Netflix unlimited subscription plan required for Netflix instant streaming. See Netflix Terms of Use for details about Netflix service.

2 Xbox LIVE Gold adult account required to access these features. Xbox LIVE Gold Memberships are just over $4 (U.S.) per month.

Open-Xchange, the leading provider of business-class open source collaboration software, announced today an agreement with Dotster, Inc., a leading full-service provider of essential resources for businesses and individuals to get online and grow online, to deploy Open-Xchange for its e-mail users.

Dotster has established itself among the world’s largest domain name registrars with more than 3 million domain holdings under management and servicing hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.

By offering Open-Xchange e-mail and personal information management (PIM) as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Dotster enables its customers to work productively with the AJAX-based Open-Xchange anywhere they have access to a browser and an Internet connection. Open-Xchange enables synchronization with Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, native Mac applications iCal and Address Book, as well as most popular smartphones, including iPhone, Nokia and Windows Mobile.

With recently introduced “Social OX” features, Open-Xchange also gives users the ability to consolidate any kind of existing webmail accounts–for example from Google and Yahoo–into a folder in Open-Xchange so they can be managed more easily. In addition, contact details from social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Xing can be added automatically to the Open-Xchange address book–giving users easy access to the latest contact information within their personal network. Users can now integrate and merge their address books from Google Mail and Facebook into Open-Xchange, as well.

“With Open-Xchange, we offer our customers business-class e-mail and PIM functionality at no additional charge,” said Clint Page, CEO of Dotster. “Open-Xchange sets the standard for groupware solutions, giving users the ability to team up with others inside and outside of their enterprise, as well as the ability to engage regardless of the social network their contacts are using. Through the free webmail offering, our customers can get to know the benefits of Open-Xchange without any obligation and, if they want, go to a complete groupware solution and mobile solution at any time.”

“Social OX is useful because it allows Open Xchange users to consolidate all their contact data that is maintained on social networks and free webmail accounts,” said Philbert Shih, senior analyst, Tier1 Research. “Bringing together contact information stored from all these different locations boosts user productivity and enables control from one place. Being able to access this information via the Internet or a smartphone, anywhere, anytime, is an additional benefit. This is an important development for messaging providers as they look for ways to deliver features and functionality to users that allow them to differentiate from the competition.”

“With Open-Xchange, service providers get a scalable platform for business-class e-mail without extra cost,” says Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange. “Selling complementary and valuable services for Open-Xchange helps service providers to differentiate themselves, increase their average revenue per user and significantly grow profitability. By leveraging our Open-Xchange software, Dotster can gain competitive advantage, solidify their relationship with existing customers and attract new customer audiences, as well.”

About Dotster Dotster is a leading full-service provider of essential resources for businesses to get online and grow online. It has helped more than one million businesses and individuals establish their web presence, build their websites, and drive revenue. Dotster offers its customers a complete set of services including the ability to get online with a domain name and e-mail address; build a major web presence with web hosting and custom website design; generate traffic with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), website promotion and social media platforms; and reduce IT costs with Virtual Private Server hosting. For more information, visit www.dotster.com or call (360) 449-5900.

About Open-Xchange Open-Xchange is the innovator of scalable and integrated open source e-mail and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions, and government authorities. The company provides on-premise versions called Open-Xchange Server Edition and Open-Xchange Appliance Edition, along with Open-Xchange Hosting Edition, which enables web hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). The Open-Xchange Hosting Edition is architected to integrate into a hosting provider’s existing infrastructure, such as authentication, provisioning, billing, and e-mail storage and does not require that these systems be replaced.

Open-Xchange AG is a privately-held company headquartered in Nuremberg, Germany with offices in Olpe, Germany and Tarrytown, N.Y. For more information, visit www.open-xchange.com