Posts made in July, 2017

on Jul 26, 2017

By John Glenday The Guardian is prepared to introduce a paywall around its website and apps as a last resort should an ongoing subscriber and donations push fail to reach its financial targets, according to reports in The Telegraph. A shift toward a paywall, would mark a significant change in strategy for the publisher which has hitherto striven to keep its journalism as open as possible – although behind the scenes efforts are already afoot for such an outcome. The paper has reportedly brought in outside consultants to devise a model of compulsory subscription for selected material which are Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 26, 2017

By Jessica Goodfellow ITV has said that it didn’t see a significant shift in advertising due to the Google brand safety issues just weeks after Channel 4 claims to have recorded an uptick in ad revenue, as it also disclosed the gender balance of its company in response to the BBC’s salary revelations. In the six months to 30 June 2017, total external revenue at the broadcaster was down by 3%, pulled down by an 8% decline in net advertising revenue (NAR). The broadcaster blamed the slide in ad revenue as a result of “ongoing economic and political uncertainty”. What’s more, Ian Griffiths, chief operating Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 26, 2017

By John Glenday Amazon is planting its flag firmly in London soil with the decision to double its recruitment for research and development roles within the capital as it renews its focus on video and streaming. The move is expected to provide a further fillip to the city’s booming tech sector with a doubling in capacity of its Shoreditch R&D base from 450 to 900 employees, spanning 15 floors of a gleaming new 600.000sq.ft base. If the recruitment surge goes to plan Amazon will have 5,000 highly paid software development engineers, user-interface experts, data analysts and graphic designers to its books in Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 26, 2017

By John Glenday You may have thought Google+ had quietly slipped quietly off the radar in recent months but rather than dying a slow death it appears to have been amassing a dedicated fanbase – in the US at least. Google+ has surprised everyone including, quite possibly, itself by rising to the top of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index 2017 – an email survey of 4,978 social networkers, smashing titans like Twitter and Facebook into sixth and seventh spot respectively. Largely dismissed since its inception as a superfluous channel alongside all conquering juggernauts such as Facebook, Twitter Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 26, 2017

By John Glenday Marketo, specialists in marketing automation software, has apologized to its customers after an embarrassing failure to automatically renew its primary Marketo.com domain, taking it offline and making it inaccessible for clients seeking to log-in to its services for a number of hours. The oversight affected not only the main domain but also a number of associated Marketo properties, all of which were rendered inaccessible until the issue could be rectified, something Marketo now says is ‘largely resolved’. Countering a social media furor which understandably erupted when news of the blunder first broke CEO Steve Read full story › Source: The Drum...