Local Media

The industry has mainly focused on textual content farms like Associated Content and Demand Media. But video may well be the next frontier. A startup called Howcast specializes in mass production of video content.

Google’s mobile ads are becoming more location-aware. Google announced mobile display ads for both the iPhone and Android phones which can be geo-targeted.

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future.

About.com is planning a major move into the business-to-business space, launching a number of industry-specific sites.

Today, Amazon announced the newest generation of Kindle, its popular e-reader. As hardware is wont to do, the newest version of the Kindle has become smaller and lighter while retaining its 6-inch reading area.

The data, from network giant Akamai reveals the average global net speed is only 1.7Mbps (megabits per second) although some countries have made strides towards faster services. Asia dominates the list of fastest wired cities with more than half of the top 100 cities in Japan. Only 12 US cities make the list.

In 2007-08 startpages were viewed as the second coming of portals and some even thought they might be the next social networks. Now of course many people use Facebook or Twitter as their place to "start" on the Web. So what will become of the startpage - does it have a future?

John O'Donovan lays out in considerable detail the changes BBC has made to its content management systems. Excellent insight into the technical decisions they made for strategic purposes such as the ability to publish to multiple (web, tablet, smartphone) platforms.

Financial Times Group’s half-year profit more than doubled from £14 million to £30 million, even though profit grew only nine percent. Parent Pearson, reporting profit growth across all of its divisions, didn’t say why, but we would think recent cost cuts helped.

Tribune Co. Chief Executive Randy Michaels wants to remake the 163-year-old media company. But first he has to steer it out of bankruptcy. Mr. Michaels, a veteran radio executive, was hired by investor Sam Zell to run Tribune's Internet and broadcast divisions when Mr. Zell took the company private in 2007. But the $8.2 billion deal, funded nearly entirely with borrowed money, proved unmanageable.