The headline on 05 June 2020
Discovery is reportedly close to buying the TV arm of MediaWorks. Source: NZ Herald > MediaWorks TV sale nears completion to US giant Discovery, sources confirm
TiVo’s general counsel and chief compliance officer, Pamela Sergeeff, and its chief intellectual property officer, Arvin Patel, will not be part of the company following the closure of its merger with Xperi. Source: NextTV > TiVo’s Top Patent Litigator, Arvin Patel, Out Following $1.1B Xperi Merger
Vietnam’s Voiz FM raised an undisclosed amount of funding from 500 Startups Vietnam. The audiobook platform started late last year through partnerships with top publishers such as First News and Tre Publishers.
Zoom says it’s not providing end-to-end encryption on free accounts. It said it won’t encrypt the free accounts because “we also want to work it together with FBI and local law enforcement, in case some people use Zoom for bad purpose (sic).” Keep that in mind.
It looks like Chrome’s Incognito mode doesn’t quite work the way you probably think it does. It stops the browser from storing your web history on your physical device — but that doesn’t mean it’s stopping Google or others from tracking you. There’s now a $5 billion class-action lawsuit.
The BBC launched a digital voice assistant. Yes, the BBC. You wake it by saying “Hey Beep” and it’ll respond with a male, northern English accent.
Medium is going after Substack. They launched Newsletter. So if you’re publishing on Medium, you can quickly send out emails directly to your audience.
Zoom issued its first earnings report since the pandemic started. Revenue more than doubled during the Feb-April quarter from the same period last year.
The Guardian is pushing more people to its registration wall to collect data of its users as third party cookies are getting phased out. “Registering lets us understand you better. This means that we can build better products and start to personalise the adverts you see so we can charge more from advertisers in future.”
Facebook signed a global licensing deal with Saregama, one of India’s largest music labels. You’ll soon be able to add all sorts of Bollywood music to your Facebook and Instagram posts.
The headline on 04 June 2020
FuboTV named Simone Nardi as chief financial officer. Source: Simone Nardi Appointed Chief Financial Officer of fuboTV
WOW! has hired John S. Rego as chief financial officer and Shannon Campain as chief commercial officer. Source: WOW! Names New Chief Financial Officer and Chief Commercial Officer
Synamedia and Ampere Analysis’ new survey suggests that while 89% of sports fans have a pay TV or subscription OTT service, over half (51%) still watch pirate sports services at least once a month. Source: Synamedia unveils first global research to define fans by attitudes to sports piracy
Cisco highlights another positive story during the global lockdown — using idle 3D printers to create face shields for medical workers.
FuboTV has added Tastemade’s streaming network. Source: fuboTV Adds Lifestyle Streaming Network Tastemade to Programming Lineup
We all know about building with LEGO but have you ever wondered how the LEGO mini-figures themselves are manufactured? LEGO takes you down to its factory floor.
Building customer relationships with stories. Consumer behaviours have changed, meaning the old engagement techniques won’t have the same effect. Customer empathy and authentic stories that create trust will be the ones that will stick in the customer’s memory.
Nike has flipped its iconic slogan to question racism in all its forms.
Nielsen appointed Chandler Bigelow as chief financial officer for the Nielsen Global Connect business. Source: Nielsen Global Connect Appoints Chief Financial Officer
A Porsche fanatic describes what he loves about the 911 model — it’s basically a reason to get up every morning.
Content marketing after COVID-19. Slowly but surely COVID-19 restrictions are being loosened. There will be no instant bounce back but economies will begin to open. According to McKinsey, the COVID-19 recovery will be led by digital adoption. Their latest report has seen a move of “five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of around eight weeks”.
Huawei tackles the accusation of Chinese intellectual property theft head on by highlighting its investment in technology and R&D over the years.
Applicaster today launched Quick Brick, a new app development framework available within its SaaS app development platform, Zapp. Source: Applicaster Turbocharges Video App Development with New Quick Brick Framework
The B2B influencer. There are many ways to describe the influencer. In B2B terms, the latest buzzword is authority positioning. What it comes down to is trusting an individual’s knowledge on a particular subject. With traditional marketing budgets shrinking, a focus on niche content marketing could be the way to increase engagement and trust in brands.
Upsides is using animation to highlight some of the positives to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Upsides – COVID-19 from Upsides on Vimeo.
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges and hardships, worldwide.
This short series aims to focus on some of the more positive events that have occurred in light of the virus. We hope you find joy in seeing these amazing human gestures come to life through animation.
Look to the upsides
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Created by: Garret Beard & Mike Russo
Sound: John Poon and Vinny Alfano
The headline on 03 June 2020
How do you build a news product that people want to pay for? You ask them what they want. Indiegraf is a network of journo-entrepreneurs sharing resources and providing common plumbing like “access to capital, a proven model, technology, infrastructure to support their growth”. Building relevant, useful, and specifically targeted media products has everything to do with how you respect your user — by listening. Their back-of-the-envelope recipe works roughly like so (I’m paraphrasing):
- Find a community of about 5,000 people that need news about a specific thing
- Convert this audience to become email subscribers
- Convert 10% of those to become paying supporters
- 500 paying supporters at $12.50 a month is $75,000 annually
“Here’s the secret to how Jacqueline’s team delivers journalism valuable enough people will pay for it: they ask their community what to cover. They don’t report on everything (no local sports and little crime reporting). They don’t crank out surface-level stories in pursuit of traffic. They only dig into stories their community really needs and don’t waste money on anything else. As it turns out, people will pay for that.” Yup.
Did you know your Mac had a cache of delicious fonts just sitting there waiting to be activated? It has broad shoulders and a low, stable center of gravity.
Descript is a transcription app that lets you record and edit. The new update included filler word (and filler phrase) remover, remote recording (so all your Zoom interviews are sorted), folder organization, and others.
QuarantineChat is StumbleUpon* for voice. This app randomly connects two people who don’t know each other on a phone call. The serendipity is a central feature of the product design (“Your caller ID will always say “QuarantineChat” when your phone rings.”). It’s free, and also end-to-end encrypted.
The headline on 02 June 2020
HBO Max will be excused from AT&T’s mobile data caps, while competing services like Netflix and Disney Plus will use up your data. Source: The Verge > HBO Max won’t hit AT&T data caps, but Netflix and Disney Plus will
AMC Networks and The Weather Channel television network have joined OpenAP. Source: OpenAP Delivers More Scale for Advertisers with Addition of AMC Networks and The Weather Channel
Michael Schwimmer has been named group president at Sling TV. Source: DISH Announces EVP, Network Development; Names New Retail Wireless and SLING TV Group Presidents
Encompass Digital Media launched Altitude Media Cloud. Source: Encompass Announces Altitude Media Cloud
Bloomberg TV+ is now also available in full 4K UHD live on Samsung TV Plus pre-installed Samsung 4K TVs. Source: Zixi Powers 4K UHD Bloomberg TV+ Service
The headline on 01 June 2020
Former Hulu CTO Richard Tom has joined WarnerMedia as the new chief technology officer. Former WarnerMedia CTO Jeremy Legg will join AT&T Communications. Source: Richard Tom Named Chief Technology Officer of WarnerMedia
Cox Media has named Daniel York, former chief content officer at AT&T and DirecTV, as its new CEO. Source: Daniel York Appointed Cox Media Group President and Chief Executive Officer
Pixalate said connected TV programmatic ad spending is trending up and that Hulu and Sling TV are seeing significant gains. Source: May 2020: Programmatic Connected TV/OTT ad spend bouncing back, up 40% after initial COVID-19 shock; Hulu, Sling TV among risers
