Media

The Financial Times is being subsumed into a new division by its parent company, Pearson.As part of the organisation's restructure, the FT Group will disappear and the newspaper will become part of a unit called "professional". Its chief executive will be John Ridding, who is currently CEO of the FT group.Professional will also include Pearson's global English learning business and its electronic testing business. It is hard to see what these three very different types of business have to do with each other.However, it is suggested that the rationale for yoking the language-teaching with the publishing of the paper is that adults learning English in foreign countries are considered to be the kind of people likely to read the FT. Maybe.The other intriguing aspect is whether the FT's financial results will be split out from the other parts of the new division. I understand that Pearson has yet to decide on that issue.A spokesman explained that there were still many details to be worked out. The company is expected to make that clear before the restructure is implemented on 1 January 2014. Its first results will therefore be published the following July.But he said that for 2013 - which will include the full-year 2013 results to be announced around the end of February 2014 - the report will be made under the existing structure, in which the FT Group is reported separately.The appointment of Ridding as CEO, giving him greater responsibility for a larger business unit, is certainly a feather in his cap. He only took charge of the FT Group earlier this year after becoming chief executive of the Financial Times itself in 2006. Prior to that, he had several senior editorial posts at the FT, with spells as its deputy editor and publisher of its Asian outlet.Under the new Pearson structure, the company will be organised around three global lines of business - school, higher education and professional - and three geographic market categories - north America, growth and core.Genevieve Shore, currently Pearson's chief technology officer, will take on a new role as chief product and marketing officer. Will Ethridge, CEO of Pearson North America, will step down from his role.John Fallon, Pearson's chief executive, said: "This new organisation structure flows directly from the strategy that we set out earlier this year. It is designed to make Pearson more digital, more services-oriented, more focused on emerging economies and more accountable for learning outcomes. "This is a significant change in the way we run the company that will take time and sustained commitment, but it is one we must make to be able to accelerate the execution of our global education strategy."Comment: This move, as with any move involving the Financial Times, is bound to set off yet more rumours about the paper being sold. I think it does the opposite. It suggests that Pearson is as committed to the FT as it has been for many years past.That won't stop the gossip of course. But really, isn't it about time that people realised the pink paper (salmon in the US) is not for sale?Financial TimesPearsonMedia businessNational newspapersNewspapersUnited StatesRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The radio stations were on early this morning - was it right and proper for newspapers to publish front pages pictures of a man they called a terrorist brandishing a meat cleaver?Answer: yes. There are all sorts of arguments in favour. Practical and technological first - pictures and film clips of the incident were across social media within minutes. Newspapers (and TV) would have looked completely daft to ignore what was already in the public domain.The man wasn't trying to hide from the spotlight. He was aware he was "speaking to camera" in order to deliver "a message" that attempted to justify his unjustifiable act. It could be said that the media were playing into his hands by giving him the publicity he was seeking. But, given the situation, there was a need to explain. And the pictures lifted from the filmed footage were therefore essential to the exercise. This was a highly unusual event that, by its very unusualness, warranted an unusual response from the media. It was barbaric, horrific, tragic, senseless… even a collective of adjectives is inadequate to describe what happened. I agree that the image was appalling. The meat cleaver. The bloodied hands. The obvious rage of the perpetrator. It prompted my two elder grandsons, who mostly ignore the papers on the table in the mornings, to ask all sorts of questions. On the way to school, the discussion continued. They were, of course, desperate to understand why two men had hacked another man to death in a London street on a spring afternoon.After I had dropped them off I thought more about the problems all editors faced and, it should be noted, all but one (the counter intuitive Daily Express) took the same decision. It is possible to argue against publication from two opposing directions: the image of a brazen killer will encourage others to follow suit, leading to more Islamic terrorist outrages; or the image will encourage anti-Muslim feeling and generate Islamophobia.But media editors, while wishing to avoid provoking anti-social and criminal behaviour, cannot be responsible for far-fetched consequences of their decision to publish news stories. Editors cannot edit in order to ensure they protect us from the feeble-minded. It would make the job impossible and, taken to its logical conclusions, nothing would ever get published. Editors also confronted a second problem in whether to carry pictures of the dead man's body, which also required them to pause for thought. Would it be regarded as an intrusion into the grief of his relatives? Would it be regarded as tasteless?Again, on balance, I think the newspapers were correct because they needed to convey the brutality of a murder that appeared to have been carried out as an act of terrorism. It was shocking to see it but it was even more shocking that it happened at all. There may be objections later that the pictured men cannot expect to get a "fair" trial. I somehow feel that a judge will laugh any such legal quibble out of court.Newspaper editors, in trying to do their job - in company with television news editors - were confronted with a bizarre and barbarous act. They had to react as they did.Woolwich attackNational newspapersNewspapersNews photographyLondonIslamCrimeRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Network18′s venture capital arm Capital18 has inked (pdf) an agreement with Dentsu India group to offload its entire stake in the digital advertising agency and consulting firm Webchutney for an undisclosed amount. While the financial terms of this agreement were not disclosed, Network18 informed that this divestment was in line with its strategy of monetizing its investments and claimed the investment has generated a return of over 300% to the company. Network18 held 70.06% stake in the company, through its investment arms Capital18 Limited Mauritius which held 49.42% stake and Capital18 Fincap Private Limited which held 20.64% stake. We’ve been hearing about this development for a while and a report from December 2012 had suggested that Dentsu was in advanced talks to acquired Webchutney and had pegged the deal size to be between Rs 40 crore and Rs 60 crore. Capital18 had neither confirmed or denied this development to Medianama then. For the fiscal 2012, Webchutney had registered a profit of Rs 6.35 crore on total revenue of Rs 21.55 crore. This is Dentsu’s first acquisition in digital, although it had acquired a 51% stake in Mumbai-based Indian advertising agency, Taproot India, earlier this year. That being said, we have seen a significant number of acqusitions in the past year. French advertising and public relations company Publicis Groupe had acquired Neev technologies last month, which was the group’s fifth acquisition in India in the last two years. IPG Mediabrands, the media holding group of Interpublic group had acquired the digital marketing agency Interactive Avenues last month while the media and digital communications group Aegis Group plc had acquired a digital performance marketing and search agency Communicate 2 In August 2012. The WPP group had also acquired 51% in Hungama’s digital agency arm, via JWT Singapore in June 2012. Network18 Divestments: This is the fourth divestment made by Network18 in the last year. In February 2012, Network18 sold online business directories YellowPages.co.in and AskMe to Getit Infoservices. In December 2012, it offloaded 77.5% stake in the financial data and news terminal business NewsWire18 to Samara Capital for Rs 90 crore. In March 2012, Network18 sold its entire stake in one of its Capital18 investee NetworkPlay to Gruner + Jahr, a media company which is a part of Germany’s Bertelsmann group. Network18 also diluted its stake by 20% in the movie and event ticketing website BookMyShow, when BookMyShow raised Rs 100 crore from Accel Partners in August 2012.

Stool Pigeon founder Phil Hebblethwaite has wise counsel for anyone thinking of launching a magazine, ‘Treasure your independence…’ Plastik interviews Andrew about his recent book-about-books ‘Fully Booked’. Vice have an exhibition of work by their favourite illustrators in London until June 2. Boat magazine’s latest issue visits Kyoto. Read an interview with editor Erin Spens. Music site Pitchfork opts for quality over quantity, trials further editorial experiments like this for Daft Punk.

Instant messaging app Plustxt has updated its Android app to add a nifty feature of allowing users to post to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ in various Indic languages supported by the app. Plustxt is currently available as free download on the Google Play Store. How this integration works is that, one can login to the app through Facebook Connect or the recently updated Google+ Sign-In and tap on the Facebook, Twitter or the Google+ icon at the top of the app homescreen to post updates to the respective social networks. For instance, one can tap on the Facebook icon, to open a new conversion window similar to the conversation windows one sees while sending a message on Plustxt. One can then choose the transliteration button above the text input box to choose their preferred Indic language among the list of supported languages. Plustxt currently supports eight Indic languages including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Malayalam besides English. Rather than providing an in-app indic keyboard, the app follows a transliteration approach, wherein it offers indic word predictions in a horizontally scrolling bar, based on the word the user has typed. One can then type in their message, send it and grant requisite permissions to their account, following which the message is posted to the respective social network. We tried it on a Nexus 4 and found that it worked as promised. This implementation reminds us of the chat bot implementation one sees in Google Talk (now Google Hangout) or any other chat client. Why Is This Important? This feature could come in handy for users who want to post messages to these social networks in their native languages. It could also possibly give Plustxt an advantage over other messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat among others. While Imsy offers Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn integration, it doesn’t support Indic language input yet. Also note that Facebook, Twitter or Google+ doesn’t offer native Indic language input support yet, although one could use third party keyboards like Swiftkey, Swype and Adaptxt on Android which have added support for Indic languages over the last year. Regional VAS Services: This development also indicates the direction Plustxt is taking in a bid to differentiate itself from other apps. Last month, Plustxt founder Pratyush Prasanna had told Medianama that they intend to monetize the service by licensing Plustxt APIs to others and providing value added services (VAS) in Indian languages. This is particularly interesting because its quite difficult for a content provider to exactly target a specific language audience in the country. Prasanna had claimed that they have already inked partnerships with a Marathi and a Bengali newspaper for this purpose, although he hadn’t disclosed any specific details on it. The company claimed to have 60,000 users as of April 2013. Related: - Plustxt Raises Funding From Mumbai Angels & Others; Monetization - Plustxt To Launch Instant Messaging App With Indic Support, Privacy Controls - Tachyon Technologies Launches Hindi Facebook Chat App

As marketers we are all now faced with keeping up with our consumers’ desires to be in the content consuming, creating and sharing business.

People share things online for the same reason they share them at a bar or in the carpool - because they want to talk about something that matters emotionally to them.

While the industry discusses multi-screen opportunities and best practices for developing and executing a seamless message across a spectrum of screens, Turner Entertainment and Zenith have been undergoing a long-term, collaborative study that looks to better understand viewer consumption habits within these environments.

While the United States Government paints Kim Dotcom as some kind of international super criminal, the Megaupload founder sees himself rather differently. Continually over the past year and half, and particularly since his January 2012 arrest in New Zealand, the German-born entrepreneur has described himself as an innovator, someone who creates rather than destroys as the U.S. would have people believe. Dotcom’s achievements are many and his cloud storage companies past and present have certainly generated hundreds of headlines. However, it seems that the New Zealand resident’s creative mind was already working overtime more than 15 years ago to come up with an idea that is now gaining serious traction online. Two-step authentication is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to online accounts. If a user logs into a service from an unusual device or location, the service sends a message containing a password to a trusted device such as a cellphone. This enables the service to authenticate the access and allow the log in. Just hours ago Twitter implemented the system but it’s already in use by companies such as Google and Facebook. In fact, according to Kim Dotcom there are more than a billion uses of the system every single week and he’s got good reason to be interested. The businessman says he invented it, and to back up his claim he’s just posted his patent to Twitter. The patent, US6078908 titled Method for authorizing in data transmission systems, was filed way back in April 1998 and published in June 2000 under Dotcom’s birth name of Kim Schmitz. There can be little doubt from the patent’s abstract that it does indeed describe a two-step verification system. “Google, Facebook, Twitter, Citibank, etc. offer Two-Step-Authentication,” writes Dotcom. “Massive IP infringement by U.S. companies. My innovation. My patent.” It’s fairly apparent that none of these corporations are paying Dotcom for the use of his invention but as usual he’s approaching the matter in his own style, with a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other. “I never sued them. I believe in sharing knowledge & ideas for the good of society. But I might sue them now cause of what the U.S. did to me,” he declares. Of course, Dotcom has a problem. He’s up to his neck in legal action across several jurisdictions and has a legal bill set to top $50m. In realistic terms the last thing he needs is another legal front, however there might be other options for solving the problem, including partnership with those companies allegedly infringing his patent rights. “Google, Facebook, Twitter, I ask you for help. We are all in the same DMCA boat. Use my patent for free. But please help funding my defense,” said Dotcom this morning. It seems unlikely that any of the above companies would consider donating to Dotcom’s fighting fund in any direct manner. However, one or all of their hands might be forced by the Mega.co.nz chief’s latest announcement. “Want to buy the worldwide license to my two-factor-authentication patent? (13 countries incl. US & China) Email: twitter@kim.com,” he concludes. Asking price $50m? We’ll let the lawyers argue over that. Source: Kim Dotcom to Google, Twitter, Facebook: I Own Security Patent, Work With Me

It looks like Amazon Appstore has finally gone live, about a month after it announced plans to expand the store internationally, (Hat tip Anupam Saxena). Users can download the Amazon App Store app from Amazon Website. Amazon’s app store brings features like 1-click purchase, one free paid app/game everyday, among others. Users can also test apps on a simulated Android phone using a feature called Test Drive or buy apps from computer and send them to the connect phone or tablet. The Test Drive feature is not available for all mobile handsets but users can test it over PC. No Localized Pricing? However, what’s surprising is that even though the app store is now available in the country, it does not list paid apps in local currency. Remember that both Apple and Google already offer localized app pricing for developers and consumers in their respective app stores. While Amazon had started accepting apps/games by Indian developers in April 2013 we couldn’t find any local apps in the store. That said, it doesn’t look like Amazon has any plans to target local apps & games to users. Discovering local apps in the Amazon app store, despite the fact that it has relatively lesser number of apps listed, could be a major issue. Amazon App Store’s direct competitor Google Play Store provides localized top free, top paid, top grossing, and trending apps, which could help Indian developers reach out a larger Indian audience. So if you’re an Indian Android developer, where do you submit your apps for greater audience? Well the answer is submit everywhere. Payment: Currently users need to connect their Credit Card to purchase paid apps on the store, however, free apps can be downloaded without connecting Credit Card to their account. With its international expansion, Amazon App Store could possibly be the second largest Android app store in terms of reach. Amazon Appstore will compete with Google’s Play Store and third party app stores such as Getjar.com, Opera App Store, Mobango, Slide Me, among others. More the app stores means better visibility for developers as each app stores would have their own programs to promote apps. For developers: Last month when it announced that it will expand its app store, it also invited third party app developers in these regions to submit their apps for distribution through Amazon Appstore. It also provides In-App Purchasing (IAP) APIs, Amazon A/B Testing, and GameCircle, Amazon’s gaming experience for Kindle Fire. Just like Google Play store, Amazon will also take a 30% cut from developers on each paid app sale and each in-app transaction, as indicated by the company FAQs. Amazon had also recently launched a Mobile Ads API and its virtual currency called Amazon Coins, for U.S. customers, through which they could purchase apps, games, and in-app items on their Kindle Fire. The Android Appstore roll-out strengthens the fact that Amazon will be rolling out its Android tablets like Kindle Fire HD in India in the forthcoming future. Remember that Amazon has already tied up with the IT distributor Redington India last month to sell Kindle devices in the country.