contentSutra
Copyright (c) 2010, contentSutra
India’s Digital News Monitor

Apple 09.01.10 News In Pictures

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) today announced a slew of new products and features on its phone, music and video viewing offerings. Check out a visual tour of Steve Jobs’ presentation, as well as our coverage, below:

Sure, People Will Buy 'Connected TVs,' But Will Anyone Actually Use Them?

I’m a big fan of the “digital home,” even if the phrase itself has slipped from popular use lately. I cannot wait for it to happen to me—I’ll have connected displays (does the word TV even apply anymore?) throughout the house, including the ones in my pocket, in my lap, or otherwise within reach at all times. Those displays will all speak IP, the language of the internet, and they’ll all speak to each other as well, allowing me to control one display—say, my TV—with another one—my Droid X, for example. There’s so much product innovation yet to come in the digital home that I love my job.

I’m not the only one who sees it, of course. If you follow the excited announcements from TV makers and electronics retailers like Best Buy, the next TV we all buy will be a connected TV (defined as a TV set with its own internet connection whether wired or wireless and some kind of software platform), a critical first step toward that future digital home nirvana.

CBS To Launch TV Channels In India

CBS (NYSE: CBS) Studios International and Reliance Broadcast Network Limited (RBNL) Wednesday announced a deal to launch television channels in India through a joint venture company to be called BIG CBS Networks Pvt. Ltd.

BIG CBS will be incorporated in India, and CBS and RBNL will each have a 50% equity interest. The company will initially launch three English language entertainment channels customized for the Indian market in the fourth quarter of 2010. More on B&C]

Mauj Mobile Acquires UK's Mobango Catalog Of Apps

Mumbai, India-based Mauj Mobile, a mobile content provider that’s part of the People Group, has acquired UK-based Mobango for its international catalog of 35,000 free mobile applications. The acquisition will not only help it expand beyond India, but also into applications from traditional mobile content, like ringtones and wallpapers.

Daum Sells Lycos To Ybrant For $36 Million

Search engine and portal operator Lycos has been sold to Indian digital marketing firm Ybrant Digital by South Korea’s Daum Communications for $36 million. That’s significantly less than the $95 million Daum paid for Lycos in 2004. The agreement calls for Ybrant to purchase all of Daum’s stock in Lycos in an all-cash deal.

EC, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE Go Cold On BlackBerry

Twenty-four hours after launching its latest handset, suddenly RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) is enduring high-level skepticism that its BlackBerry is suitable for use.

According to two Reuters reports, BlackBerry’s centralized e-mail and messaging services are prompting governments to pick other handsets for official use and to consider a ban…

MobileIron Raises $16 Million To Manage Smartphones In The Enterprise

Mountain View, Calif.-based MobileIron has raised $16 million in a third round of funding to help develop a platform that manages everything from iPads to smartphones in the enterprise.

The round was led by Foundation Capital, reports peHUB. Also participating was its existing investors Storm Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Big Basin Ventures.

ZenithOptimedia: Social Media, Mobile Ads Fuel Improved Outlook

ZenithOptimedia has revised its ad spend forecast upward for the U.S. and Europe, while the internet is poised to grow 13.1 percent in 2010 and gain another 16.1 percent year-over-year in 2011. In the U.S., mobile ad spending and social media ad spending have had a particularly strong impact on the online space’s growth.

Indian Mobile Services Firm IMI Mobile To Buy Win Plc

UK mobile content and services company Win Plc announced today that it is recommending to shareholders a cash offer from the Sequoia-backed Indian mobile services firm IMI Mobile. The 141 pence ($2.11) per share offer values WIN at around £15.93 million ($ 23.8 million). This represents a 43 percent premium to the share price on the 29th April, the closing price before discussions were announced.

Not all of Win’s shareholders are happy with the offer. Before today’s announcement, ISIS Equity Partners, Win’s largest shareholder with 19.1 percent of the company, released a statement on 10 June that “encouraged the Win Board not to recommend an offer at this level.” It said, “In our opinion, the potential offer, at 141 pence per Win ordinary share, would substantially undervalue the Company.

India Ad Net Komli Buys PostClick

Indian ad net Komli Media has acquired Australian online rep firm PostClick. The deal is intended to expand Komli’s reach across the Asia Pacific region, which still has a lot of potential for online ad spending to grow. The combination of Komli and PostClick gives the two companies a reach of over 30 million uniques. Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

How To Get People To Pay For Content

It’s the most common question I get in my travels: Will people ever pay for content again? See what I had to say about that in this three-minute clip from a recent interview.

Wednesday's London Meetup: Julie Meyer, David Rowan On Panel

There’s less than 24 hours to register for our meetup happening at MSN’s HQ on Wednesday at 6pm.

Marking our founder Rafat’s move on to pastures new, we have a great quartet of panelists ready to bet on why the future of digital media looks bright…

—David Rowan, editor, Wired UK
—Julie Meyer, CEO, Ariadne Capital; online Dragon’s Den judge
—Peter Bale, executive producer, MSN UK
—Rafat Ali, founder and editor, ContentNext Media

Guardian Statement On Rafat's Departure

Note: read Rafat’s post about his leaving.

Dear Readers,

Our founder, a digital warrior and friend to many of you, Rafat Ali, is stepping down after eight years building and growing ContentNext. As many of you know, Guardian News & Media acquired ContentNext, and Rafat has decided this is a good time for him to take a break and think about the next chapter. This is the statement the Guardian released today.

Caroline Little
CEO, ContentNext
CEO, Guardian North America

—

Guardian News & Media and ContentNext today announced that ContentNext Founder and Editor Rafat Ali will be leaving the company at the beginning of July. Rafat Ali started paidContent as a blog in 2002, and later added three other sites, paidContent.uk, mocoNews and contentSutra, before the business was purchased by Guardian News & Media in 2008. ContentNext now has some 600,000 unique users and its websites, with their blend of news and analysis, are a must read for senior executives in the media, entertainment, publishing, advertising, mobile, marketing and technology sectors.

Tim Brooks, Managing Director of Guardian News & Media, said: ” As anyone who follows the company and reads our sites knows, Rafat has done an amazing job of building ContentNext from the ground up and we wish him every success in the future.” 

Ernie Sander, who has been the managing editor at ContentNext for the past 18 months, will assume a wider strategic role. Co-editor Staci Kramer, Rafat’s first hire at the company, will continue to be a thought leader on and off the site.

On To Life 2.0

In the end, all things do come to an end. The good and bad part is, it is never a definite marker, but all part of a process. And so it has been for me. After pouring exactly eight years of my life and a lifetime into this, I am leaving ContentNext and paidContent in early July. I will continue to advise the company for the rest of the year.

For most of you who know me, this isn’t coming as a huge surprise. I have been wrestling with this for months now, and the two-year mark under the Guardian and the eight-year mark since I launched the first site, seems appropriate enough as a closure point.

Vodafone Sees Healthy Mobile Data Income, But Devalues Indian Business

Smartphone handsets fueled the money Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) makes from internet data to £4 billion ( billion) during its 2009/10 fiscal year - nearly a fifth more than in the previous year.

Across that year, group profit rebounded 180 percent to £8.6 billion ( billion), recovering from last year’s £5.9 billion write-off against Turkish and Spanish telcos, on 8.4 percent higher revenue of £44.5 billion.

What If This Isn't The Year For Mobile Advertising?

Now that we’ve gotten all excited about the potential revenues iAd could reap, and big giants like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) have acquired start-ups for hundreds of millions of dollars, what happens if mobile advertising doesn’t end up taking off this year—or any other year?

That thought must creep into the minds of industry executives, especially when a guy like Kevin Ryan, the former CEO of online-ad company DoubleClick, tells the WSJ that he is skeptical about the potential of mobile advertising.

The New Rules For Judging 'Quality' In Published Content

Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a platform for social web sites, and author of the Digital Quarters blog. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile, the online retailer of luxury goods. He is also an angel investor in various media and e-commerce companies.

Last week, I explained why the traditional ways of judging “quality” in published content are useless in the digital age. Judging by readers response to that piece, those dated values (which I labeled credential, correctness, objectivity and craftsmanship) are still sacred to many people. But here’s the problem: They simply aren’t enough to win audiences, drive financial success, or, for that matter, ensure viability. The demise of institutions like Newsweek proves that—and shows that publishers that don’t move beyond these anachronistic measures of success will perish.

Video: Highlights From Our 'State Of Gadget Media' Event In NYC

Are gadget fans really all men? Nick Denton thinks so—saying, about the Gizmodo reader that, yes, “it’s a guy.” But not everyone at our recent State of Gadget Media event in NYC agreed that the gadget world skews so heavily male. Robin Liss, president and CEO of Reviewed.com, said some of the best editors in the business are women gadget geeks, and Christopher Andrew, VP and group director of Media and Social Media at Digitas, talked about the massive purchasing power that women have with technology—and said content sites and marketers would be foolish to ignore that demographic. Watch the discussion here.

After the jump, there’s also video from the event of the conversation about a) the challenge of trying to write about Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), and b) the Gizmodo-iPhone saga. The full video of the gadget event is here.

IPad International Orders Start Monday; Lands In UK, Others May 28

Update: Here’s the pre-order link.

The lack of iPads in the UK kept would-be owners there from being as frustrated as I was trying to follow live election coverage on a non-Flash tablet but they’ll be able to experience the wonders and the drawbacks for themselves by the end of the month. That includes the iBookstore, although what will be available to buy and download isn’t yet clear.

The UK Wi-Fi edition will run £429 for 16GB, £499 for 32GB, £599 for 64GB; Wi-Fi + 3G models run £529 for 16GB, £599 for 32GB and £699 for 64GB. (All prices include VAT.) I paid $500 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model; the conversion rate puts the UK model at about $648. 

Why The FTC Should Allow The Google-AdMob Merger

The Federal Trade Commission is expected to make a decision as early as this week on whether to allow Google’s $750 million acquisition of AdMob, a source told mocoNews. And, according to All Things D, the two companies expect the FTC to block the acquisition because of antitrust concerns. The reasoning doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what will happen to the mobile ad-serving business as a result of the purchase—rather it’s a way for the government to show its concern for Google’s dominance in search on the web.

But there are plenty of reasons why the FTC should approve the deal. Mobile advertising is in its infancy, and was barely considered a vibrant market until Google (NSDQ: GOOG) agreed to buy AdMob. Apple’s subsequent acquisition of Quattro Wireless helped generate additional momentum. In other words, the merger is a chance to make mobile advertising exciting after years of the wait-and-see game.