Online Bloke’s Mags See Traffic Soar

Online Bloke's Mags See Traffic SoarBlokes are generally an easily pleased bunch when it comes to magazines – just shove in loads of high tech gadgets, big cars, some football, lots of wobbling booby babes, video game reviews, pics of dangerous sports and perhaps a page or two on cooking to show off their sensitive side – and they’re as happy as a pig in dirt.

Of course, now that they can get most of the above (and more) all over t’internet, mens print magazines have had to set up their own web presences to keep the ol’brand loyalty going and new figures from Nielsen//NetRatings show that the blokes are digging the concept.

Their stats show that Maxim is currently most popular UK online men’s lifestyle mag, Bizarre the fastest growing with Monkey enjoying the most loyal audience.

Online Bloke's Mags See Traffic SoarThe phwoaar-tastic Loaded site apparently has the “greatest affinity” with men, with 88% of visitors to their site being of the geezer persuasion, followed by Nuts (83%) and Zoo (81%).

GQ is almost a girly mag in comparison with more than half (55%) of their online audience being laydees (or ‘foxy chicks’ as Loaded might put it).

Market leaders Maxim managed to notch up 479,000 Unique Visitors in January 2007, putting it 27% ahead of second-placed FHM (378,000), although visitor loyalties seem to easily switch: FHM was the most popular site in October 2006, while Monkey ruled supreme in November and December 2006

Online Bloke's Mags See Traffic Soar“The last quarter has seen the big three online men’s lifestyle magazines – Maxim, FHM and Monkey – vying for top spot. On its official launch in November 2006, Monkey climbed straight to the top of the tree but the last two months have seen a slight, if steady, drop in popularity to fall behind Maxim and FHM,” commented Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, commented:

Dennis Publishing were responsible for the three fastest growing online men’s magazines, with Bizarre scoring a 255% UA growth, Maxim (124%) and Monkey (99%) between October 2006 and January 2007.

The soaring online figures are in contrast to tumbling print figures, reflecting the importance of the online space to traditional publishers.

Via

Scoopt Citizen Journalism Service Snapped Up By Getty

With ‘citizen journalism’ being one of the loudest buzzwords in the bright shiny Web 2.0 world, it’s no surprise to see the big media agencies looking for a slice of the action.

Citizen Journalism Service Scoopt Snapped Up By GettyMajor news agencies made great use of public camera phone footage after the London 7/7 bombings, with several images making the front page of newspapers.

The citizen journalism photo agency Scoopt currently offers a service that lets users text or email any newsworthy photos and video footage, which the company then endeavours to flog on to the international press on their behalf .

Acquiring the company for an undisclosed sum, Getty Images is looking to fully integrate this service into the output of their pro photographers.

The small print

Camera phone snappers uploading imagery to Scoopt keep their copyright but agree to grant the agency a 12-month exclusive license that lets them re-license the work to one or more publishers, with a 50/50 split on the moolah.

Citizen Journalism Service Scoopt Snapped Up By GettyWith Getty’s well established media network, amateur snappers should expect increased prospects of shifting their work, although Getty hasn’t commented if the payment share is to remain the same.

The company has also said that it intends to invest in technology upgrades and introduce further enhancements to make the Scoopt site more accessible to punters.

“New technology has made it easier to capture and distribute imagery, leading to citizen photojournalism that is increasingly relevant to the news cycle,” commented Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images.

“While this genre will never replace the award-winning photojournalism for which we’re known, it’s a highly complementary offering that enables us to meet the evolving imagery needs of a broad customer base,” he added.

Via

How to take good camera phone pictures

Scoopt’s site also provides a handy photo taking guide for wannabe citizen journos, and here’s their top ten tips:

1 Hold the camera steady.
2 Concentrate on the subject.
3 Be aware of what is happening around you.
4 Try to connect with your subject but stay slightly detached to look for the best time to take a picture.
5 Go the extra mile to get the picture — but don’t take risks and don’t break the law.
6 Keep looking and snapping even when you think you have the scoop.
7 Don’t be put off by bad light/rain/snow/a duff viewpoint. Sometimes these elements can add to a picture.
8 Be VERY patient.
9 Be single minded. Getting the picture is your objective. Think in terms of images
10 Hold the camera steady! (Did we mention that one already?)

They Want Your Pod! Brixton On iPod Alert

They Want Your Pod!Although some may already feel that walking around Brixton is akin to taking a stroll around another planet, we began to think we might have been transported to a parallel universe when we spotted bright garish yellow billboards appearing all around town exclaiming, “THEY WANT YOUR POD!”

The signs were appearing everywhere – on lamp posts, railings and street furniture – warning the denizens of Brixton that large dark silhouetted shapes were hell bent on taking their “POD.”

Fearing a Day of the Triffids-like invasion of Coldharbour Lane, we took a closer look and saw that the boards were illustrated by a large black blob of a humanoid facing up to a thinner humanoid sporting the trademark white cable of the Apple iPod player.

They Want Your Pod!In smaller text underneath the screaming headline, “BEWARE” the sign goes on, “Street robbers are targeting persons using mp3 music players in this street!”

It turns out that far from warning visitors of an impending alien pod-snatching mission, the signs are part of the ‘Safer Lambeth’ initiative by the Metropolitan Police.

They Want Your Pod!Although the sign doesn’t actually tell you what to do to prevent being ‘jacked’ (© Richard Madeley ), we guess the iPod imagery is a way of advising music listeners ecstatically flailing their limbs a la iPod advert that they should show a little more discretion on the mean streets of Brixton.

Of course, being Brixton, it was only a matter of hours before the sign was joyfully subverted, with stick-on labels in the same colour and typeface altering the message to read:

“THEY WANT YOUR POD – BECAUSE YOU TOOK THEIR SOUL.”

Creative Slim Down Vision M and W MP3 Players

In the highly competitive MP3 player market, every single ounce of extraneous lard could result in lost sales, so Creative’s boffins in Japan have been working hard to slim down their popular Zen players.

Creative Slim Down Vision M and W MP3 PlayersFresh outta hi-tech Fat Farm, the new Zen Vision M and W models have managed to reduce their bulk by 15% on previous versions while wedging in a bigger hard disk.

Vision M
Looking at the vital statistics, the Creative Zen Vision M measures up at a pocket pleasing 62x104x19mm (slimmed down from 22.1-mm to 19mm.)

Creative Slim Down Vision M and W MP3 PlayersThe rather desirable little fella weighs in at a light as heck 170g (and that includes the battery) and comes with a 2.5 inch colour screen.

Despite its featherweight form, the device manages to pack in a fairly generous 60GB of storage, which should be enough to keep punters entertained on all but the longest journeys (British Rail delays notwithstanding).

Creative Slim Down Vision M and W MP3 PlayersVision W

The Zen Vision W has also spent time on the juddery slimming belt machine, and now comes in a 134x75x22mm package (slimmed down from 26.4mm to 22mm) and weighs 280g, including battery.

There’s also 60GB of onboard storage and a generous 4.3 inch display, although some may be wondering what happened to the 80GB and 100GB models.

Creative Slim Down Vision M and W MP3 PlayersWhen?
At the moment, there’s only been an announcement on the Creative Japan site, so it may take some time before us Brits can get our grubby hands on these puppies.

Source

BT Try To Vary Payphone Pricing

In their constant pursuit for higher profits, BT have put a request into the UK uber-regulator Ofcom, to allow them to charge different prices for phone calls depending on where the phonebox is located, claim TelecomTV.

BT Try To Vary Payphone PricingBT is under a legal obligation to provide phone boxes up and down the length of the UK, which they claim numbers 63,795. BT say that 40,500 of these phone boxes are unprofitable.

BT is attempting to negotiate a three-year deal that would let BT “determine the acceptable pricing of pay-phone calls.”

Try to get out of their obligations is not really playing the game is it? It’s not like their obligation to payphones is news to them.

It’s got the ring about it along the lines of charging for directory enquiries. When BT was allowed to start charging for calls to directory enquiries, it was only ‘normal’ landlines that were effected. Calls to find out phone numbers were free from Payphone, as BT removed the printed telephone directories from them. A few years later BT had the rules changed and started charging from payphone, despite not returning the printed directories.

BT claim that calls from payphones have dropped off by 40% in the last four years, no doubt due to the considerable rise in uptake of mobile phones.

Digital-Lifestyles thinks this doesn’t make it right that people who live in remote locations should have to pay inflated prices for using the same payphone and connecting to the same phone network as everyone else, just because BT wants to make more profit.

(via)

EU Comments Add Pressure To Apple iTunes

The heat on Apple to open up their iTunes/iPod combination went up another notch following an interview with Meglena Kuneva, the European Union’s Consumer Protection Commissioner.

EU Comments Add Pressure To Apple iTunesIn the interview with German weekly magazine Focus, published today, she poses the following question, “”Do you think it’s fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod?” It’s followed by a couple of words that are going to make uncomfortable reading for Apple, “I don’t. Something has to change.”

Music bought on the Apple iTunes online shop cannot be played on any other music player, apart from Apple’s iPod.

Kuneva is carrying out a review of the eight basic laws which govern cross-border consumer rights.

Pressure has been building for quite a while against Apple, with the latest, most significant one being in January as the Norwegian Consumer Watchdog, declaring iTunes to be illegal.

Previous actions have been, the approval of France’s ‘iTunes Law,’ after Apple narrowly avoided the French courts over their FairPlay DRM back in 2004.

Apple leader, Steve Jobs, wrote an open letter at the start of last month, entitled “Thoughts on Music,” where he said he’d drop DRM “in a heartbeat,” but was hamstrung by the content owners not allowing him to do so.

Meglena Kuneva – EU site

Army invades MySpace

New Media Classification System For UKThis just feels wrong on just about every level we can think of, but in an attempt to reach out to Da Yoot, the US Army have created a slick and highly polished MySpace recruitment site.

Boasting around 15,000 friends (they’ve still kept the grinning picture of founder ‘Tom’ in there, bless) they’ve already surpassed Osama Bin Laden’s 13,500 MySpace friends so it looks like “mission accomplished” in cyberspace.

The page – a heavily customised number – features a rather spooky looking Sgt Star character who implores you to strike up a chat.

Sadly, any hopes of an in-depth chinwag about the merits of unsigned death metal bands are quickly dashed when clicking on the icon transfers you off MySpace to a ‘Go Army‘ site.

New Media Classification System For UKA warning next to the psychopathic-looking Sgt Star warns, “The information you enter is to be used only for recruiting Soldiers into the U.S. Army and the Army Reserve.”

Still, we thought we’d give him a go anyway and typed in, “We want to go to Iraq and kick some ass,” but were immediately warned to mind our language by the disembodied computer voice of the strangely unblinking Sgt.

New Media Classification System For UKWe apologised: “OK. Sorry. We want to go to Iraq and bomb some soft Johnny Foreigners back into the Stone Age in the name of peace.”

The Sgt didn’t seem to understand.

We tried a few probing questions about Guantamano Bay and human rights but the Sgt wasn’t having any of it, delivering a terse lecture about needing American citizenship to become a US soldier, so we decided it was time to leave (after childishly testing the bad word filter, natch).

Back on the MySpace site, the US govt has spared no expense in its quest to coax sofa-loving music fans into a life of short haircuts and being shouted at, offering a free download of a video game with lots of, like, cool explosions, big guns, missiles, more guns, backed by a high octane techno soundtrack.

New Media Classification System For UKClearly a sizeable wad of defence budget has been thrown at the slick game, which purports to offer realistic battlefield scenes (although we couldn’t find any options to rain friendly fire on Brit troops and then try and cover up the investigation afterwards.)

And if all that hasn’t convinced America’s surfers to sign up, there’s loads more goodies on the site, including a video going on about “The New Army Ethos,” free wallpapers, podcasts, RSS feeds and action pictures of fun-loving, Oakley-toting soldiers doing rad things like skydiving, driving man-sized va-he-icles, holding big guns and helping lots of poor people (if they’re not busy carpet bombing them, natch).

New Media Classification System For UKOf course, there’s sound business reasoning behind the US Army shoving its shiny size nines onto a social networking site like MySpace, with the site able to interact with the community, make friends and receive comments and – possibly – make the Army look vaguely cool and enticing.

But we just wish they’d bugger off and leave it the bands.

http://myspace.com/army

More reading: The Ties That Bind: Connection Beats Page Views

New Media Classification System For UK

New Media Classification System For UKGordon Brown has announced that a new labelling system for media content is in the works, designed to help parents protect their children from dodgy digital content.

The idea is that a system similar to cinema classifications would be introduced to classify content on websites, video games, TV shows and other media content.

Backed by industry regulator Ofcom, Brown intoned that the system would offer practical help to parents concerned about their little darlings being exposed to new media outlets seemingly stuffed to the brim with violent imagery, drugs and hot, hot sex.

Commenting on the veritable torrent of filth that virtually seeps out of every child’s PC as soon as they connect to the web, Brown said that it is an “issue we must address with practical proposals to address the challenges we face.”

“We want to promote a culture which favours responsibility and establishes boundaries: limits of what is acceptable and unacceptable.”

“We can’t and shouldn’t seek to turn the clock back on technology and change. Rather we need to harness new technology and use it to enable parents to exercise the control they want over the new influences on their children,” he added.

New Media Classification System For UK As part of the scheme, Ofcom will introduce common labelling standards covering cinema, TV, radio, computer games and the internet.

These will be backed up by an awareness campaign advising parents about content filtering software for PCs, and information about TV set top boxes which can limit what can and cannot be seen by little Timmy and Tabatha.

Brown added that they’ll also be looking at persuading technology manufacturers to provide better information on software to block content unsuitable for children, as well as investigating new methods to restrict access to saucy and violent content shared over the t’web.

Brown recognised that it’s a fat look of good trying to implement restrictions on just a national scale, pointing out that agreements need to be struck at the international level.

“We need to support all those broadcasters and providers doing a huge amount and of course we need to recognise there are global markets where we need international agreement,” he said, somewhat understating the importance of worldwide standards.

Of course, many companies and public institutions already use web filtering software but their methods can often resemble a 300 ton sledgehammer cracking a dwarf-sized peanut.

Scunthorpe. Arsenal. And Sex

The denizens of Scunthorpe and fans of Arsenal football club have already famously fallen foul of none-too-smart naughty word blockers, and many sites have complained about being blocked for the most spurious of reasons, with very little chance of retribution.

Some sites about UK counties have also found themselves banned from libraries and internet cafes because the word ‘sex’ has appeared in their domain name – even though the sites are about subjects as unerotic as Sussex, Essex and Wessex.

More about word filtering mistakes here: The Scunthorpe Problem

[From: Brown unveils classification system for new media]

US Mobile Game Revenue Soars

US Mobile Game Revenue SoarsMobile games are starting to rake in big revenues in the States as perambulating punters warm to the idea of downloading games for their phones.

According to research firm Telephia, earnings from the category of games known as “on-portal” took a hefty 61 percent leap skywards in the fourth quarter of 2006 in the US.

Telephia say that over 17 million Americans downloaded a mobile game during the last three months of 2006, representing a beefy 45 percent jump from the 12 million recorded during the same time of 2005.

The US now makes up nearly a third of the worldwide mobile gaming market, which shaped up at around 38 million downloads per month in 2005, according to stats firm iSuppli.

Their figures predict that the number will hit around 134 million game downloads every month by the year 2010.

US Mobile Game Revenue SoarsAlthough you might imagine that mobile gaming would be the near-exclusive preserve of socially challenged males aged 25 to 36, Telephia says that it’s the ladies who are the hottest to trot, with 65 percent of U.S. mobile game buyers being of the female persuasion.

With the U.S. mobile game revenue registering a till-straining $566 million revenue in 2006, there’s clearly big profits on the horizon.

iSuppli are predicting that the worldwide mobile gaming market will be worth $6.1 billion by 2010, up mightily from 2005’s total of $1.8 billion.

Source

BBC and YouTube Partner

Another day, another content deal as the UK National broadcaster, the BBC, sign a deal with YouTube/Google to make a selection of their content available on YouTube on an non-exclusive basis.

BBC and YouTube PartnerTwo deals have been done, one with the BBC, the other BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC. Financial terms of the deal aren’t being discussed at all.

There will be three YouTube ‘channels’ under the deal. Two of them are live already, BBC and BBCWorldwide, with BBCWorld to follow ‘shortly.’

BBC is very much in the YouTube model, full of rough camcorder diary pieces, and behind the scenes shots giving an ‘insight’ into the workings of the BBC. Currently there are 31 pieces going back one month.

BBCWorldwide is labelled as “The best of British TV” and currently has 78 video pieces on it and contains a ton on Top Gear, Attenborough and a smattering of comedy shows like The Mighty Boosh and Catherine Tate. Will also “include a limited amount of advertising.”

BBCWorld isn’t up and running yet, but when it is, will only be available to YouTube viewers outside the UK. It will be advertising-funded.

Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, likes the project, “The partnership provides both a creative outlet for a range of short-form content from BBC programme makers and the opportunity to learn about new forms of audience behaviour.

What’s it like?
Surprisingly for the BBC the quality of the video isn’t what it could be. Quite a change from the days when quality was everything.

Interestingly, fans of BBC content are barred from showing their fav ditties on any other sites as “Embedding disabled by request.” If the BBC has requested this, or YouTube isn’t clear. It’s more likely given they’ve paid the BBC for their content, and we imagine that they damn well want viewers visiting their site to see the videos.

This is great for the BBC as they get to distribute their content widely (fitting their remit) while not having to spend any money on distribution of the content, in fact receiving payment for the privilege.