With only a month to go ’til Christmas our thoughts have started to turn to the inevitable and much dreaded annual questions; ‘What am I going to get people for a Christmas present?’ For the technophiles amongst us one of the big things we will probably consider is a 4G enabled phone now that EE has rolled out its 4G network. Read More »

Fascinating story here that could have far reaching implications for us all in this industry. Or possibly none at all depending on your point of view about how much change is yet to come and whether that might involve a host of new platforms and services. Entrepreneur Corey Ford has not only posed the question, asking what is the future of journalism, publishing and media, but he is investing $50k in five companies to see if they can find the answer.

He is applying the spirit of tech start-ups to journalism as part of a four-month rolling accelerator project in San Francisco. The project, called Matter, will provide not only investment to start-ups, but space to work and a “collaborative community and culture” to help “teams validate their ideas”, and gain traction with their audience. Read More »

With so much digital noise out their advertisers and content producers are desperately seeking ways to cut through and get noticed. ThingLink have created a new tool that helps build dynamic image content for Twitter and blogs. It allows users to embed a variety of content into one image. You can see from the image of Rhianna alongside and another really good example below, from heavy metal band Ill Ninio, the wealth of content and engagement opportunities that ThingLink adds and enriches images with.

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Twitter has greatly expanded its Trends product today and has added 100 more cities around the world, including twelve in the UK bringing the total to 16. The new UK cities on Twitter are Belfast, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Portsmouth and Sheffield. They join Birmingham, Glasgow, London, and Manchester.
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Facebook-owned Instagram has taken the step of blocking Twitter from displaying photos correctly by disabling its Twitter card integration. It means Instagram photos no longer display properly on Twitter and look oddly cropped. Instagram has said it made the move because it wants people to views pictures on a new Instagram web presence it is building rather than viewing them on Twitter.

The issue is, of course, many people want to view, and more importantly share, their pictures on Twitter.

While the move will have its benefits –bringing users a decent Instagram web presence is obviously a welcome move — it seems a shame that another part of the social web has to be disrupted in the on going battle for social networking supremacy.

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Undoubtedly the film event of the year and the next two years is The Hobbit.  Yes there is Twilight for the younger generation but The Hobbit is iconic and stretches across all ages. They have created some really cool brand partnerships and one or two really naff ones!

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