weekly digital media

Piers Morgan joins Mail Online as US editor

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/30/piers-morgan-joins-mail-online

This article speaks about how Piers Morgan has joined mail online as its editor. They said he would bring his experience and his own perspective. He Piers Morgan also heaped praise on the mail by saying news shouldn't be boring and the mail certainly isn't. They also said Piers knows how to cause debates and conversations. The article then goes on to speak about how his TV talk show on CNN and how it got axed, he also on that show said some controversial things. Piers has done editing before and was the youngest ever editor at one stage when working for news of the world.

Stats

Morgan admitted that ratings for his show had “taken a bath”, falling below 300,000 from an early high of 2 million.

He became the youngest ever British national newspaper editor in 1994, aged 29, when Rupert Murdoch put him charge of the News of the World.

In my opinion I believe it is clever that mail online have hired Piers Morgan. This is because he is a controversial character and therefore people would want to see what he is writing about, as a result of this this may boost the views of mail online due to Piers being the new editor. In the article it states that Piers has 4 million plus followers which shows he is also very famous and from me following him I know that he likes confrontation. Also he likes himself a lot as he is only retweeting the good tweets about himself. Ultimately I believe it is clever as Piers is experienced and will cause controversy which is something the mail online may need.  

200 years question

"The last 20 years have been more significant in terms of media and its role in society than the whole of the previous 200 years" 
I do agree with this statement. One of the reasons being that you can now access the news at any time and a wider range of media. In a way that if a news story breaks out you can go on Twitter at that time and read up on the story and also it is fast due to fast internet access. 200 years ago you had to first of all buy the newspaper (now going on the internet is free) also the news may have been old so it may not have been relevant. Now there is wide range of media in which we have different sources.

Weekly digital media

Instagram ads reach the UK with Waitrose, Rimmel and Channel 4

This article spoke about how Instagram are now allowing brands such as Waitrose, Sony music and Rimmel London to run ads on instagram for free. They said they are giving these brands a chance to promote their products to a much wider audience. They also say that they want it to be as if the people viewing these pictures to be like they are looking at high quality ads like they would see in a magazine. They had already tried this in America before you could do videos on Instagram and are targeting Canada and Australia next as they are targeting the English spoken countries. They want to be shown as a premium environment. They say if this proves successful they may then use paid ads.

Statistics

The app was ported to Android smartphones in April 2012, shortly beforeFacebook agreed to buy the company for $1bn. Instagram now has more than 200m active users who have posted more than 20bn photos with its app.

In October 2013, when Instagram had 150m active users, the company’s chief executive Kevin Systrom told the Guardian that 6.9m of those people were in the UK: one of its biggest countries outside the US.

In my opinion I believe this is a clever idea, as Instagram is becoming more and more popular and if it is similar to what Twitter do in that for e.g. I tweet a lot about football and as a result I see a lot of promoted ads on football and betting so if Instagram were to do something similar in a way that they would do promotions on pictures I like such as music artists I believe it would be a clever promotion idea as these businesses could then have gained awareness on a wider scale as they said before. 

UK news providers

The Guardian

• Founded in 1821 by John Edward Taylor in Manchester
• The Guardian had a reputation as "an organ of the middle class
• The Guardian is part of the GMG Guardian Media Group of newspapers, radio stations, print media including The ObserverSunday newspaper
• The Guardian has been consistently loss-making. The National Newspaper division of GMG, which also includes The Observer, reported operating losses of £49.9m in 2006, up from £18.6m in 2005
• The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion
• The first edition was published on 5 May 1821, at which time The Guardian was a weekly, published on Saturdays

BBC News

• The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage.
• The department's annual budget is £350 million; it has 3,500 staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists.
• Radio and television operations are currently broadcast from the newly refurbished Broadcasting House, with all domestic, global, and online news divisions housed in Europe's largest live newsroom inside the building. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London.
• The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922
• BBC and ABC also share video segments and reporters as needed in producing their newscasts.

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2013/04/bbc-quis-50-year-deal-with-disappointed-abc.html

Mail online

• MailOnline (also known as dailymail.co.uk) is the website of the Daily Mail, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, and of its sister paper The Mail on Sunday.
• It is the most visited newspaper website in the world, with over 189.5 million visitors per month, and 11.7 million visitors daily, as of January 2014.
• The website reached 189.52 million unique web browsers in January 2014, up from 128.59 million in May 2013
• the Daily Mail, being to the right wing of mainstream British politics and typically supporting the UK Conservative Party.
• In December 2013, the Mail Online Android mobile app, Daily Mail Online, was named one of "The Best Apps of 2013" in the UK by the Google Play store

New and digital media

Rupert Murdoch's tweets hint at change of mind over Page 3

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/sep/10/page-3-rupert-murdoch

This article talks about Rupert Murdoch voicing his opinion on his dislike of page 3 girls in The Sun newspaper and doing so on Twitter. He tweeted "Page 3 again. Aren't beautiful young women more attractive in at least some fashionable clothes? Your opinions please." The article also stated that it was most likely to happen and that no more page 3 campaigners played a key role in this as their campaign was a viral campaign and gaining 200,000 signatories.

Key information

• No More Page 3 campaigners managed to attract more than 200,000 signatories to their petition calling on the paper's editor, David Dinsmore, to "take the bare boobs out of The Sun".
• It thought Murdoch's intervention shows that he's reconsidering the matter: "We're really encouraged that change is afoot."

In my opinion I agree to a certain extent to what Rupert Murdoch is saying in that they should not be seen in this way and that women would be seen in the way that "men act women appear" and that they are sex objects. However you could also say that times are moving on from that and that some girls do not mind being seen in this way and may make a living from doing this such as models and want their bodies to be seen in this way and use the sun newspaper to promote themselves as a result. 

Birmingham Mail to end staff coverage of Warwickshire cricket

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/sep/08/trinity-mirror-cricket

In this article Birmingham mail are to drop talk of Warwickshire cricket club as they believe cricket is becoming more of a niche sport. They also say it as nothing to do with the writer who has done a fantastic job for them over the years. This of course stirred criticism from many people: "We never thought we'd see the day when one of Britain's oldest newspapers decides that one of England's oldest first-class cricket counties is no longer worth the bother of a dedicated writer." is a quote from the sports journalist association voicing their unhappiness of what is happening with the Birmingham Mail. In the article a lot of people agree that it is not helping the sport of cricket as this as been in coverage in the Birmingham mail for many years and as a result of this they are shocked.

In my opinion I believe with both sides of the argument in that yes, you could say cricket especially county cricket is becoming more and more niche and that the paper would want to change it up a bit, however if this piece was in the Birmingham mail for a long time I don't believe they should have made this decision. Also if they did believe it is becoming more niche they could have tried to stop this from happening and show more coverage of it and you also have the cricket with countries such as England vs India which recently happened and that did attract large crowds so I believe cricket is not becoming niche. 

Is Angry Birds Stella sexist? 'We want to challenge stereotypes, says Rovio

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/04/angry-birds-stella-game-boys-girls-sexist

This article spoke about how they wanted to break different types of stereotypes. One being that a game is dedicated to girls in which you wouldn't associate them to be playing saying they have made the game as girls usually only play easy games and then on the other hand that boy's don't like the colour pink. Also saying that most game adverts are watched by men. They also say they want to give away the app for free but also but having to pay of get coins to get in to new levels.

Stats and data
Rovio’s revenues rose by just 2.5% in 2013 to €156m (£128.4m), while stripping out its consumer products income revealed that the income from the Angry Birds games actually fell slightly year-on-year.

The company’s income pales next to that of rivals like Clash of Clans maker Supercell (£542m in 2013) and Candy Crush Saga publisher King (£1.1bn).

In my opinion I agree with both sides in that yes it is good that they are trying to break these stereotypes and try making games for both genders however this game may be to similar to angry birds and may not make a lot of sales and as a result may backfire on them resulting in this idea of theirs being a flop and wasting a lot of money.