Monday 11 May 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/spotify-financial-results-streaming-music-profitable

Spotify recorded €1.08bn of revenues in 2014, but also a net loss of €162m.

Its 15m paying subscribers helped Spotify to more than €1bn of revenues in 2014, but its losses are still growing faster than its income. The company’s financial results, published in Luxembourg and seen by the Guardian, reveal that its revenues increased from €746.9m (£537.87m) in 2013 to €1.08bn (£777m) in 2014 – year-on-year growth of 45%. However, Spotify recorded an operating loss of €165.1m (£119m) in 2014 compared to €91.2m (£65.7m) in 2013, while its net loss nearly trebled from €55.9m (£40.3m) in 2013 to €162.3m (£117m) in 2014.

This shows the business plan is working and could be very successful in the future. I think Spotify can expand into a online video service. 



http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/windows-10-last-version-microsoft
A man works on a laptop computer near a Windows 10 display at Microsoft Build in San Francisco.

Microsoft to move to smaller, more frequent updates – meaning the all-important version number will remain the same from now on. The future will be one of “Windows as a service”, with the final release of Windows 10 being updated as necessary, rather than holding features back for the next major paid-for update.

I cannot believe this as we still have many years of technology developments and I think there will be a windows update in the future and this isnt the end of microsoft as we will see a new windows 

Friday 1 May 2015

why and with what success are traditional media institutions adopting to the challenge posed by new digital media. 

The development with new/digital media means that traditional media institutions have to change their strategies to cope with the competition which is being provided by online institutions. in the current digital era new and digital media has revolutionised the world, along with the internet being “the most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke). Some major institutions of the past haven't been able to keep up with the developments. 

Newspapers are the traditional sources which have been the most affected by new/digital media because newspapers are available on line free of charge. News giant Rupert Murdoch stated that the world is changing and newspapers have to adapt. However he has developed with the development of new digital media as he has introduce a pay wall to his newspapers which are the times and the sun and you have to pay to view their news. However other competitors have not done this which are daily mail etc. and they make their money by advertising. Daily mail have been the most successful with the development with new digital media as they get the most viewers which means they will get the most advertising money.  

A Marxist will believe that major players like sky are using the development to keep control and maintain their power and all the major players are all on line and are the ones who have the largest following base which shows they still have the post power and really backs a Marxist perspective. In the western world power is very important and most major players have the most power and this way they can still use the hypodermic needle theory as they inject their values and ideologies in their audience and a Marxist will just say that new digital media has allowed them to do this. 

However a Pluralist would believe that the power has swung into the hands of the audience and new digital media has helped them gain more power. You could agree with this because institutions have given the opportunity to audiences to get involved and share their opinion and the institution which uses their audience the most is sky sports as they allow their watchers to have a say in major debates. They read out opinions on their shows and they would argue that audience now have a say. 

News institutions have started to use more user generated content more often because they know that they cannot be everywhere and film all the affairs in the world happening. The way they have tackled this problem is by using the users as people are everywhere and most of them have smartphones and when something is happening major someone is likely to be recoding it and this is where institutions can cover the news with back up which is most likely to be UGC.  

In conclusion, the development of new digital media has made major institutions to make major changes to cope with the development. and I believe all the successful ones have gone to social media to cope with the development to keep up. However My opinion is that institutions like mail and sky have coped very well because they are expanding with digital media.      

Monday 27 April 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/27/conservatives-telegraph-letter-cameron-support-small-businesses-labour-economy

Prime minister David Cameron

The heads of thousands of businesses, who collectively employ nearly 100,000 people, have signed a letter in support of the Conservatives.

  • The document, which is signed by bosses from around 5,000 companies, follows a similar letter from more than 100 leading business executives.
  • business ambassador Karren Brady, warns that putting Ed Miliband and the Labour party into office on 7 May would be “far too risky” for Britain’s economy.


http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/22/minecraft-youtube-videos-march-grand-theft-auto

Minecraft is the most popular game franchise on YouTube.

Minecraft remains the most popular game franchise on YouTube by some distance, with videos of Mojang’s crafting game notching up more than 3.9bn views in March 2015 alone.



  • Minecraft was well ahead of second-placed Grand Theft Auto, which spawned videos watched nearly 1.4bn times in March.
  • Mobile game Five Nights at Freddy’s took third place with 1.3bn views that month, beating high-profile console franchises Call of Duty (851m views) and FIFA (770m views).
  • PewDiePie (299.1m views in February), The Diamond Minecart (249.5m), Popular MMOs (233.7m) and Stampy (222.9m) were all among the top 15 channels on YouTube that month.
  • Mojang has always encouraged fans and pro YouTubers alike to use Minecraft for their videos on YouTube, without filing copyright takedowns or demanding a share of their advertising revenues on the service.

Monday 20 April 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/16/hackers-steal-1bn-in-online-bank-thefts-says-report

An ATM keypad. Hackers are believed to have infiltrated dozens of banks and even programmed ATMs to dispense money at specific times.]#
A hacking ring has stolen up to $1bn from banks around the world in what would be one of the biggest banking breaches known, a cybersecurity firm says in a report scheduled to be delivered Monday.


  • he hackers have been active since at least the end of 2013 and infiltrated more than 100 banks in 30 countries, according to Russian security company Kaspersky Lab.
  • The hackers seem to limit their theft to about $10m before moving on to another bank, part of the reason why the fraud was not detected earlier, Kaspersky principal security researcher Vicente Diaz said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
I believe this is very interesting and something that needs to be dealt with because they have stote 1 billion which is a massive amount and I haven't heard about this which shows there hasn't been a serious appeal. 
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/10/why-would-google-be-interested-in-buying-twitter

Twitter was recently linked with a buyout by Google, at least the third time the two companies have been linked in such a way.

This article is about how it would help google if they buy twitter.  They have been linked to eachother for the last three years but they has never been an agreement. However it would be very hard to buy twitter know because of the jump in share prices.

Twitter is valued at 33 billion dollars 
Twitter has around 60 billion dollars in the bank 

However I believe it would be very hard to purchase twitter know because it is too big off a company and almost as big as google so it would be very hard>