Apple beats Coca-Cola to become world’s most valuable brand

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/apple-beats-cocacola-to-become-worlds-most-valuable-brand-for-first-time-8848780.html

In a strong year for technology and web-based brands, the other really big risers were Facebook, into 52nd place with its value up 43 per cent to $7.7 billion, and Amazon, into the top 20 with a 27 per cent improvement in value to $23.6 billion.

“Coca-Cola is a very mature, steady brand with a global presence, so the valuation for Coke will be pretty steady. With technology brands you see more volatility. Twenty years ago people were singing Motorola’s praises.

“Technology brands certainly influence buyer behaviour. They also tend to be very volatile. The table tells you that the most successful technology companies are very profitable and successful. It may also tell you there’s a bubble.”

Financial services in developing countries

Access to traditional financial services, such as deposit-taking accounts and automatic teller machines (ATMs), in developing countries has expanded in recent years

Popular Demand - US Media in Numbers

Fans choosing movies online seek out small coming-of-age dramas like “Mud,” which earned $21.6 million over 20 weeks in theaters, and big-studio extravaganzas like “The Great Gatsby.”

Uzbekistan's first daughters and the family squabble behind the dictatorship

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/27/uzbekistan-daughters-lola-gulnara-karimova

The squabble has far more significance than a mere family matter, as rumours swirl about the health of the 75-year-old Islam Karimov, who has ruled Uzbekistan since 1991 and has such a tight grip on power there are no other politicians with major public profiles. Gulnara has long been seen as a potential successor, but is deeply unpopular in the country, with a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks referring to her as "the single most hated person in the country". She has also been the target of a number of international corruption investigations in recent months and critics have long claimed that she runs a huge business empire in Uzbekistan. She has denied all wrongdoing.

Resolution not revolution: could 4K save TV?

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/sep/26/4k-resolution-ibc-2013-broadcast

"People have been glum for the wrong reasons," says Bill Roberts, director of video product management at Adobe, the creative software publisher. "Never before has more content been captured or consumed. The barriers to content creation are low, but monetisation is changing for the first time in 50 years."

Monolithic, often state-backed broadcasters that control both production, and distribution through the transmission networks, are losing ground to more creative, more flexible and sometimes better-resourced satellite and cable channels. Increasingly, they are losing ground too, to internet-only, or "internet first" operations.

As Roberts points out, OTT video distributor Netflix has branched out into original content, creating the US series House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. And Netflix can more properly be called an internet-first service rather than purely an online service: the company recently announced its programming would be available to Virgin Media subscribers, via their set-top boxes.

Daniel Ek of Spotify talks about changing the music business

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ca45f6b8-25bd-11e3-aee8-00144feab7de.html#axzz2gAUPgWcL

He believed that if he offered music free with advertising on users’ desktops, many would pay for the convenience of having it ad-free on their iPhones. Ek was a big Apple supporter but Steve Jobs, the iPhone’s creator, had mocked the idea of music subscriptions and the Swede’s business model was a bet on Apple’s guru being wrong. “Jobs was a brilliant guy ... but he was also very famous for saying constantly that something was wrong and then six months later doing it himself,” says Ek.

Pointing to forecasts that another billion people will come online in the next three years, he adds: “We’re just at the beginning of this journey ... This is the time to invest.” Indeed, while Spotify’s sales shot from €190m to €435m in 2012, its net losses grew from €45.4m to €58.7m as Ek poured money into new features and opening in more countries.

With launches in four markets this week, including Argentina and Turkey, Spotify is now in 32 countries, and he sees opening up emerging markets as the best chance of restoring the music industry to its former size. Though Ek’s home market of Sweden is also capturing the industry’s attention. In the first half of 2013, streaming services accounted for three-quarters of the country’s recorded music revenues, driving growth of 12 per cent in an industry accustomed to double-digit declines.

Ad break: VW's A-ha spoof, Adobe mocks digital marketers

Watch a Volkswagen advert cleverly updating the classic Take on Me promo in our review of new work from around the world

Viral Video Chart: Justin Timberlake in Twitter skit, Jimmy Fallon spoofs A-ha

Watch the singer show what hashtags sound like in real life and the host lay down a lip-sync challenge in our online clip rundown

1."#Hashtag" with Jimmy Fallon & Justin Timberlake
Its so #insertyourownopinion.

2. Louis C.K. Hates Cell Phones
Hung up on cellphones?

3. Mercedes-Benz TV: MAGIC BODY CONTROL TV commercial "Chicken"
Feeling cocky

4. Lip Sync Battle with Joseph Gordon Levitt, Stephen Merchant and Jimmy Fallon
Look out for Merchant's HBO series Hello Ladies

5. Lakewood High School Lip Dub 2013 - Roar
Katy Perry song gets the lip-sync treatment

6. We Can't Stop - Vintage 1950's Doo Wop Miley Cyrus Cover ft. The Tee - Tones
Classier than most of the Miley covers

7. Jimmy Fallon, Sesame Street & The Roots Sing "Sesame Street" Theme (w/ Classroom Instruments)
Watch out for Cookie Monster eating a banana

8. BatDad
Better than Ben Affleck will be?

9. The New REALLY Cheap iPhone
If only the real thing cost $24.99

10. "Wrecking Ball"--Hedgehog Parody
Hedgehog gets in on the Miley action

Facebook maps 1.11 billion friendships to show social network's global reach

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-maps-111-billion-friendships-to-show-off-social-networks-global-reach-8839116.html

The Biggest Loss-making Cars in Europe

CARMAKERS in Europe are facing a rough ride, with sales at a 17-year low region-wide. So it seems cruel of Sanford C. Bernstein, a brokerage, to remind them of their biggest commercial wrecks. Most major makers suffered billions in losses. Yet not all cars failed by accidents of poor design, ill-judged technological leaps or wildly optimistic production forecasts. VW knew its Bugatti Veyron, a quick and complex supercar made in tiny numbers, would not make money but hoped it might burnish the brand.

German election — spot the Berlin Wall

http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2013/09/german-election-spot-the-berlin-wall/

Apple co-founder 'I want the entire internet on my wrist'

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/23/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-smart-watches

“I want the entire smartphone, the entire internet, on my wrist," he told Wired’s Nate Lanxon. "I want a larger display than they're starting with. They're starting with … displays that are the size of the iPod nano, which is the size of an ordinary watch of the past. I think we've got to get a little beyond this watch of the past."

“I hope [a future smart watch is] independent, works on its own and is not connected with Bluetooth to the smartphone in your pocket, but that doesn't mean it would be bad if it were that way.”

Most commercially available smart watches, from the Pebble toSamsung’s Galaxy Gear, connect to another internet-connected device.

In the interview, Wozniak lends his support to another new wearable technology Google Glass.

"I think that has a chance too, and the reason is: I want one,” he said. “I don't have one because I haven't enough time to be an early tester.”

"I think that's where our biggest innovations come from. It's people looking back at themselves and saying, 'Here's something that I really want that doesn't exist. I'm going to make it, maybe just for myself and my company.'"

The uncomfortable truth about online ad measurement and viewability

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/sep/20/online-advertising-measurement-viewability

Around a hundred years after American businessman John Wanamaker, famously said "half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half," some within the online ad industry think they may have identified the half he was wondering about.

A recent study published by ComScore claimed that 46% of online display advertising is wasted because it is not seen by consumers, due to the fact that the ads are situated on webpages below the cut-off point of a user's screen.

Viewability as the issue is known has sent the online ad community into something of a tailspin. The problem has been likened to selling space on under water billboards; why have marketers been paying for advertising that isn't being seen?

The answer, the industry says (IAB U.S.), is to use a new standard of measurement to confirm viewability. Marketers should only pay for ads that appear above the fold of the page and adhere to a technical standard: 50% of the ad pixels must load for a minimum of 1 second.

Hot on the heels of ComScore's study however, is a piece of consumer eye-tracking research by media tech company Sticky that shows that on average as much as 77% of the online advertising that is visible above the fold and is classed as viewable, may remain unseen.

Viktor Pinchuk draws the world’s elite to his Crimean palace

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/what-do-tony-blair-dominique-strausskahn-and-hillary-clinton-have-in-common-8830374.html

For 10 years now many of the world’s biggest fish have gathered on the shores of the comparatively small pond that is the Black Sea to shoot the geopolitical breeze, at the financial behest of a Ukrainian billionaire-cum-politician-cum-philanthropist.

“I do this to bring the world’s biggest visionaries to Ukraine,” says Victor Pinchuk, the 53-year-old Ukrainian commodities billionaire who is now doing big things with his country’s serious HIV/Aids problem. “It makes Ukraine think globally ....  We are thinking climate change, over-population, not just Ukrainian problems.”

That may be true, but the boost to his personal profile is certainly not lost on him. The conference press officers speak more in terms of the big names they’ve pulled in over the years, rather than its transformative impact on Ukrainian politics, which don’t appear to be all that transformed.

Gendercide in the Caucasus

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21586617-son-preference-once-suppressed-reviving-alarmingly-gendercide-caucasus


The sex ratios in the Caucasus are especially distorted when a second or third child is born. In Armenia, among first children, there are 138 boys for every 100 girls. If the first child is a son, the next is more likely to be a girl than a boy (ie, reverse sex selection). But if the first child is a girl, son-preference goes off the scale. When the first child is a daughter, 61% of second children are sons. Armenian parents seem to plan family composition, not just size.

As elsewhere, cheap ultrasound machines, which can detect the sex of a foetus, made a difference. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, such machines were rare because parts had military use and their export from the West was banned. As they spread after 1991, sex-selective abortions rose. Yet such machines also became more common in Ukraine and other nearby countries where sex ratios stayed stable. They rose in North Ossetia, part of the Russian Caucasus, and also in parts of Turkey, but only to 107.

How Google changed the way we work...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/perks-for-employees-and-how-google-changed-the-way-we-work-while-waiting-in-line-8830243.html

Internet firms such as Google and Facebook were not the first to bring changes to the work environment, however. Hewlett-Packard introduced an open-plan office to drive interaction back in the 1970s. In 2000 Steve Jobs bought a former canning factory in Emeryville, California, to house his animation studio, Pixar. The office was arranged around a central atrium, where the café and a single set of loos was situated, forcing employees to engage with one another and – as in Mr Cobley’s lunch queues – to wait, to chat and to generate ideas. “We wanted to find a way to force people to come together,” Jobs said of the design. “To create a lot of arbitrary collisions of people.”

Or didn't....

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21584947-backlash-against-running-firms-progressive-schools-has-begun-montessori-management

According to one survey around 70% of all offices in America have gone open-plan. Yet evidence is mounting that this is a bad idea. Over the past five years Gensler, a design firm, has asked more than 90,000 people in 155 companies in ten industries what they think of this way of working. It has found an astonishing amount of antipathy. Workers say that open-plan offices make it more difficult to concentrate, because the hubbub of human and electronic noise is so distracting. What they really value is the ability to focus on their jobs with as few distractions as possible. Ironically, going open-plan defeats another of Montessori management’s main objectives: workers say it prevents them from collaborating, because they cannot talk without disturbing others or inviting an audience. Other studies show that people who work in open-plan offices are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress and airborne infections such as flu.

Valdai Conference - Russia's identity and values

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/09/valdai-conference

VLADIMIR PUTIN was in bouncy and even humorous mood when he spoke to this year's Valdai conference on September 19th. Unperturbed by protests at home and a slowing economy, he was clearly buoyed by Russia's recent diplomatic success over Syria. As he nears the age of 61, he shows no signs of wanting to step down soon; indeed, he hinted that he might run again for president in 2018, when his current term is up.

The theme of this year's Valdai was Russian identity and values. Mr Putin's speech positively brimmed with nostalgia. His thesis was that Russia had been through a terrible period under Soviet communism (though he praised some of the USSR's achievements) and then the chaotic liberalism in the 1990s, only to achieve serene stability under his own presidency. He repeatedly invoked morality and spirituality, praising Christianity and traditional religious mores and attacking the political correctness that often clashed with them. He also warned outsiders against interfering in Russia, saying that sovereignty, independence and the country's territorial integrity were "red lines" that should not be crossed.

Robot repartee - by Jonathan Margolis

http://howtospendit.ft.com/gadgets/35923-Robot%20repartee

Science fiction comes to life with the entertaining and fully interactive RoboThespian

Viral Video Chart: Kid President, Phonebloks, tipping tips

See an inspiring educational pep talk and an innovative customisable smartphone in our rundown of the top online clips

1. Phonebloks
Phone of the future?

2. Spencer's Home Depot Marriage Proposal
Shopping for love

3. Kid President's Pep Talk to Teachers and Students
The kid's alright

4. Tipping Servers $200
Tipped over the edge

5. The Scarecrow
Hit animated game trailer

6. Ohio University Marching 110 does The Fox by Ylvis
Down to the musical detail of the Norwegian hit

7. The Jewish Hunger Games: Kvetching Fire
Fasting furiously, no schtooping

8. Flying Kittens vs Flying Puppies (Slow Motion Battle)
Pets unleashed

9. Ben Affleck Tells Parenting Stories, Talks Batman
Kids say the darndest things

10. The Fox by Ylvis
Tiny paws up the hill

Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 19 September 2013. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

The World’s Biggest Firms

American private enterprise dominates the corporate premier league again, thanks to waning valuations of state-backed firms

E-commerce - Tencent’s worth

A Chinese internet firm finds a better way to make money


IS TENCENT one of the world’s greatest internet firms? There are grounds for scepticism. The Chinese gaming and social-media firm started in the same way many local internet firms have: by copying Western success. QQ, its instant-messaging service, was a clone of ICQ, an Israeli invention acquired by AOL of America. And unlike global internet giants such as Google and Twitter, Tencent still makes its money in its protected home market.

Yet the Chinese firm’s stockmarket valuation briefly crossed the $100 billion mark this week for the first time. Given that the valuation of Facebook, the world’s leading social-media firm, itself crossed that threshold only a few weeks ago, it is reasonable to wonder whether Tencent is worth so much. However, Tencent now has bigger revenues and profits than Facebook. In the first half of this year Tencent enjoyed revenues of $4.5 billion and gross profits of $2.5 billion, whereas Facebook saw revenues of $3.3 billion and gross profits of $935m.

Video games - Pixel pressures

A blockbuster launch may bring an extra life to British games makers

The game, which was made in Edinburgh on a reported budget of £170m ($270m), is a triumph for the British video-game industry. The firm that makes GTA V, Rockstar North, is expected to take as much as £1 billion in revenues. Sadly, however, this success is nowadays rare. Beneath the hype Britain’s video-game industry is a shadow of what it once was. Days before GTA V’s release, one of the country’s oldest and largest studios, Blitz, announced it would close. Its boss, Philip Oliver, blamed fierce competition for contracts.

British weakness largely reflects the state of the industry globally. The two main consoles—the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3—are both reaching the end of their life cycles. Sales of games in Britain fell from £2 billion in 2010 to £1.6 billion last year (in both physical and electronic format), a decline that was mirrored worldwide. That partly explains why, according to data gathered by TIGA, an industry body, the number of creative staff employed by British studios has fallen from 9,900 in 2008 to 9,224 last year.

Predictions through the years that turned out to be spectacularly wrong

As George Osborne confounds the economists who doubted his austerity measures, we look at confident predictions through the years that turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

iPhone

Mere months before the first iPhone was released in 2007 Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, said, "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Apple has sold more than 116 million iPhones this year alone. Ballmer has soldiered on at Microsoft but it was announced last month that he is to retire within the year

Y2K bug

For years before the stroke of midnight heralded in the new millennium, analysts were convinced it would cause destruction. The American deputy Secretary of Defence John Hamre said it would be the "electronic equivalent of the El Nino." The mass hysteria stemmed from the fact that computer systems were built to record dates using only the last two digits of each year so they could recognise '77' as '1977' but '00' would set them into a tailspin. Hundreds of billions of pounds were spent on making software 'Y2K compliant' but all fears were unfounded with very few recorded malfunctions.

Internet shopping

In 1966 Time Magazine imagined what the world might look like in the year 2000. Among other prediction it said: “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop – because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise." Online shopping has not turned out to be a flop- men and women flock to it. Currently UK online retail sales stand at approximately £586.6m per week

Corporate names - Verbal identities

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/corporate-names

Marketing gurus once aspired to promote a brand as solid, reliable, serious. Yet the present downturn has made “legacy” names less popular than ever. They have lost their credit (in both senses of the word). Post-recession sensitivities have changed what consumers like products to be called, and what they want them to be associated with.

“Brands used to be authoritative—they spoke at people,” says Paola Norambuena, Executive Director of Verbal Identity for Interbrand North America, a branding consultancy. “Now brands are co-created, they need to be participatory and engaging, and consumers want to be a part of that dialogue.” Trust has migrated away from the men in dark suits, and towards the open-collared, tie-loosened alternative (Northern Rock branches now boast the Virgin brand).

Names with a whiff of the establishment seem old hat. Chris West, founder of Verbal Identity, specialists in linguistic branding, says that “they appear to be hankering after a debased culture of corporate magnificence”. Consumers think of them as pompous, self-serving, impersonal. The advantage of calling your business Wonga and GiffGaff lies in the rejection of superfluous formality. We perceive them as younger, more in-touch, less “corporate”. As Mr West concludes, “they sound like words we might hear at the pub”.

Anastasia Khoo on creating a viral Facebook campaign to support equal marriage – video

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/video/2013/jul/25/anastasia-khoo-facebook-equal-marriage

Activate London Summit 2013: Anastasia Khoo, marketing director, Human Rights Campaign reveals how her organisation turned the feed of Facebook red to support equality. The campaign supported by politicians and celebrities led to the creation of Facebook's most viral campaign. She also explains the social impact of the marketing campaign.

'Come in Baku. Have you been cheating at Eurovision song contest?'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/come-in-baku-have-you-been-cheating-at-eurovision-song-contest-8816979.html

Azerbaijan’s Farid Mammadov was awarded 234 votes and was runner-up to Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest, who triumphed with 281. According to the reports, other delegations tried to set up vote-swapping schemes a week before the semi-final. The unnamed delegate also claimed to have received a phone call from a southern European delegate who wanted to buy votes in return for positive PR coverage of their country’s act. The source claimed that the EBU had shown no interest in investigating the claims, despite being told about them last May.

The UK’s entrant, Bonnie Tyler, who came 19th, earlier told a French newspaper that she overheard Russians “complaining to Azerbaijan: ‘Why didn’t you give us the points we paid for?’”

It is not the first time the song contest has been linked to vote-rigging. In 1968 Cliff Richard was believed to have been robbed of victory by General Franco’s regime; the Spanish act Massiel won with “La La La” and a one-point lead. A documentary by Montse Fernandez Vila, released in 2008, claims the win was due to a fix cooked up by TV executives at Spain’s state-run channel.

Twitter’s IPO - Flying towards the stockmarket

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/twitter-s-ipo

Twitter will have to overcome doubts about its business model. One of these is whether the company will be able to generate much bigger revenues without alienating customers who object to seeing ads sprinkled across their phone screens. Another is whether Twitter will be able to see off rivals such as Facebook, which has introduced features that allow its users to conduct real-time conversations like those on the micro-blogging service.

To help address these challenges, the company has been on an acquisition spree. Earlier this week it snapped up MoPub, a mobile-advertising company in San Francisco, for an estimated $350m. MoPub’s technology will be used for real-time bidding for ads that run on Twitter. This will enable the firm to target these ads better and charge more for them. MoPub will also help Twitter place the ads it sells on other mobile networks, taking a cut of the revenue generated. Both capabilities will make Twitter a more powerful competitor to the likes of Google and Facebook.

Other acquisitions Twitter has inked this year, including Trendrr, a social-media analytics company, and Bluefin Labs, will also strengthen its hand. Bluefin, for instance, makes software that allows marketers to identify users tweeting about particular TV programmes and lets them send messages to those viewers.

Social data can help retailers get ahead ... and avoid disaster

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/sep/13/social-data-retail-target-asos

Every day, customers turn to social media to talk about business. For popular retail brands, it happens almost every minute, as people post brand recommendations, tap into the latest product research, make complaints and look for assistance.

In a time where the phrase 'death of the high street' continually sounds in retailers' ears, and with the Christmas sales season looming ever closer, figuring out how you can engage, listen, learn from and respond to what they're saying has never been more important.

We looked at the volume of celebrity-related conversation as a percentage of total buzz around the H&M brand. Our analysis found that David Beckham and Beyonce gained the largest initial reactions to their campaigns and got the most people talking. When analysing all this conversation against actual purchase intent however, Beyonce overtook Beckham to emerge as the celebrity most likely to get people to part with their money, with 2% of her 650,000 plus mentions containing purchase intent. In comparison, only 1% of conversation around David Beckham indicated an intention to buy.

Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball helps Vevo conquer MTV in video views battle

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/miley-cyrus-wrecking-ball-helps-vevo-conquer-mtv-in-video-views-battle-8814877.html

The clip for Cyrus’s "Wrecking Ball" single, in which the singer dispenses with her clothes and licks a hammer, set a record for Vevo, attracting 19.3 million views in the 24 hours after it premiered. The figure had soared to 70 million by Friday.

Founded in 2009, with the backing of traditional rivals Universal Music and Sony Music Entertainment, Vevo has racked up 44 billion views over the past year and describes itself as the “world’s leading all-premium music video and entertainment platform.”

With 250 million users a month, Vevo’s numbers dwarf Spotify, the music streaming service, which claims around 25 million listeners.

Last month, Vevo recorded 609 million views, according to ComScore, crushing nearest rival MTV, which was responsible for 261 million.

How we all went Dutch - By Simon Kuper

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/2ebe4036-1a02-11e3-93e8-00144feab7de.html#axzz2erMQsmbD

In my youth, the Dutch thought of themselves as a “guide land”: a sort of advanced model for dimmer countries to follow. I thought this was absurdly smug, but now I see they were right. The Dutch invented much of the world of 2013: bicycles in cities, legal soft drugs and gay marriage. I suspect their next scheme to go global will be legal euthanasia.

Sadly although they created the world of 2013, they’re not now busy creating the world of 2033. I wonder which country has taken over as the brilliant social laboratory to the world.

Netflix - Making friends

For the time being, Netflix is trying to be an ally of pay-television

The TV executives who once reviled it are starting to change their tune in part because pay-TV subscribers failed to flee cable en masse for Netflix, as was once predicted. The firm is also winning over former critics by spending billions to license content from big media firms, such as Viacom and CBS, boosting their profits. “We view Netflix as a friend,” Leslie Moonves, the boss of CBS, has said.

Yet the big cheques it is writing worry some sceptics. In June Netflix had at least $6.4 billion in content liabilities due in the next few years. To pay, it must keep growing fast, fend off competition and hope rules do not change in America that could make it more costly to deliver content over a broadband connection.

Viral Video Chart: Lady Gaga, Breaking Bad and Kimmel's twerk spoof

The US chatshow host Jimmy Kimmel dupes the world with a fiery video, Bryan Cranston spoofs himself – and some pups trick their dad

1. Jimmy Kimmel Reveals "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire" Prank
Twerk fail revealed

2. "Joking Bad" - Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Great chemistry

3. Ylvis - The Fox
A brush with fame

4. Neo Mastiff Puppies Play Hide-and-Seek from Dad | Too Cute!
Fur too sweet

5. Every tech commercial ever
Tech another look

6. Official One World Trade Center Time-Lapse 2004-2013
Towering inspiration

7. Boris Johnson Tells Opponent To Get Stuffed
BoJo rattled

8. Katie Hopkins on Netmums and Children's Birthdays interview on This Morning
This Moaning

9. Lady Gaga Applause PARODY! Key of Awesome #76
Definitely Gaga

10. Dog likes this beat
Press the paws button

Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 12 September 2013. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Moscow's mayoral election - An election with three winners

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/09/moscows-mayoral-election

The Moscow election has three winners: the declared winner is Sergei Sobyanin, the Kremlin-backed incumbent, with 51.4% of votes, just enough to avoid a second round, but not convincing enough to provide the level of electoral legitimacy he had sought. Yet it is more than Vladimir Putin, the president, won in Moscow in the presidential elections last year.

The man who gained most from the election is Alexei Navalny, the leading opposition candidate, who exceeded expectations and polled 27.2%, turning him from a one-time anti-corruption blogger, with a popularity rating of about 3% at the start of the campaign three months ago, into a national politician. The third winner is the thousands of volunteers and observers who prevented large-scale vote rigging.

And although the starting positions were hardly equal—with Mr Sobyanin enjoying blanket television coverage of his campaign and the resources of an incumbent mayor—it was nevertheless the most competitive election in Russia’s recent history. Mr Navalny’s result is all the more impressive, given a state television blockade and his pending jail sentence in a fabricated criminal case. He ran a text-book American-style campaign shaking hands with thousands of voters and mobilising volunteers. He has done better than any opposition figure in more than a decade.

The toy industry - Child’s play

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/toy-industry

What is more, the journey from womb to web is getting shorter. Most children experience a character in digital form before physical play. 

It looks like market leaders are responding to this trend. Standalone toys lack scale and versatility. Franchises that span multiple platforms—from cartoons to video games to films to physical toys—are a better bet. Hasbro caught the eye with their recent purchase of a 70% stake in the mobile gaming company, Backflip Studios, for $112 million. On August 7th the company announced a partnership with Ubisoft, a video game developer, aimed at bringing board games to the screen. The future, as Adrienne Appell of America’s Toy Industry Association says, is in “transmedia storytelling”. Hasbro’s strategy implies that a multi-platform model is now a prerequisite for success.

Manufacturers must become cleverer at creating high-value, multimedia properties. Toy brands will prosper as entertainment brands. Fostering links with mobile platforms is the first step; commanding attention with compelling content and characters is the next. For the collectors of the future, it will not so much be the toys themselves but the stories they tell that captivate.

Apple knows wearable technologies have a huge future

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/09/apple-wearable-technologies-future

On a grander scale, we have a Vogue article, Google Glass and a Futuristic Vision of Fashion:

The company's efforts to make Google Glass fashionable might be panned today for pushing the envelope a little too far but, in a not-too-distant future, they stand a chance of being viewed as truly visionary.

If eyewear doesn't excite Cook, what does? To him, the wrist feels more natural, more socially acceptable. We all wear one or more objects around our wrist.

The wristwear genre isn't new (recall Microsoft's 2004 Spot). Ask Google to show you pictures of smartwatches, you get 23m results and screen after screen like this one:

The genre seems to be stuck in the novelty state. Newer entries such as Samsung's Gear have received mixed reviews. Others contend that a2010 iPod nano with a wristband makes a much nicer smartwatch.

Popular Demand - US Media in Numbers

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/09/business/media/09mostwanted.html?ref=media

The topic showing the biggest gain in search during the week ending Aug. 31 was the performance by Miley Cyrus at the Video Music Awards, but results also showed an increase in search for information on Syria.

British TV looks into the future

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/ian-burrell-british-tv-looks-into-the-future-and-gets-ready-to-bang-its-own-drum-8804167.html

This year’s RTS chair is the Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham who, along with Channel 4 News host Jon Snow, will ask delegates to pick up iPads and suggest how the TV landscape will look in 2023.

Abraham has an agenda here. Back in 2003, nobody factored in the impact of internet-based television; YouTube wouldn’t be founded for another two years, and Netflix was a DVD supplier with no foothold in the UK. But in 2013, all the momentum is with broadband-supplied video content. The Channel 4 boss knows this. “What are the tectonic changes for the next 10 years? Well, it’s clearly going to be around the migration of viewers towards short form [video], mobile and broadband,” he told me last week.

The question is how rapidly that transformation occurs. Abraham will ask the Cambridge delegates whether they believe the expansion of broadband viewing will grow from the current 3 per cent to a modest 20 per cent over the next decade – or whether there will be a more dramatic shift and the majority of our viewing will be on phones, tablets and yet-to-be-invented mobile devices. In 2003, the RTS audience favoured the most doom-laden of predictions: the death of linear (scheduled) TV. They overstated that.

Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus and pop’s gender battles

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/c1866d12-117e-11e3-8321-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2eHTPNZ00

Today’s charts are filled with a generation of women young enough to be Madonna’s daughters – or Franklin’s granddaughters: acts such as Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Adele, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Last year Emeli Sandé sold more albums in the UK than any other performer. In the US Adele had the year’s biggest-selling album, with Swift in second place. “Women are definitely dominating music right now,” Rihanna exulted in 2011. Last year the sales tracking company Nielsen SoundScan named her as the best-selling digital artist ever, with 47.5m download sales. Gaga, Swift, Perry, Beyoncé and Britney Spears also appeared among the top 10 acts for digital sales. Has the call for respect finally been met? Or is the situation, to paraphrase the “feminist” Thicke, rather more blurred?

The eyes have IT - Jonathan Margolis

http://howtospendit.ft.com/gadgets/35103-tech-tv-google-glasses

Pioneering hands-free technology wrapped up in a pair of Google glasses

In tech we trust - By Simon Kuper

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5468046c-14f2-11e3-a2df-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2eBXbnb2L

It’s hard to find a self-proclaimed political messiah anywhere: Hugo Chávez is dead, and Fidel Castro himself says Cuba’s revolution has failed. Politicians have been reduced to celebrities who can gain our attention only with Anthony Weineresque private antics. Mandela on his deathbed still towers over today’s lot. Meanwhile a rash of TV series like House of Cards, Veep and The Thick of It portray politics as a greedy, narcissistic pursuit. No wonder political parties are shedding members at record speed. The last emotion that still animates lots of western voters is rage at immigrants – an archetypal expression of pessimism. Andrew Adonis, leading thinker of the UK’s Labour party, says: “We’re in one of those periods like the 1970s where politicians manifestly don’t have the answers.”

But meanwhile a group of people has stood up who do claim to have answers: technologists. In 2007, just as western economies began to crumble, Apple launched the iPhone. Since then, credibility has kept leaching from politicians to techies. The latter took time to decide how to use their new might. Nicole Boyer, director of the Adaptive Edge consultancy in San Francisco, explains: “Tech was late to the game for social problems. It took a generation of tech entrepreneurs to make money and then say, ‘OK, what are we going to do?’” Now they are busy remaking the world: Google’s Eric Schmidt negotiates with North Korea, Jeff Bezos tries to save newspapers, Mark Zuckerberg plots to get the world’s poor online and Bill Gates fights infectious disease. “They have something of the white knight about them,” muses Adonis. “There is a profound tech-optimism.”

Viral Video Chart: X Factor, cute dog, Daft Punk spoofs

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/06/viral-video-chart-x-factor-daft-punk

1. Chow Puppy Can't Jump
Fluffy non-jumper

2. Get Clarity: Aish.com's Rosh Hashanah Music Video
Daft Punk gets dafter

3. Tamera Foster sings I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston - Arena Auditions Week 1 -- The X Factor 2013
The next stage?

4. Mick Humphries Training Group
Driving force

5. Frost Over The World - George Clooney -18 Jan 08
David Frost remembered

6. Brazilian Robbery Gone Wrong
Rough justice

7. Funny Crystal Palace Fan on Sky Sports News Deadline Day
Making a pitch

8. Daft Punk - Lose Yourself To Dance
Get into the groove

9. 98m WORLD RECORD Basketball Shot | Euromast - How Ridiculous & Bavaria
Towering achievement

10. Strangest penalty kick in history
Balls up

Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 4 September 2013. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Moscow’s mayoral elections - Inspired by “The Wire”

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21585043-charismatic-dissident-runs-american-style-campaign-inspired-wire

ALEXEI NAVALNY’S election headquarters looks like a set for a film about American presidential elections. The small Moscow building is bustling with young volunteers brainstorming, tapping away on their MacBooks, carrying boxes of advertising materials, signing up artists. Tagged the “Navalny Team”, they are energised with coffee and Mr Navalny’s slogan: “Change Russia—start with Moscow”.

He broke a television blockade by reverting to street politics. His election advertising has reached nearly 70% of Muscovites and his popularity rating has risen from 3% to about 20%. And although Sergei Sobyanin, the Kremlin-backed incumbent who enjoys blanket television coverage, has a rating above 50%, which could enable him to win in the first round, this outburst of political activism in Moscow is as important as the result.

Clever cities - The multiplexed metropolis

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21585002-enthusiasts-think-data-services-can-change-cities-century-much-electricity

As they go about their business of producing most of the world’s wealth, novelty and human interaction, cities also produce a vast amount of data. The people who run cities are ever more keen on putting those data to work. Hardly a week passes without a mayor somewhere in the world unveiling a “smart-city” project—often at one of the many conferences hailing the concept. In August China announced such a programme, this one spread around nine pilot sites across the country. Earlier this year Kenya’s then president, Mwai Kibaki, broke ground on Konza Techno City outside Nairobi.

Although many such systems are supposed to work automatically, it is a rare smart-city project that does not aspire to a NASA-style control room filled with electronics, earnestness and a sense of the future. In Rio de Janeiro, for instance, dozens of operators from 30 different departments sit in front of a wall of screens showing images from some of the 400 CCTV cameras placed throughout the city, as well as weather data and police reports. The hope is that the system will help Rio manage the crowds during next year’s football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

Reshaping telecoms - The big mobile-phone reset

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21585006-weeks-two-telecoms-deals-will-be-followed-others-industry-undergoes-big

ONE was a long-expected divorce, the other a much-predicted wedding. On September 2nd America’s Verizon Communications bought Britain’s Vodafone out of Verizon Wireless, the biggest mobile operator in the United States. It will pay a staggering $130 billion in cash, shares and bonds for Vodafone’s 45% stake. The next day Microsoft bought Nokia’s mobile-phone business for €3.8 billion ($5 billion). The American software company will also pay the Finnish firm €1.7 billion to license its patents, and lend it €1.5 billion.

Together the transactions make the outlines of the mobile-telecoms industry clearer at three levels. The main makers of mobile-network equipment, the Chinese excepted, have now given up making handsets. The handset-makers have coalesced around three “ecosystems”: Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and, in distant third place, Microsoft’s Windows. And the operators of mobile networks are preparing for a fresh wave of consolidation.

Buzzfeed moves into profit four years after launch

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/05/buzzfeed-listicle-profit-jonah-peretti

In what should be required reading for any newspaper or magazine editor or commercial manager paid to worry about the future of journalism, Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti has spelt out his vision of a future in which his creation will be "leading news source for the social, media, mobile world".

Peretti added that "despite the struggles of the traditional media, there remains an insatiable desire for great reporting, entertaining content and powerful storytelling" and detailed plans to set up a newsroom to make the most of the "opportunity to be the leading news source for the social, mobile, world". Buzzfeed's iPhone app, is consistently in the top five in the news category, he said.

"We will stay away from anything that requires adopting a legacy business model, even a lucrative one like cable syndication fees or primetime TV ads," said Peretti.

The football transfer window - Play fair

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2013/09/football-transfer-window

Net transfer spending by the EPL—the amount, after deals between English clubs has been stripped out, which flowed abroad—was £370m. This compares with £130m in France’s Ligue 1 and a £95m surplus in Spain’s La Liga. This suggests that, while the biggest continental clubs can compete, the financial gulf between the average Premiership club and their European counterparts is growing.

The main reason for its continued clout is a huge new television deal, which will run for the next three seasons. It will be worth an extra £600m to the EPL this year, with each club at least £25m better off. In 2011-12, the last season for which accounts are available, broadcasting accounted for half of clubs’ combined £2.4 billion of revenue. The remainder was split between match day revenue—mostly gate receipts—and commercial activities, such as sponsorship and merchandising. Deloitte estimates that, for the coming season, clubs’ revenue will increase to £3.1 billion, with the proportion coming from broadcasting rising to 55%.

Jeff Bezos: My plans for The Washington Post

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/jeff-bezos-my-plans-for-the-washington-post-8797023.html

Jeffrey P Bezos, the next owner of The Washington Post, says he doesn’t have all the answers for what’s ailing the newspaper industry or for the financially challenged news organisation he is preparing to buy. But he says he’s eager to start asking questions and conducting experiments in the quest for a new “golden era” at The Post.

In his first interview since his $250m (£161m) purchase of The Post was announced in early August, Bezos said his basic approach to operating the business will be similar to the philosophy that has guided him in building Amazon.com from a start-up in 1995 to an internet colossus with $61bn in sales last year.

“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: put the customer first. Invent. And be patient,” he said. “If you replace ‘customer’ with ‘reader’, that approach, that point of view, can be successful at The Post, too.”

Microsoft and Nokia - Phone home

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/microsoft-and-nokia

Only a week after the surprise announcement that he would retire within a year from the post of chief executive he has held since January 2000, Mr Ballmer announced that the software giant will acquire Nokia's handset business in a deal valued at $7.2 billion. Not only does this deal mean a doubling down on Microsoft’s mobile strategy, it also means the return of the man who has suddenly become hot favourite to succeed Mr Ballmer: Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia.

Nokia was already the largest producer of smartphones running Microsoft's Windows Phone software, under a joint venture that started in 2011. (Nokia was not the only maker of these phones, however, and Microsoft intends to continue to license the software to other manufacturers.) Mr Ballmer believes that integrating Nokia's handset business into Microsoft will bring valuable synergies and faster growth in a market in which it currently lags behind Google's Android and Apple's iOS operating systems, though is now ahead of BlackBerry. Microsoft will also acquire Nokia’s Asha feature-phone range and ten years' access to the Finnish conglomerate’s patent library.

Most powerful person in media? You

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/01/mediaguardian-digital-consumer-most-powerful

The digital consumer – listed as "you" - tops MediaGuardian's annual ranking of the UK's 100 most powerful industry figures this year, reflecting the extent to which mobile and social media are transforming an industry traditionally dominated by moguls, editors and celebrities.

The Woolwich murder, Boston bombings and more recently the Syrian chemical weapons massacre demonstrated the extent to which ordinary members of the public, using smartphones and social media, are shaping coverage of major news stories these days.

"You" also reflects how online consumers – interacting, sharing content and shopping via mobile devices – are driving the UK digital economy, which is growing at more than 10% a year and which it is estimated by Boston Consulting Group will be worth £225bn by 2016. "Both as the audience and creators of content, it's all about people power," the MediaGuardian 100 panel concluded.

Popular Demand - US Media in Numbers

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/02/business/media/02mostwanted.html?ref=media&_r=0

The 20 online talks that could change your life

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/27/20-online-talks-change-your-life

From TED talks to online seminars, video channels crammed with inspirational and thought-provoking lectures are educating us on everything from town planning and depression to body language, animal morality and dangers of sugar in just a few minutes. Here is our pick of the best, from Amanda Palmer on the music industry to Bertrand Russell on Christianity and Terry Pratchett on coming to terms with death.

Sergey Brin: the Google guru's search for love

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2013/aug/31/observer-profile-sergey-brin-google-guru

THE BRIN FILE

Born Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin 21 August 1973 in Moscow, eldest son of Michael, a mathematician, and Eugenia, a scientist. The family emigrated to America in 1979. He married Anne Wojcicki in 2007; they have two children. The couple recently announced their separation.

Best of times Plenty in the technology field, and in terms of financial reward (including Google's first day of stock market trading in 2004). But in November 2009, Forbes magazine determined that Brin and partner Larry Page were the fifth most powerful people in the world.

Worst of times His early years in Moscow, perhaps, when his parents often struggled to support the family.

He says "Technology is an inherent democratiser. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you're able to scale up almost anything. It means that in our lifetime everyone may have tools of equal power."

They say "Not since Gutenberg … has any new invention transformed access to information as profoundly as Google"

"Google can bring you back 100,000 answers; a librarian can bring you back the right one." Neil Gaiman