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Why the UK’s new local TV stations are doomed to fail

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 1:06 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, UK

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Anthony Rose is co-founder and CTO of Beamly, the social and content network for television. Before Beamly, he headed up BBC iPlayer from 2007 to 2010. The UK Government’s creation of a set of local television stations can now be considered a failure. The source of the failure is a lack of understanding of how people find and consume local media in the age of global websites and online personalization. Even the forced insertion of local TV channels at the top of the TV guide to attract drive-by traffic from users browsing the guide could not generate viewers. The rigid rules…

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TechStars NYC co-founder launches Spring, a brand-backed mobile marketplace

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 1:00 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

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David Tisch, the co-founder of TechStars NYC, today launched his new startup, Spring, an iOS-based ecommerce platform that has the support of several high-end brands. Shopping on the Spring app feels like scrolling through Instagram if you only followed fashion brands, or Pinterest without all the amateur crafts. Product photos are meant to be edgy lifestyle images instead of your usual shots on a white background. At launch, Spring has over 100 brands on-board, including Warby Parker, Band of Outsiders and Gucci. “The only brands we’re letting onto the platform is brands that care about the customer, brands that have a soul,”…

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LinkedIn details new publishing platform improvements: feeds, notifications and Pulse emails

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 1:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

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LinkedIn today outlined on its engineering blog a series of recent technical updates to improve distribution for new posts on its publishing platform. The three improvements include integration with the Feed-Mixer algorithm for ranking posts in LinkedIn’s member feeds, mobile notifications for first-degree connections and inclusion in daily or weekly Pulse news emails. To be clear, these three features aren’t brand new, as LinkedIn has been gradually rolling them out to all users. This is, however, the first time that the company has shared the technical details on the new setup. Interestingly, LinkedIn revealed that members that have published at…

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Uber is facing another ban in Europe: This time it’s Berlin

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 11:58 am
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web

Barcelona Cabs Strike Against Uber Taxi App

Uber has come upon a stumbling block in Germany, after the Berlin government issued a prohibition order that seeks to ban both its premium UberBLACK service and ridesharing UberPOP offering in the city. Berlin authorities say that Uber’s services pose a threat to passenger safety with the use of “non-approved drivers in unlicensed vehicles,” and that it is also seeking to protect the taxi trade. Uber faces a €25,000 ($33,400) penalty for each violation of the ban, while drivers are looking at a €20,000 fine. According to the Financial Times, the order hasn’t kicked in yet, and Uber said that “if” the prohibition order…

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Grooveshark brings its music streaming service to the Google Chromecast

Aug14
by on August 14, 2014 at 11:00 am
Posted In: Around the Web, chromecast, Google, grooveshark

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Google’s Chromecast has become an important stop for companies in the content streaming space. Music service Grooveshark is the latest to announce support for the USB dongle, which enables its paying users to stream content to a TV from desktop or mobile devices. On the one-year anniversary of its launch, Google revealed that Chromecast users had “hit the cast button more than 400 million times” — that’s the kind of engagement that Grooveshark says prompted this move. Grooveshark says its users spend on average 90 minutes with its service per session, with multiple visits per month. That’s a new metric we’ve…

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