Google’s AdWords team has highlighted three important changes to how users can interact with mobile ads and in-app interstitial ads. The changes are part of an effort to reduce the chance that a user may accidentally click an ad when browsing the web or trying to dismiss the ad.
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Beleaguered media darling Medium, a platform for anyone to write and share stories amongst its large community, has finally released its Android app to Google Play. The app works on devices running 4.4 KitKat and above, and features all the Material Design goodness you’ve come to expect since Lollipop – so it wasn’t just a port of the company’s iOS app.
Arthur Frommer announced yesterday that he reacquired the rights to his travel brand from Google with plans to continue publishing Frommer’s guidebooks.
Google acquired Frommer’s last summer from the Wiley publishing company, but Skift.com reported recently that the Internet Giant intended to “cease production” of Frommer’s books.
Frommer, 83, originally sold his travel line to Simon & Schuster in 1977. Despite nearly 40 years of separation, Frommer told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he bought his brand back from Google.
“It’s a very happy time for me,” said Frommer. “We will be publishing the Frommer travel guides in ebook and print formats and will also be operating the travel site Frommers.com.”
After years of major record labels keeping the revenue from their ad-supported content on YouTube and VEVO, HollywoodReporter reported today that the National Music Publishers’ Association announced a deal with Universal Music Group (one of the owners of VEVO), which will see the label pay indie music publishers for the content:
The NMPA termed the agreement, which covers North America, a groundbreaking model licensing deal because it will allow songwriters and music publishers to share in revenue from music videos. Up until now, while Youtube and VEVO were making money on their ad-supported services, indie music publishers had not shared in that revenue because the major labels long considered videos as promotional tools and never paid for licensing the songs used in the videos. But as it became a growing revenue stream, indie publishers began to grumble that the major labels paid the major publishing companies but none of the independent music publishers.
The specifics of the deal have not been made public, but the report claimed that sources said publishers would get 15 percent of advertising revenues related to their content. It also claimed the deal would be “retroactive back to 2008” with the amount for 2008 and 2009 set at 10 percent. The deal is said to cover not just music videos, but also “concert footage, backstage videos and artist interviews.”
A mockup of a seven-inch Amazon tablet running a forked Android version.
As Amazon gears up to debut its long-rumored tablet on Wednesday at a media event in New York (a subtle hint of a media-focused launch), TechCrunch chimes in with a name. The Android-driven device will be apparently marketed under the Kindle Fire moniker in order to distinguish it from Amazon’s highly regarded family of dedicated Kindle e-readers. Manufactured by Foxconn, Apple’s favorite contract manufacturer, the gizmo should boast a seven-inch color touchscreen (not true multi-touch) and won’t have an email client preloaded, but users will be able to download one from its mobile application store or use a built-in browser for web mail, writes author MG Siegler who first saw the device early this month.
Meanwhile, AlllThingsD’s Peter Kafka writes the online retailer is cutting partnerships left and right with Hollywood studios and magazine publishers. Amazon has now added Fox shows to its streaming catalog, Kafka reported today, explaining the deal includes shows Fox no longer airs and old Fox movies such as “Office Space,” “Speed” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. Also, at least three magazine publishers have thrown their weighg behind Amazon’s tablet project: Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith. Kafka cites industry sources claiming all three publishers “have deals to sell digital versions of their titles on the new device”.
Those titles are allegedly optimized for Amazon’s seven-incher and terms are said to mirror the 70:30 revenue split offered by Apple’s iTunes content store. Even though its success is anything but given, conventional wisdom has it that the Amazon tablet should benefit from Amazon’s many cloud services and long-standing partnerships with content providers. What’s unique about Amazon…
