On Monday morning, I helped Beet.tv executive producer Andy Plesser host his latest roundtable discussion on the future of online video, at The Guardian’s Kings Place HQ. In this video, Andy hears from The Economist executive editor Daniel Franklin that the “book-like” experience of e-readers and iPads can reboot considered,…

Twitter client HootSuite, which recently raised $1.9 million in funding, has now made an acquisition, buying up Android app developer Swift App. HootSuite says that Swift App was behind the development of HootSuite’s own Android app, which was released last week. The company says the acquisition “means quicker development for…

It’s long been known that Nokia’s had a hard time selling its popular devices in the U.S. But its latest smartphones coming have a series of enhancements that it hopes will make it more competitive. The phones will run the latest version of the open source operating system, “Symbian^3,” which…

Early adopters take note: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is taking pre-orders for the iPad at 5:30 a.m. Pacific on Friday. Last week, Apple announced that March 12 was the magical day for per-orders, but never specified a time. Now, it has been confirmed that electronic ordering will begin bright and early,…

Looking for real-time data of its own, the FCC (yes, the regulatory body in Washington, D.C.) has released a mobile app for iPhone and Android. Don’t worry, the feds aren’t interested in listening to your phone conversations, rather they say the purpose of the app is to provide “Americans with…

MSNBC is continuing to try make better use of social media as a distribution tool with a small effort that ties its @BreakingNews Twitter account to a dedicated Facebook page. It’s not clear how much Facebook fans want real-time news mixed with their friends’ status updates—as opposed to following @BreakingNews…

LivingSocial, which develops various social apps and also runs a group-buying service, has raised $25 million in a second round of funding led by U.S. Venture Partners. The company’s flagship app is LivingSocial, which lets users indicate and share favorite things on social networks. More recently, however, a second service—LivingSocial…

If you are holding out for a 4G phone for your next purchase, don’t bother. Verizon Wireless will not have its very first 4G handset until mid-2011. While that’s about six months earlier than the company had said before, that’s still far enough away to burn through another contract, especially…

News Corp.. (NYSE: NWS) Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch celebrates his 79th birthday with a cameo on his own Fox Business Network. Among the topics ... the newspaper ad model not dead yet (if we were Gawker we’d have to follow that with “neither am I”); iPad will attract more…

The album’s not dead yet - well, not in Pink Floyd’s case at least. A judge has ruled in favour of the prog rock band, which went to the UK High Court for the right to have its material sold online only the form of albums, not individual singles, which…

Just a few weeks after NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and president and CEO Janet Robinson discussed the company’s new metering pay model at our conference, the pair continued to tease out the idea. at Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Media Summit 2010. In a conversation with James Ellis,…

At the powerhouse Abu Dhabi Media Summit here at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, two of the biggest third-party search deals are being negotiated behind the scenes, we have learned. It just so happens that all the players involved were here for the last day or so: Google (NSDQ: GOOG)…

Here’s why Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is launching a “completely new smartphone OS.” The latest smartphone platform market share figures were released today by comScore and Microsoft posted the steepest drop. The new Windows Phone 7 Series—due later this year—can’t come to market soon enough.

In Rob Glaser’s first public appearance since stepping down as CEO of RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), he implored that it is incumbent upon companies to work together in order for the wireless sector to continue its break-neck pace of innovation. Glaser did not hint at what he might do next, but…

Google’s proposed (and now delayed) acquisition of mobile ad network AdMob appears to be drawing even more regulatory scrutiny from the FTC. Bloomberg cites sources who say that regulators now want “sworn declarations” from Google (NSDQ: GOOG) competitors about the $750 million deal. The key sentence in the Bloomberg report…

News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) may shed the ailing Fox Mobile Group, including the Jamba and Jamster brands, to focus on digital properties, like MySpace, reports The Financial Times. A sale would not be a big surprise. After News Corp. acquired the company in two separate chunks from VeriSign (NSDQ: VRSN)…

Two small—but noteworthy—acquisitions for Thing Labs, the company behind Facebook and Twitter web client Brizzly: Thing Labs has purchased Wikirank, a tool that let users visualize and compare the most popular topics on Wikipedia, and is also announcing the purchase of Twitter iPhone client Birdfeed. Thing Labs has added some…

In an appearance this morning at a Seattle breakfast event, former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, now a partner at Patton Boggs, was careful not to offer any jabs at the current administration. Instead, he focused on the current administration’s plans for rolling out a new national broadband plan, scheduled to…

One of the favorite sports of most media conferences these days involves trotting out Wired editor Chris Anderson’s “freemium” idea—which is predicated on balancing free online and paid premium content—and kicking it to the ground. The topic served as a introduction to discussing the problems associated with paywalls and display…