#2 Christmas NDM Story ..

Twitter more than triples its UK revenues to £46m

Twitter more than tripled its UK revenues this year to £46m, and is expected to jump to more than £180m by the end of 2015, according to a new report. The social network's UK business will make £46.3m this year, with £43.6m from advertising and the remainder other revenues such as licensing, according to a new report by eMarketer.

• eMarketer estimates that Google's UK digital ad revenues will be £2.6bn this year, rising to £3.4bn by the end of 2015.
• Facebook UK generated £333m in revenue this year, and is forecast to make £516m by the end of 2015.
• Twitter UK is growing at a staggering rate, albeit from a low base, with revenues of just £1.3m as recently as 2011.

The research company estimates that by the end of 2015 Twitter UK will make £180m, with £171m of that from advertising. The UK is becoming an increasingly important revenue generator for Twitter, accounting for 15.2% of global income by 2015. This year Twitter UK accounted for 11.5% of the company's global income, according to the report.

As twitter is so popular, its inevitable that the revenue would increase over the years. From celebrities to normal people, everybody has twitter and so its clear that something that attracts such a huge audience would be successful and make a lot of money. 

#1 Christmas NDM Story ..

Facebook, Zuckerberg and banks face IPO lawsuit over misleading investors

Facebook Inc, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and dozens of banks must face a lawsuit accusing the social media company of misleading investors about its health before its $16bn initial public offering, a federal judge said. In a decision made public on Wednesday, US district judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan said investors could pursue claims that Facebook should have, prior to its May 2012 IPO, disclosed internal projections on how increased mobile usage and product decisions might reduce future revenue.

"The company's purported risk warnings misleadingly represented that this revenue cut was merely possible when, in fact, it had already materialised," Sweet wrote in his 83-page decision. "Plaintiffs have sufficiently pleaded material misrepresentation(s) that could have and did mislead investors regarding the company's future and current revenues." In a statement, Facebook said: "We continue to believe this suit lacks merit and look forward to a full airing of the facts." Facebook went public at $38 per share. The Menlo Park, California-based company's share price rose as high as $45 on 18 May 2012, its first day of trading, but quickly fell below the offering price and stayed there for more than a year.

Investors including pension funds in Arkansas, California and North Carolina claimed that Facebook negligently concealed material information from its IPO registration statement that it had provided to its underwriters' analysts. They sought damages resulting from their having sold or holding onto the shares as they fell below the IPO price, bottoming at $17.55 on 4 September 2012.

The lawsuit does not allege fraud. More than 40 defendants were sued, including Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, lead underwriter Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Facebook shares were down 60 cents at $54.26 in afternoon trading. In court papers, the defendants had countered that Facebook had no obligation to make the requested disclosures, which they called immaterial, and that Facebook's actual results exceeded original projections.

They added that the US Securities and Exchange Commission and other courts have said revenue projections need not be disclosed before an IPO because they are "inherently speculative and unreliable". Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Mary Claire Delaney declined to comment. Max Berger and Thomas Dubbs, who represent the lead plaintiffs, were not immediately available for comment.

Notes ..

How Facebook Changed the World .. 

Part One ..

The weapons of the Arab Spring wasn't guns or bombs but really it was the INTERNET and the mobile phones.

For the first time in history world changing events where recorded hour by hour by the people on the street.

People always go on holiday to the capital Tunis but a few miles away is a place called Sidi Bouzid which is always forgotten and is very poor. 

December 2010 a 27 year old man called Mohammed, a young fruit seller tired to committed suicide causing riots and huge problems in the Arab countries.

He, along side other fruit sellers were tormented by corrupt local officials, they would take there fruit and demand bribes for it all back.

Friday, December 17th 

• Mohammed set up his stand to sell fruit near the central mosque. 
• He didn't have the money needed to pay the bribe to be there.
• A police officer took all his stuff, smacked and spat in his face.
• He got upset and started to cry, the other police officers started to kick him.
• Mohammed went to the town hall to complain, they refused to open the door or listen to him.
• He then bought a bottle of fuel, came back to where he was standing, in front of everyone he set himself a light, he burnt himself because of he had no money, no job, no prospects.
• The town being so small, everyone heard and slowly the news spread around the Arab world.

Everyone of those protesters had a tool in their pocket that would spread the news around the world, a mobile phone.
The police officers threw tear gas at them, they tried to beat the people up, the confrontation became a street war.

Tunis may have been a popular holiday destination but under the leadership of BEN ALI, it was also a police state and the press was censored. 
Ben Ali didn't want his people getting influenced by outside views.

They new, one way of sharing the news around was facebook.
Tunis had over 2 million facebook users (1/5 of the population).
Ben Ali blocked all access to political sites, he rarely interfered with facebook.

Slim Amamou

• A young computer programmer lived in the capital found the videos of the events in Sidi Bouzid.
• This man had little in common with the fruit sellers a part from the hatred of Ben Ali.
• They were unhappy that they weren't allowed to speak up, he stopped people from having a personality.

Ben Ali liked to view himself as a enlighten modern leader but in reality he was a dictator controlling the Arab world just like:

- Hussein Mubarak in Egypt
- Muammar Gaddafi in Libya
- Mashala Assad in Syria 

1/4 of people in Tunis had broadband and 90% had mobile phones.

Censorship however was no obstacle, with the internet there is no single central hub but instead an infinite number of pathways to communicate by routing messages to other net works in different countries they were able to avoid Tunis's censorship altogether and gain access to any forbidden site.

If the bloggers where court posting illegal images or information online they would face detention and torture.

Slim Amamou posted he video on his own facebook page and soon it turned viral. 

Within days the phone footage was picked up by the Arab main TV channels and was being seen by the whole of Tunis.

Copycat riots broke out in other places but Tunis remained quite.

They hacked into the unions website and sent a message asking it's members to join them in Mohammed Ali's square in the centre of Tunis.

The authorities knew something was going to happen therefore blocking roads up but the people were one step ahead of them, they would contact each other via facebook warning them not to travel on the roads the police officers were standing on.

 A huge number of people gathered altogether to protest and express their anger.

Slim wanted to make sure that even if his phone was taken people would still be able to see what was going on, he installed the software which would allow live streaming on his phone - people watched live on their phones and computers.

Ben Ali responded ruthlessly however nobody listened, he got so desperate he was photographed with the young fruit seller Mohammed but nobody was impressed.

150 people died.

13th January - Ben Ali used traditional media to win his people over, a TV broadcast. However nobody cared. Too much had happened for them to accept Ben Ali.

Just in one day the whole of Tunis had changed, there was a huge revolution. 10's of thousands where gathered along the roads. 

They wanted the whole government system down not just Ben Ali.

Ben Ali's supervisors could see the writing on the walls, how then wanted him out.

14th January - The advisors told Ben Ali he was jeopardising the safety of the country.
That night - Ben Ali fled the country.

Everyone felt so free.
Ben Ali ruled over the country for over 24 years but it took only 28 days to get him out from a small protest in a southern small town to the great fall of the whole government.

Weekly NDM story ..

The world of "smart" is heating up

Mobile's share of traffic is on sharp ascent

According to Econsultancy's recent survey of mostly UK and US-based businesses, for almost 3 in 4 companies (72%) mobile accounts for more than 10% of traffic. The proportion of companies which say that more than 20% of their traffic can be attributed to mobile has more than doubled in the last 12 months, from less than a fifth (17%) in 2012 to 41% in 2013.

A quarter of display ad spend to go to mobile by 2014

Mobile should represent nearly one-quarter of digital display ad spend in 2014 (£340m or 24%, up from £240m or 19% in 2013), according to GroupM estimates.

GroupM predicts that total digital ad spend will continue to grow strongly in 2014, and mobile advertising will grow at almost 3.5 times the rate of the digital market as a whole.

Two-thirds of your Facebook friends ignore your posts

Each user post on Facebook is seen by an average of 35% of the user's friends, according to a study led by Stanford University researcher, who collaborated with three Facebook data scientists. Posts that do not receive likes or comments tend to be seen by even less friends: an average 28.9% of a user's network.

@guardian: connected and influential

@guardian's followers are much more likely to interact with and propagate its tweets than for example, @telegraph's – according to Twitonomy's analysis of tweets in the past two months:

• 90% of @guardian's tweets are re-tweeted vs. 72% of @telegraph's
• 89% of @guardian's tweets are favourited vs. 61% of @telegraph's
• @guardian's tweet is re-tweeted an average of 45 times vs. 16 times for @telegraph's tweets

Smartphones are crucial for researching and tablets – for purchasing

eMarketer forecasts that 84% of tablet owners and 75% of smartphone owners shop on their devices. It also distinguishes between shopping and purchase, with 63% of tablet owners and 39% of smartphone owners making an actual purchase via their devices during 2013. These distinctions make smartphones important for research and showrooming, while tablets – for both, researching and purchasing.

Are we too sexy for a smart shirt?

Startup OMsignal are launching a smart shirt capable of reading a person's heart rate, breathing levels and movement. The shirt meant to be worn under everyday clothes or on its own at the gym. The data it collects is sent to a computer or smartphone app where the user can view instant and long-term exertion, stress and even mood.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Mail Online passes 10m daily browsers ..

Mail Online continues to break traffic records, topping 10 million daily average unique browsers for the first time in November. The digital juggernaut is yet to see a significant slowing in traffic growth, with more than 168 million monthly unique browsers in November after hitting 150 million for the first time in October, according to latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for national newspaper websites published on Thursday.

• Daily browser numbers grew 8.29% compared to October, with monthly user numbers up 9.2%. 
• Mail Online cracked the 150 million monthly browser mark for the first time in the October report, meaning it has added 15 million browsers in a month.

The figure is more than 50% of Independent.co.uk's total monthly unique browsers in October. For the second month running, the Independent and London Evening Standard websites did not publish monthly ABC figures. Mail Online said that it achieved a record day of traffic on 20 November, with 13,381,032 daily unique browsers.

• The site achieved 38.6m global video plays last month, 
• 10% higher than October, averaging nearly 1.3m plays a day.

Investment in mobile and social continues to pay dividends for Associated Newspapers stablemate Metro.co.uk, which cracked 20 million monthly browsers for the first time, with growth up 24.42% month on month. Daily browser numbers rose 27.52% to 875,740.

Mirror Group Digital also lifted its game with double-digit growth in daily average and monthly unique browsers, to 1,863,344 and 40,725,031 respectively. Guardian News & Media's website network, theguardian.com, which includes MediaGuardian, reported 83,957,033 monthly browsers in November, up 6.6%. Daily browsers rose 8.14% to 4,686,914. Telegraph.co.uk took a backward step in November with daily browsers down 3.62% to 3,033,924, and monthly browsers down 4.95% to 60,639,635.

Mail Online

Daily average browsers: 10,403,48

Month-on-month change: +8.29%

Year-on-year change: +46.34%

Monthly browsers: 168,070,838

Month-on-month: +9.2%

The Guardian

Daily average browsers: 4,686,914

Month-on-month change: +8.14%

Year-on-year change: +18.32%

Monthly browsers: 83,957,033

Month-on-month: 6.6%

Exam Essay ..

The development of new and digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the argument for and against this view.

New and Digital media has opened us up to a world of accessing any information whenever wherever; through the use of tablets and Smartphone’s the audience now feel that they are in fact in power. When considering to what extent does the development of new and digital media mean that the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production, could be argued that in real facts the audience have been subconsciously brainwashed into thinking they have control when in reality it’s the complete opposite and really the media regulator everything. Pluralists truly believe that the media offer us a variety of products, giving us freedom to do whatever we like, for example, Web 2.0 allows the audience to become producers of their own text. However; Marxists have different thoughts and ideas, they believe the media maintain the ideological hegemony and have power over the middle class society. For example, the government and police keeps an eye on what happens over the internet and so has the power to put a stop to anything.

Pluralist argue the audience are in control of the media, we have freedom to think what we want and do what we like, over 18 million people now have blogs, we have access to global information and democratisation. Audiences are perceived as capable of manipulating the media and having access to “the plural values of society” enabling them to “conform, accommodate or reject”. They believe audiences are smart enough to accept and decline anything in the media. For example, according to statistics 57% of 9-19 year olds had come into contact with pornographic material online (Tanya Brown 2008). This fact just highlights the freedom an audience have, which answers the question that the audience does have a lot of power because of new and digital media. 

However, control of the media is said to be in the hands of an elite who allow a considerable degree of flexibility in production choices therefore indicating that the audience have power but only to a certain extent, they might feel they have freedom but really they don’t because of censorship. In terms of blogs and web pages, Andrew Keen believes they’re just millions of monkeys typing nonsense. Marxist believe that the media have dumbed down their output and construct texts simply to generate mass audiences, the audiences therefore have adapted to the “dumbed down” media, which again shows that the audience is being controlled by the hegemony leaders which keeps them the ruling class and the dominant ideology. 

Rupert Murdoch says "The internet has given readers much more power, the world is changing and newspapers have to adapt" this proclamation states that new and digital media developments have changed the way the audience access the internet. For someone who is so strong minded and powerful in the media, who owns a huge conglomerate, News Corporation, to say that newspapers have to adapt because of the new and digital media shows that the audience really do have much more power in terms of production and consumption. Through New and Digital media, the more traditional ways of consuming news are dying out because audiences now turn to the online version which gives them more power when consuming the information. 

On the other hand, Marxist criticises Pluralists, they believe the mass media still maintains the dominant ideologies of ruling class. According to Marxist Millband, the media have a huge role to play in the media which is basically spreading the dominate values of the ruling class because they control all the information the audience receive. Therefore making the audience believe they have no power and are really under control of the ruling class. The Frankfurt School Study (1930’s), a group of philosophers where concerned with the rise and impact of the media industries on the society because it has a huge effect on the audience the media have the power to control a person, therefore making them powerless as they’re programmed into thinking and acting a certain way. Linking this to the hypodermic needle model of communication suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted but the audience. 

Furthermore, Pluralist argue media content isn't focused on dominate ideology but by their audience. The rise of citizen journalism and users generated content (UGC) has empowered the audience in terms of production and consumption through the development of new and digital media. Since the audience now can create the news also with the help of the new Smartphone’s and tablets which makes it easier for one to post their own news. A great example of UGC is the incident with Rodney King in 1992, a man who was almost beat to death by the LA police which was seen by a man merely looking out of his window who then decided to record everything and afterwards posted it up online therefore creating the massive LA riots, it also created the rise in UGC as people everywhere started using the development of new and digital media to their advantage and started posting their own news on websites, blogs, social networking sites and YouTube, this gets rid of censorship through gatekeepers, people who make the decision on whether something is worth mentioning in the news or not. The development of new and digital media mean that the audiences now post up their own news, they don’t rely on the traditional ways of receiving news, another point to add, majority of the teenagers today first hear the news on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 

Overall, Pluralism and Marxism both have very effective and important points, however I personally disagree with Pluralism as I believe audience do have power but to a certain extent, Marxist believe even though we might think we have freedom we really don’t, but in reality the hegemony leaders from the ruling class control the media and train our brains from a young age into thinking a certain way. Mass media are seen as a way of entertaining the workers while drip feeding them ideologies and beliefs therefore is making the audience powerless and the ruling class to stay powerful and in control of the middle/lower class with their dominant ideologies.

Notes ..

The Virtual Revolution ..

Explores role of Internet in contemporary politics.

• 1/4 of our world is now connected to the world.
• The web has allowed everything to be more open and everything less closed up.
• The web is shifting power in times we would never have imagined - Its reinventing warfare and is creating cultural cults. 

Twitter was developed in San Francisco 2006, apart with facebook its all called Social Networking, for new ways to stay in touch with people.

Iran riots (June 2009) occurred, riot police banned the media from broadcasting what had happened, turning people to Twitter to vent their anger, after 18 days there was over 2 million tweets were sent of out Iran from over a million people. 200 000 tweets were posted every hour.
Once the government found out they blocked websites such as Twitter.

The webs shaking up the worlds politics because it can capture information from a crown of eye witnesses and then it can transmit it globally in real time. 

      - Its unmediated    

      - It's interactive 

      - It's mobile 

• The web is like a tool box for protests unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
• The people who made Twitter aren't surprised by its transformation from celebrity news to weapon of revolution. 
• The webs linked information is piped through an older physical system, the internet that operates beyond the jurisdiction of any one country and works against central control.
• The internet was originally designed to protect the most powerful nation of modern time. 

Vint Cerf - Co-inventor of the Internet.

Underlining Cerf's work was a technology called packet switching, it lies in the heart of the virtual revolution.

Part of his intentions when making the internet was to build a system that did not have any central control.

Packet Switching 

• Takes a piece of information and breaks it up into small pieces. These are then sent over a network (not in the right order, or the same line). At the receivers end the packets are re-combined in the right order and the data is made whole again. 
• The perfect tool for computers to talk to each other because it allows for a huge amount of data to be transmitted fast through multi roots all at once.
• Unstoppable flow of data.

The internet is probably the most democratic opportunity for people to express themselves and to get information. 

In the 21st Century, if you had something to say in public, you couldn't. If you was a citizen but not a media profession you could not broadcast a message not matter how hard you tried.

WikiLeaks 

• Allows people to anonymously blow the whistle on governments and corporations, the people who run it have made some serious enemies therefore keeping a low profile.
• Has a database of over 1.2 million documents.
• Maintains it's own servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military grade inscriptions to protect sources and other confidential information.       
• February 2008 came a court injunction by a Swiss bank, after it published allegations about tax invasions. 
• WikiLeaks website was taken down by court, however it made half the world more interested in the banks documents. 
• The New York Times published their IP address, CBS News said freedom of speech has a number and also published their IP adress. 

Austin Heap (25 year old San Franciscan) used his programming skills to develop haystack, a programme that hides in everyday websites, it allowed people to use the Twitter and other social networking sites in countries it was ban in (Iran). 

The web seems to be taking us back to a world before politics, a world of direct action, people can express their views simply by login in.

The web is this fantastic resource for transmitting information and gathering people together around an issue even in a particular place.

China has more people online than any other nation in the world - 253 million, so the webs effect on politics is a huge threat to the state and yet the technology has improved Chinas growth.  

The efforts China puts into censoping the web - 30 000 Chinese secretly police the web full-time.

The government in China started recuiting Internet commentaters, citizens who would write articles and Post comments all over the web in support of the official party line.

Censorship is two things, one which is blocking and the other which is guiding.

Petter Thiel - Founder of Paypal, a revolutionary international money transfer system, a new global currency. Petter Thiel believed Paypal was going to be the new currency and how it would change how the world used and saw money.

He was also a key early investor of Facebook.

Facebook now has 350 million users world wide, if it was a county it would be the third biggest population in the world. 

Paypal:

• Money can be moved across national borders through abstract cyber space.
• 2008 it was handling 60 billion dollars in transaction every year.  
• Origins of Paypal lie in Stanford University. 

The web has led to all kinds of new social groups.

Before the web, extremist were scattered around the world, the web then linked them all, gave them new tools allowing them to seize the initiative. 

The web acts like a virtual portable homeland.

The concept of a portable homeland refers to how different groups operating in different countries in the world who have similar aims can use the internet as a space that links all of them. So the internet replaces the borders in some of these countires for each of the groups which allows them to link as if they all live in one place.

The most common form of cyber attract is called a denial of services, one computer sends instructions to a network of computer known as a "botnet", these are just ordinary domestic computers that have been hacked and are now under the control of cyper warriors. This network bombards the chosen site with millions of requests, the site goes into meltdown and cannot respond which means no one can access the website, hence denial of service.  

"All you have to do is pick up a newspaper and see if there's any conflict which will tell you if there's any conflict in the cyber world."

At the moment, 1/4 of the planet is connected, what will happen when the remaining 75% comes online? Will the web help us to achieve greater global understanding? Or will we face new dangers that we never even imagined? 

The web confronts the world with both an incredible opportunity and incredible responsibility.  

The question for the future is, how will we use it?

Weekly NDM Story ..

Daily Mail overtakes Sun as biggest-selling Saturday paper

The Daily Mail overhauled the Sun in November to become the UK's biggest-selling Saturday paper for the first time. However, the News UK red-top remains by some distance the biggest-selling UK daily across six days – a position it has held since overtaking the Daily Mirror in 1978. In November the Saturday edition of the Daily Mail had an average headline circulation of 2,474,439, compared with the Sun's 2,453,981, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures published on Friday.

Across six days, Monday to Saturday, the Sun averaged 2,089,752 copies, against the Daily Mail's 1,755,308. The Daily Mail's headline sales figure includes an average of 91,277 "bulks" – copies sold to airlines, rail companies, hotels and gyms for a nominal fee and given free to the public. This is a marginal rise of October's bulks figure of 87,391. The Sun does not distribute bulks.

The Daily Mail was only daily tabloid to increase sales month on month – and then only marginally, 0.10%. The Sun was down 2.83% compared with October. "While we have out sold the Sun on Saturdays previously, this is the first time we have achieved better sales over the course month," said Roland Agambar, chief marketing officer for Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday publisher DMG Media.

"The performance of both papers demonstrates the strength of the Mail brand, the success of our loyalty strategy and the advantage of continued editorial and commercial investment."

In the quality daily sector the Guardian and i were the only titles to increase sales between October and November. The Guardian's average daily circulation was up by 0.44% month on month to 199,672 – the Guardian News & Media title's third successive monthly sales increase. The Lebedevs' 20p daily i was up 0.32% to 297,510.

Every national Sunday title was down month on month.

The Sun

Headline circulation: 2,089,752

Month-on-month change: -2.83%

Year-on-year change: -11.51%

Saturday edition: 2,453,981

Overseas: 21,816

Daily Mail

Headline circulation: 1,755,308

Month-on-month change: +0.10%

Year-on-year change: -6.21%

Saturday: 2,474,439

UK and Ireland paid-for circulation: 1,593,682 (90.8% of total)

Overseas: 70,349

Bulks: 91,277

Daily Mirror

Headline circulation: 1,000,170

Month-on-month change: -1.41%

Year-on-year change: -4.28%

Saturday: 1,183,499

UK and Ireland paid-for circulation: 938,125 (93.8% of total)

Overseas: 32,045

Bulks: 30,000

Daily Express

Headline circulation: 508,458

Month-on-month change: -1.12%

Year-on-year change: -5.36%

Saturday: 575,494

Overseas: 12,101

Daily Star

Headline circulation: 506,729

Month-on-month change: -2.97%

Year-on-year change: -9.51%

Saturday: 455,334

Overseas: 5,245

Daily Telegraph

Headline circulation: 544,340

Month-on-month change: -0.86%

Year-on-year change: -0.38%

Saturday: 713,297

Overseas: 12,644

Weekly NDM Story ..

The Sun attracts 117,000 paying subscribers to its Sun+ digital service

The Sun has attracted 117,000 paying subscribers to its £2-a-week digital service Sun+ since erecting a paywall around its website on 1 August. News UK's tabloid, the UK's biggest selling paper, reached 100,000 digital subscribers in four months – it took stablemates the Times and Sunday Times a year to reach the same level of paying customers after their online content went behind a paywall in 2010.

"No one else has sought to charge for digital access to a mass audience newspaper, and, though it's early days, we are encouraged by the strong start achieved by the Sun," said David Dinsmore, editor of The Sun. Dinsmore said the Sun was not looking to target overseas users like the Daily Mail and admitted the publisher's social media strategy has not been coherent enough to date. "In reality our marketplace is very much the UK at the moment, we have 60 million people here to focus on," he said. "We are in the process of hiring a social media team, we have been remiss [in this area] in the past. It has been an ad hoc affair. We are a product across all platforms and it is key to have that social-media marketing opportunity.

"It is early days and we are still bottoming out what we want to do, we have a number of successful individuals [on Twitter], good things to build on, but we want to see something much more structured." News UK revealed some details of the subscriber base of Sun+. 

• The biggest single group (30%) are 25 to 34, which Katie Vanneck-Smith, chief marketing officer at News UK, said "blows out the myth young people won't pay for [digital] content".
• Almost half (47%) of sign-ups for the paid service are via mobile devices, which Vanneck-Smith said was slightly surprising as there had been an expectation that the service might be initially more popular on desktop computers, given the typical print Sun reader's profile.

Sun+ subscribers are split 60/40 between men and women, although this is expected to balance out to an extent once the football promotion slows down, and there is a "slight" London bias to sign ups, with the capital's denizens considered to be early adopters. Not surprisingly, the Sun's almost 30 million online unique user base plummeted following the introduction of the paywall, as users sought out free alternatives.

• The Times and Sunday Times saw almost 90% of web traffic evaporate after the introduction of a paywall in 2010.
• In October, News UK revealed that the number of digital subscribers to the Times and Sunday Times had topped 150,000.

News UK chief executive Mike Darcey, who joined from BSkyB nearly a year ago December, has aggressively pursued digital sports rights deals to bolster the Sun's online offering. First up in January was a £30m-plus deal for Premier League internet and mobile highlights – outbidding former employer BSkyB as well as O2 and Perform Group.

This was followed by a four-year deal for the digital FA Cup rights, and last month the publisher secured the digital clip rights to highlights of Champions League and Europa League matches in a joint deal with BT Sport. The Sun had an average daily circulation of 2.089m in November, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Friday. However, the Sun has been overtaken for the first time as the biggest selling Saturday paper, with the Daily Mail's edition on that day averaging 2,474,439 in November. The Sun's Saturday edition averaged 2,453,981.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Is Sony's 'smart wig' even more absurd than Google Glass?

http://gu.com/p/3kma3

Age: In development.

Appearance: Like hair. But smarter.

This can't be what it sounds like. Oh, but it can and it is.

Please tell me it's just a smart-looking wig. I can't and won't.

Fine. It's a computer in a toupee, isn't it? That's the idea.

Whose idea, exactly, and how are they still alive? Engineers at Sony. And they're alive and thriving because enough of their ridiculous ideas turn into hugely successful products.

But … but … a wig? A smart wig? So they hope. The electronics giant has applied to patent a "wearable computing device" wired into a hairpiece. The application states the smart wig could be made from "horse hair, human hair, wool, feathers, yak hair, buffalo hair or any kind of synthetic material".

Wool? Feathers? Human hair? Are they drunk? To be fair, the purpose of a patent is to cover all possible bases. It doesn't mean the finished product has to come in a choice of yak or buffalo.

But why would anyone want a feathery PC on their head? Well, for one thing, because it might give them super powers.

Are you drunk now as well? No, I've just been browsing the patent's extensive list of possible smart wig functions.

Such as? Bat-vision. Apparently it could deploy "ultrasound waves" to detect nearby objects and help navigate through darkness.

Pssh. And? Wig-sensing. It could use vibration or small electric shocks to provide "tactile feedback" to the wearer. Plus it could monitor environmental conditions and users' vital signs.

Oh. Hmm. Any more? Telepathy, for one. Or "wig-to-wig communication" via the tactile feedback mechanisms. Also telekinesis, using facial expressions or brain activity to control, for example, a computer presentation.

That sounds brilliant. Anything else? Self-awareness. It could be fitted with an electronic compass and camera to let the user know "whether the wig is correctly mounted on the head or not".

I must have it. You'll have to wait a while.

I must have it at once! Keep your hair on.

Do say: "At the end of the day, it's still a wig."

Don't say: "What next, mind-reading merkins?"

Weekly NDM Story ..

Print readerships down again, but with online audiences on the up ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/nov/28/national-newspapers-newspapers

Print readerships for most national daily and Sunday newspapers continue to decline. According to the latest set of National Readership Survey figures, only four titles - the Financial Times, The Times, Sunday Times and i - added a small number of readers in the year up to October compared to the same period last year.

Six dailies suffered what are regarded - by NRS - as "statistically significant" falls. They were:

• The Independent (-22%)
• Daily Star (-19%)
• The Guardian (-16%)
• Daily Mirror, 
• The Sun (-14%)
• The Daily Express (-12%)

The Independent's total readership over the 12 months stood at 393,000 but its little sister, i, managed to record 568,000, a 1% improvement on the previous year. At the other end of the scale was The Sun with a total readership of 6,123,000 readers. To put this in perspective, the paper was claiming an audience of more than 12m in the 1980s. Among the Sundays, six titles were also said to have statistically significant readership decreases. The worst, by far, was the Sunday People, with 42% fewer readers year-on-year.

The others were the Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday, both down 20%, The Observer (-14%) and the Mail on Sunday (-7%). Of course, all of these print readerships were offset by rises in the users of websites. NRS has also released the PADD (combined Print and Digital Data) figures, which make better reading for publishers. In some instances, these show huge differences. For example, the Daily Telegraph's online increase over print on a monthly basis was 184% and The Guardian was up 159%.

Overall, this article just proves the fact that newspapers are my dying because of online media. Its more productive, its easier to use and obviously because online news is free the audience are going to prefer it, who wants to pay for news? Maybe in the past where people actually used to pay for newspapers everyday but now because everything has changed people don't expect or want to pay for news. 

Weekly NDM Story ..

David Cameron defends opposition to Page 3 ban ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/22/david-cameron-page-3

David Cameron has insisted he is right to oppose a ban on Page 3 pin-ups despite his efforts to tackle online pornography. The prime minister said there was a difference between newspapers, which parents could keep away from children, and the internet, where youngsters could "stumble across" legal but hardcore pornography. Under plans set out by Cameron, the largest internet service providers in Britain will force customers to choose whether to turn off filters that will prevent customers viewing porn. 

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour he insisted there was a distinction between images online and in the pages of a newspaper. He said: "I've said what I've said about Page 3 and the Sun and I haven't changed my views. But should we do more to try and help parents to protect their children from legal pornography on the internet? Yes I think we should, and again last week we made some big progress on that."

Cameron added: "You can control your children's access to newspapers and books and magazines. The problem with the internet is that our children are all online and they're using YouTube and they're searching for videos and the rest of it and there's a danger that they can stumble across really quite, sometimes hardcore legal pornography."

The plan set out with BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk was about "making sure every household is offered a default-on filter to stop those images coming through, and that's what we've enabled". He added: "I think there's a difference between a physical product as I said and the internet and that's why I think this specific action is needed on the internet and that's why I'm driving that.

Personally, I think having the filter is an amazing idea for parents to protect their chikdren , I think David Cameron is a fool because he supports page 3 therefore showing he has no respect for women and he supports how the media degrades women and makes them feel as if they're just sex object's. 

Weekly NDM Story ..

Universities should use Twitter to engage with students

http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/nov/22/universities-twitter-engage-with-students

Universities have started to believe that maybe using twitter to comunicate with their students is the best way to improve learning. A student claimed there had been an explosion of social media around his university. 

• According to recent research, 75% of students in Europe admit to using Twitter "all the time".
• 42% of under 20-year-olds use social media mainly to "stay up to date". 

#UCLChem160x is a hashtag that has been set up for a chemistry course at University College London (UCL) to share course information. Andrea Sella, professor of inorganic chemistry at UCL says: "There's a real need to make sure that students remain engaged. Finding innovative ways to get students interested and connected is a crucial part of what I think teaching is becoming."

Twitter could be used as another method to reach students, to share content and provide information. The social nature of Twitter means you can ask questions, have conversations, and join discussions or debates. But an online community must be active to be successful. #UCLChem160x will need regular use if it is to benefit students.

• An economics undergraduate at the University of Plymouth says: "I might use the hashtag once or twice. It would be pretty helpful to quickly check my understanding, but I don't think I'd actively follow it."

However the students believe that twitter is very public which can put people off using it for university queries. If they have a question or comment using the hashtag, it wouldn't just be seen by those following the tag, it would also be seen by all their followers. "I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable discussing any queries or academic difficulties on social media. It forms a personal record that can be used to define you," says a history of medicine postgraduate student at UCL. 

A biochemistry student at the University of Manchester says: "Using social media in education is brilliant. We have lots of Facebook groups set up for courses at my university, usually by students. "They give much quicker responses than posting on discussion boards, as people tend to check social media more regularly. And students can help each other so you don't have to wait for a lecturer to respond, which can take a while." "Twitter would make it easier to stay involved with my course as I go on it everyday. I'd love to see deadline reminders on there," says a geography student at Kings College London. 

Questioning and debating teaches us to think critically – a key skill no matter what you're studying – and online debate is a way to develop these skills. Hashtags create online communities where you can discuss a topic with your friends so I believe this is a really successful way of improving education.

Notes ..

The Virtual Revolution ..

Broadcast on the BBC in 2010.

• A small part of Africa have just been connected to the internet, if the internet does take off in Africa it'll reshape itself. 
• The internet has become a brain, it's the smartest brain in the world. 

Sir Tim Berners-lee = Invented the world wide web. 

                                  Argues the web is "connecting humanity" 

UK/England - Africa 

    The digital divide - digital haves and have nots. 

• 2 million people are online 
• "How mankind communicate" (Bill Gates)
• "Empowering tool" (Al Gore)
• Challenges authority VS. spying/censorship 

  

Does the internet level us? 

  > The web allows information to travel globally for free. 

  > 1/4 of the glob uses the internet.

• 18 million people read blogs (west london the most) - no limit to self expression.
• Wikipedia allows knowledge to be shaped together - proof of the involvement globally.
• 1985 (San Francisco) "The well" - without the well, facebook, twitter etc wouldn't have worked. 
• "The well" - The first source of internet (computer)
• The internet was a traditional theft.

Al Gore > Exciting and revolutionary prospect. 

- According to most of the internet, it's the biggest move, it's compared to the industrial revolution (Internet revolution.)

• "Greater levellers"
• "Challengers business models" 
• Power to the people equal across/voice"   

> 35 million log in everyday 

> 40% men watch porn 

> 5 million using dating sites. 

Wikipedia - Accuracy, free, ordinary people, undercuts authority. 

"Libertarianism (1960s) 

• Ushahidi - (whiteness) - Posting up examples of abuse & riots. 
• The web and internet are two different things. 
• 1965 emails were made.
• The web as we use it today is completely different to it in the beginning. 
• The story of the internet beginning started a century ago.
• 1991 - The first website went online 

Tim Berners-lee gave away the web for free, made no profit. 

Internet - "paradigm shift on a par with the printing press" 

The US Military came up with the idea of the internet.

• URL > Unique address for a document
• HTML > The universal language of the internet.
• Home computers > Altair 8000 

1999 - A man made a website called napstar. 

              - Allowing eople to share music illegally for free around the world. 

              - It went global, everybody broke the law for the first time because of just once website. 

The web has threatened any traditional ways of sharing information. 

UGC - Youtube, allows anybody to be seen 

         - 2005 Youtube first ever video.
2005 - YouTube's first ever video.

Master shortie - used the internet to promote himself

90% of the market (internet) was owned by Microsoft (Bill Gates) > Monopoly.

"Monetize"

95% of music isn't paid for.

• EBay gets 21 million views a month.
• Amazon gets 16 million views a month.
• The man who invented the web is worried for its future.                        - The webs leveling days are now over.
• Jimmy wells - cofounder of Wikipedia.
• 38 million search Google a month.                                                                - 1/3 now have a Facebook pages (there's no competition for Facebook.)

"The web is inventing society's" - Aleks Krotoski
"The web mirrors the high arki of the real world" 

90% of blogs users are dormant.
        - Nothing is actually happening (its sleeping.) 

NDM Summary 14/11/13

Weekly NDM Story .. 

Sunday, 15 September 2013 - We have Abandoned our Children to the Internet ..

Sunday, 22 September 2013 - Apple says "t's working on fix for iOS 7 lockscreen bypass flaw"

Saturday, 28 September 2013 - Sun on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror suffer sales drops after cover price hikes

Thursday, 3 October 2013 - News Corp reveals plan to boost advertising following paywall launch

Sunday, 13 October 2013 - Apple iOS 7 software update: love it or loathe it?

Saturday, 26 October 2013 - BBC iPlayer: viewers ditch computers for tablets and mobiles ..

Saturday, 26 October 2013 - Rupert Murdoch elected chairman of 21st Century Fox

Sunday, 10 November 2013 - Newspapers Are Dying For A Lot Of Reasons, And Craigslist Is One Of Them

Saturday, 16 November 2013 - Open thread: why is YouTube's new comments system causing such anger?

Saturday, 16 November 2013 - Sun editor: topless Page 3 photos 'not set in stone' ..

WWW - I post a variety of different stories on my blog each week allowing me to be a where of the news and what's going on around the world. My structure of each story is easy to read and clear which will help me when it comes to revising.

EBI - I should have more stories and I could have highlighted the key words and bullet pointed more facts.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Open thread: why is YouTube's new comments system causing such anger?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/12/open-thread-youtube-new-comments-system-causing-anger-google

YouTubes commenting section has now been changed to squeeze out trolls in favour of "conversations that matter to you". In the days since, there's been a considerable backlash against the changes, which appears to be gathering pace, and it's all about the way YouTube's comments section is now tied to the Google+ social network.

More than 95,000 people have so far signed a Change.org petition calling for YouTube to change the comments section back to its original form: "Google is forcing us to make google+ accounts and invading our social life to comment on a youtube video and trying to take away our anonymous profile. They are also trying to censor us unless we share the same worldview as they do," claims the petition, which is aiming to get 150,000 signatures.

• YouTube's official video introducing the comments changes has also been catching flak, and not just in its comments. At the time of writing, 2,127 people have given the video a thumbs-up, while 40,450 have given it a thumbs-down.
• The site's own co-founder Jawed Karim hit out at the changes late last week, posting a message on his channel asking: "Why the fuck do i need a google+ account to comment on a video?"
• Meanwhile, YouTube's biggest star PewDiePie – more than 15.6 million subscribers and 2.8bn total views – has disabled comments on his channel, albeit for different reasons: he claimed that his top comments were overrun with "Links to virus sites, advertisers, self-advertisers, spam, copy and paste pics of dogs (I'm OK with those though)."

Changes to any big social media service often attract a lot of criticism when they happen, before it settles down. This feels more serious, but I personally don't think its not that big of a problem. Eventually everyone will get over it, its a better system now because it blocks out and stops trolls and jealous people.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Sun editor: topless Page 3 photos 'not set in stone' ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/05/david-dinsmore-on-page-3-hillsborough-buzzfeed-and-politics

Could The Sun be on the verge of changing its mind about Page 3? Its editor, David Dinsmore, said today: "It is not set in stone that there must be a pair of breasts every day on Page 3." His statement came on a day where the paper had a very different kind of Page 3 where there was no nipples on display.

He had earlier pointed out, during an interview with the BBC's John Pienaar, that he stood by his decision to continue running pictures of topless women. He said: "I make The Sun for its readers, not for the No More Page 3 people, or the Twitterati or Guardian readers. We held focus groups in which it was clear that we shouldn't touch it [Page 3]. People don't want to be told what should be in their newspaper." Dinsmore said Page 3 was an "intrinsic part of the brand" and to remove it would therefore be "brand erosion." He added: "As far as I'm concerned I've parked the issue.

Now the paper has digital competitors, such as BuzzFeed, which he described as "brilliant - the best thing on the internet". Its content, "with a mix of light and shade", was "just like The Sun." He was convinced that, despite falling print sales, his paper's content was "the subject of every conversation in Britain each day", even though people might not be conscious of it coming from The Sun because it was copied so quickly by other sites. "People don't want news," he said, "they need it." He would not be drawn on how well, or not, The Sun's website has performed since it went behind a paywall (a word he didn't like).

Personally, I believe the suns page 3 is the unique selling point of that newspaper and also, the man is right when he explains how people don't actually want news however they need it therefore having something that will attract them isn't all bad. On the other hand I find it degrading and harsh on women for a whole newspaper to portray these women as sex objects. Its wrong and as a women I think they should get rid of page 3. If people don't want to read the news that's there problem.

NDM: UsvsTh3m ..

Daily Mail quiz powers UsvsTh3m towards 3m users ..

The reason why this website is a good idea for newspapers in the digital age is because the Daily Mirror publisher's Buzzfeed-style social content offering, is expected to reach 3 million unique users in October thus attracting a wider audience. Trinity Mirror claims that the site will pass the 3 million monthly unique user mark at about lunchtime on Thursday, almost tripling the number of users recorded in September. This is all through the 1.25 million users, that came from the people playing and sharing the tongue-in-cheek Daily Mail quiz. Users are encouraged to share their scores on USvsTh3m games and quizzes via social media, helping to drive up traffic, making everything about it interactive therefore attracting a wider audience.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Newspapers Are Dying For A Lot Of Reasons, And Craigslist Is One Of Them

http://www.webpronews.com/newspapers-are-dying-for-a-lot-of-reasons-and-craigslist-is-one-of-them-2013-08

Newspapers are dying. It’s an inevitable fact that the Internet has made print newspapers largely irrelevant. People think that the Internet has only robbed newspapers of their readers due to the medium’s ability to deliver news faster, but a new study has found that the Internet has been taking ad dollars from newspapers as well.

What should worry more newspapers is that the study didn’t take into account any decline in classified ad rates from 2008 to 2012. The researchers fear that newspapers may have felt the sting of Craigslist even more over the last four years. The study also didn’t take into account other online classified ad services so the impact could be even greater. 

Despite the doom and gloom surrounding the death of newspapers, the researchers are largely positive. They feel that newspapers are adjusting their business models to deal with the shortfall left behind by the loss of readers and ads. That’s true for the larger newspapers, like The New York Times, that have successfully transitioned to online and mobile.

Personally, I believe newspapers are dying because e-media has taken over through the simple fact that its easier and quicker to find information out. Also, because newspapers cost, people prefer online news as its free. Eventually newspapers will die forever, its just a matter of time.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Instagram acts after BBC finds site users are advertising illegal drugs ..

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/07/instagram-illegal-drugs-bbc-investigation

Instagram has now become Strict with their users updates, comments and hashtags in a bid to stamp out the sale of illegal drugs. After a BBC investigation, it was found that people were selling and adverting illegal drugs to their followers. Most of the drug sales have mainly taken place in the US according to the #BBCtrending strand on the broadcaster's website.

One ad posted below an image of bags of marijuana said: "Just getting a few packs ready for tomorrow morning … Place your order today, it gets shipped out at 8am tomorrow." Another photo displayed a selection of pills with the caption: "$2 a pop for xans, $10 a pop for roxys " – a reference to Xanax, a psychoactive anxiety treatment, and Roxicodone, an opiate used to treat pain.

Many deals were finalised through instant messaging apps such as whatsapp or kik allowing messages to be kept private. Instagram which is owned by Facebook has a policy of actimng on reported inappropriate activity. But it told the BBC that there was no point in finding such material because its terms of service state: "You may not use the service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose,  people can't buy things on Instagram, we are simply a place where people share photos and videos." 

Personally, its not a shock to me that people are using social networking sites for illegal uses, and its not another shock that imstagram don't think its worth checking out. If people are going to sell drugs they will, nobody can stop the because they'll find another way of selling it. However the BBC investigating it will help cut the problem down. 

Weekly NDM Story ..

Rupert Murdoch elected chairman of 21st Century Fox

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/oct/21/rupert-murdoch-21st-century-fox

Shareholders of 21st Century Fox ignored a call for an independent chair by electing Rupert Murdoch as chairman during a meeting on Friday (18 October). Murdoch's sons, Lachlan and James, were also confirmed as board directors. Two investor groups, Christian Brothers Investment Services and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation of Canada, proposed that there should be a separate chairman and chief executive.

• And the proxy advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, recommended that shareholders should vote against Murdoch and eight other directors, including his sons.
• Reuters reports that Timothy Schaler, an investment adviser for Christian Brothers, told the meeting: "Our new company deserves a fresh start."

The response from 21st Century Fox was that it needed Murdoch's "unique insight and strategic vision" in the joint chairman-CEO role, and said the current board has delivered good returns for shareholders.

• The Murdochs control 39.4% of the company's voting rights through class B shares. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a frequent Murdoch ally, owns 7%.
• Murdoch is also executive chairman of News Corp. Its chief executive is Robert Thomson.

Weekly NDM Story ..

BBC iPlayer: viewers ditch computers for tablets and mobiles ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/oct/24/bbc-iplayer-computers-tablets-mobiles

Through the changes of technology over the years means that for the first time in September, with 70m requests,according to new figures the people who normally watch BBC iplayer through their computers now have started watching it on their smartphones and tablets. 

• Mobile and tablet viewing accounted for 41% of the 176m requests for BBC TV programmes on the iPlayer in September.
• This compares with the 33m requests from viewers using computers, 33% of the total, a milestone that underlines the rise of portable devices.

The head of BBC iPlayer, Dan Taylor said "With tablets at the top of many people's Christmas list for 2013, we expect this to continue to grow even further." The BBC said that it's been found that viewers flock to the iPlayer at 10pm, with many choosing to switch from watching traditional TV to tablets to then watch their favourite shows in bed. Also, for the people who are going work in the mornings prefer to watch their shows whilst traveling.  

• Just three years ago the iPlayer notched up only 5m requests a month from mobiles and tablets, just 6% of total viewing.

The figures published on Thursday also highlight the rapid rise of the TV-friendly size of the iPad over other mobile devices.

• Tablets accounted for 43 million of the 70m requests to portable devices, well ahead of mobiles on 27m despite the ubiquity of smartphones.
• Requests to view TV shows on tablet devices have grown 250% in a year – from almost level pegging with mobiles on 17m last September to 43m last month – while mobile requests have climbed 29%.
• The only platform on which the iPlayer is available to see a decline in viewing requests is computers, down from 70m to 58m in a year, a 17% decline.
• The level of iPlayer requests via TV sets offering on-demand viewing – via services such as BSkyB, YouView, Virgin Media and BT – have stayed pretty stable year on year at 29m.

The BBC said that there has been a total of 20m downloads of the BBC iPlayer mobile app for Apple and Android devices.

"Twenty million downloads of the BBC iPlayer mobile app marks a golden age of public service television," said the head of TV content for BBC iPlayer, Victoria Jaye. "It cements iPlayer's role as BBC television's fifth channel, enabling audiences to fit their enjoyment of the full range of BBC programmes around their busy lives."

Personally, I believe this was inevitable because as the technology upgrades so does the audience and the way they take in everything nowadays. This article just shows how the technology has improved. Also, when traveling on the train or on the bus there's nothing much to do but catch up with the TV shows and when at home there's always something to do therefore not actually having the time to watch their TV.

Web 2.0 Articles ..

Participation Debates – The media and democracy ..

So, what is ‘democracy’?

Democracy is a form of government where people have an equal say in making decisions. Democracy is the st system of government used in most countries in the world except one-party states such as China; dictatorships such as (until recently) Libya; and non-symbolic monarchies such as Saudi Arabia. This relates to media though the idea of 'one person one vote'. The X Factor for example, in the 2010 series 15,488,019 million votes were cast by viewers to decide the outcome of the program. 

However it wasn't always like this, In the pre-digital era, there were very few ways in which audiences could make their voices heard. Want to complain about a TV programme? Send a letter to Points of View and it might be read out on air. Want to comment on local politics? Phone your local radio station and hope you are given a few seconds of airtime. The digital revolution and Web 2.0 have given users the chance to communicate ideas globally through social networking. Some commentators have claimed that the uprisings in Egypt and Libya couldn't have happened without the use of Twitter and Facebook.However, in the countries now experiencing this ‘Arab Spring’, access to mobile technology and the internet is still limited to a relatively small elite, so perhaps we have not yet seen true democracy through the media.

If information is power, then the internet empowers it's users by giving them instant, unmediated access to to new news stories from a variety of sources. Bypassing the hegemonic institutions that control the dominant media discourses in society. Take the death of Michael Jackson, many people found out about the death through the social networking sites twitter and facebook then on the TMZ entertainment blog, way before the traditional media institutions new about it. Why is this democratic? Instead of waiting for the story to be edited and mediated by news, with their own ideological motives, we had access to a huge range of points of view, direct and unmediated.

The uses of blogs is another way that the media are becoming more democratic, it allows you to debate about anything, politics or even favorite band, a blog has access to an global audience as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Some of the most important events of the last ten years have been communicated by ordinary people who just happened to be in the right place at the right time: for example, the iconic video footage of the attack on the Twin Towers on 11th September 2001.

So is traditional journalism dead? Is citizen journalism the future? Perhaps not, but what citizen journalism can do is provide eyewitness accounts and subjective angles on stories to complement the work of professional news organisations. We've entered a new age when audiences are producers and the traditional power structures are being forced to listen.

In the Age of Media Six Questions about Media and Participation

• Because of the changes in the media the audience who are consumers are also now the producers.
• Social networking sites allows the audience to interact with other people around the world whereas blogs for example gives people the opportunity to say their opinion also blogs don't require getting any editing or permission to post what they think. Youtube, another example allows people to share their work around the world.
• There's a huge change from the traditional media to the new media. No more user-generated content or citizen journalism.

Whats New?

• Technology changing isn't always the best thing because it can cause a revolutionary social change.
• Technologies are created by the wider social, economic and culture developments. 

Who's participating?

• Research suggest that there are some inequalities in participation based on gender differences. For example, women are taking over blogging sites while men are usually dominate video sharing.
• However, in terms of social class, for example in the US young people from middle class who have computers are less likely to have muti-media capabilities that are needed for more sophisticated content creation and sharing.
Twitter is dominated by middle class people. Young people are the early adopters of Twitter are the digital generation

Web 2.0 – Participation or Hegemony?

• Web 2.0 is referred to 'we media' which democratises the media, as anyone with web connection can create and publish texts. This means the audience don't have to rely on professional people anymore.
• Because anyone can create pieces of texts, people believe that this has led to dumbing down.
• Finally, audiences no longer have to reply on traditional media.

Weekly NDM Story ..

20 best Android apps this week

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/18/best-android-apps-clash-of-clans

Every week a round up of the most popular android games are rated, It covers apps and games, with the prices referring to the initial download: so (Free) may mean (Freemium) in some cases. The equivalent iOS roundup will be published later in the day.

1. Clash of Clans (Free)
2. Microsoft Remote Desktop (Free)
3. Twiiter (Free)
4. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (Free)
5. Where's my water at? 2 (Free)
6. Mercury Browser (Free)
7. Champ Man (Free)
8. HMV Music (Free)
9. Grand Theft Auto V: The Manual (Free)
10. Runtastic Six Pack Abs Workout (Free)
11. Haunted House (£1.49)
12. evo (Free)
13. The Blockheads (Free)
14. Type:Rider (£2.28)
15. Dessin (£2.99)
16. Light-bot (£1.99)
17. Help for Heroes : Hero Bears (£1.99)
18. Cluster (Free)
19. Rabbids Big Bang (£0.75)
20. Transport Tycoon (£4.99)

Towards the bottom, the audience is allowed to give their own comments therefore attracting them, allowing them to interact and get involved. I think it's a good idea to allow the audience the chance to give their own opinion because it helps the professionals make better decisions when working on another project. 

Weekly NDM Story ..

Apple iOS 7 software update: love it or loathe it?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/08/apple-ios-7-update-iphone-problems-headaches

Majority of Apples devices now have the latest mobile operating system iOS 7, Mizpanel's trend data said around 68.8% people with devices today upgraded a day after release, so obviously Apple should have been ecstatic. However there were manly complaints, the fake zooms, parallax effects and sliding motion are only causing motion sickness and other apps just sucking battery life. Also complaints about Siri and Spotlight being too hard to find and new warning if users connect a non-standard cable. 

Some comments:

•  You can't see as many apps in multi-tasking.
• Instead of seeing a lovely picture of my dog when the screen locks, I see a lovely picture of my dog obscured by 'frosted glass'.
• If you tap on a URL in Safari (to copy it, say) it shows you the Safari startup screen while you meddle, which you then have to tap to get back to the page you were on.
• Newsstand is now mad – now they've ditched skeuomorphic they should probably redesign it because it's now a load of screengrabs of newspapers stuck on some weird grey lines.
• That, and doesn't it all feel a bit more Android?

Personally, I think the new iOS 7 is really cool, it's better looking, it appeals to more people, the colours brighten up the phone and it's much easier to use. Obviously there always will be people that don't like and complain about the products (or in this case settings) because they have such a huge world wide target audience, not everybody will like everything they create.