Digital Marketing Blog

Interview: Saul Klein, venture partner at Index Ventures

Serial web investor Saul Klein was recently appointed as a venture partner by London-based VC firm Index Ventures. Saul is planning to help Index spend its new technology fund and he will also work with its existing portfolio.

He spoke to us about why European start-ups need better access to experienced entrepreneurs, why he thinks social shopping is over-hyped, and what's driving the renewed interest in internet companies from investors.

by Richard Maven 28 February 2007 11:14am 0 comments

BitTorrent to sell movie and TV downloads

BitTorrent, makers of P2P software often used to trade pirated movies, has launched a site which will sell legal downloads of movies and TV shows.

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network is set to launch today with films from Warner Bros, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, as well as episodes of TV shows such as '24'.

by Graham Charlton 28 February 2007 11:02am 3 comments

Another report claims that blogging has peaked

A post by Pranam Kolari on ebiquity's blog claims that the English-speaking blogosphere has reached its peak.

This echoes predictions made by Gartner in December that the blogosphere will top out this year at 100m blogs, and start to decline thereafter.

by Graham Charlton 28 February 2007 09:32am 1 comment

TrustedPlaces scores investment from startup fund

British venue reviews site TrustedPlaces has won a £500,000 investment from the entrepreneurs behind CheapFlights.co.uk, the companies announced this morning.

The London-based guide, which launched early last year, allows users to rate and recommend to fellow browsers places to eat, drink and socialise.

by Robert Andrews 28 February 2007 09:20am 0 comments

Who needs or wants usability?

I have just given my annual lectures to some postgraduate students about what it’s like doing usability in the real world (i.e. the world where you can’t spend three months redesigning the perfect interface to a toaster).

And one of the issues I cover is why it seems to be so difficult to design usable products. It must be difficult - there are lots of clever designers and few really usable products.

by Tom Stewart 28 February 2007 09:14am 1 comment

Apple begins iPhone marketing, delays TV

Apple has been forced to roll back shipment of its Apple TV media bridge device by nearly a month.

Reuters in the US last night quoted a spokeswoman as saying: "Wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we now expect to begin shipments mid-March."

by Robert Andrews 27 February 2007 11:46am 0 comments

YouTube 'more popular than TV'

In what is being seen as a watershed moment for media, a surge in popularity this month saw the number of visitors to YouTube overtake that to US TV websites.

According to data from Hitwise, YouTube's share of internet visits leapt to 0.6031% during the week of February 3, breezing beyond the 0.4865% share all US TV network websites combined enjoy.

by Robert Andrews 26 February 2007 09:57am 0 comments

Viewers vocal on Virgin-Sky spat

Virgin Media has been deluged with thousands of comments from customers facing the loss of Sky channels in the dispute between the two media giants.

Cable customers are due to lose Sky One, Sky Two, Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News from Thursday if BSkyB and the former ntl/Telewest cannot agree financial terms of a new carriage deal.

A request for comment posted to Virgin's Have Your Say message boards has attracted around 7,000 responses across over 300 pages of replies.

by Robert Andrews 26 February 2007 09:53am 15 comments

Google's Schmidt in YouTube copyright pledge

With a view to halting the plethora of copyright cases and complaints brought against YouTube, Google will soon offer anti-piracy technology for copyright holders to prevent their content being shown on the site.

Google has been heavily criticised for seeming to be willing to take action over copyright infringement only when they have an existing content agreement with the content owners.

by Graham Charlton 23 February 2007 14:27pm 0 comments