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Welcome to the
Paradigm RedShift
Information Business
Newsletter
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Jack Lee
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Google is subpoenaing documents from its two biggest competitors,
Microsoft and Yahoo, in an effort to defend itself in copyright lawsuits filed against it
by publishers and authors.
McGraw-Hill Cos. and the Authors Guild, along with other publishers and
authors, contend that a Google project to digitize the libraries of four major U.S.
universities, as well as portions of the New York Public Libary and Oxford University's
libraries, ignores the rights of copyright holders in favor of Google's economic
self-interest.
The publishers support a separate book-scanning effort, known as the
Open Content Alliance, that was conceived by Yahoo and the non-profit Internet Archive,
and that seeks explicit permission from copyright holders. The alliance has promised to
make books available to all search engines.
AOP
recognises cream of digital content industry
AOP Press release, October 5
TopGear.com, published by BBC Worldwide, scooped
the coveted award for Consumer Website 2006 at the Association of Online Publishers (AOP)
Awards last night. The site was commended for strong growth in revenue and traffic
to the site over the last 12 months, and judges described the site as “perfectly
targeting an audience that is expanding at an incredible rate”.
Associated Northcliffe Digital, whose network of 85 sites
includes Dailymail.co.uk, Mailonsunday.co.uk, Thisismoney.co.uk, Thisislondon.co.uk and
Jobsite.co.uk, won the AOP award for Consumer Online Publisher of the year.
Google
to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion
News.com, October 9
Google has agreed to purchase online video phenomenon YouTube for $1.65
billion in stock, the companies announced Monday after the close of the stock market.
Report reveals
public need greater reassurance about internet crime
Press release from Get Safe Online, October 9
Report reveals public need greater reassurance about internet crime
Get Safe Online research reveals people fear online crime more than mugging or burglary.
The new research from www.getsafeonline.org
suggests growing fear of internet crime is deterring the public from using the internet
for everyday activities. Nearly a quarter (24%) are too concerned to bank online, nearly a
fifth (18%) won’t shop online and one in six (17%) are so concerned they have been
put off logging on all together.
Carphone buys
AOL in the UK for £370m
Times Online, October 11
Carphone Warehouse, the British phones and broadband group, has
bought AOL in the UK from America's Time Warner for £370 million in cash.
The deal, which ends a four-month auction for the Time Warner arm, gives
Carphone Warehouse 2 million new customers and instantly turns it into the UK's
third-largest broadband service provider.
India
court accuses Google's Orkut of spreading hatred
CNet.com, October 11
The Times
of India is reporting that a court there is accusing Google's Orkut social networking
service of spreading hatred about India over a member's posting.
Informa
shares soar on Springer approach
Times Online, October 20
Informa confirmed an approach by Springer Science & Business Media proposing a
takeover that would create a £4 billion-plus European publishing and conferencing group.
The History Matters campaign – a coalition of heritage and history
organisations led by the National Trust and English Heritage – have built a huge
archive of personal blogs posted on October 17.
See more information at the History
Matters website.
Printer to
write off £300m
Sunday Times Online, October 22
A group of banks is set to write off up
to £300m as part of a radical restructuring plan at Polestar, the printing group that was
once part of the business empire of Robert Maxwell
In the first of a new series, Paul Durman reports on how old-media companies are
tackling the threat from internet-based rivals. A ini-revolution is under way in a
little-known corner of the worldwide web. Launched this month, Searchmedica.co.uk is a
doctor’s internet search engine, an online spin-off from Pulse, the weekly paper for
GPs.
Thomson's
educational unit up for sale at $5bn
Times Online, October 26
Thomson Corporation put its $5 billion (£2.7 billion) Thomson Learning division on the
market yesterday, bringing the total value of educational publishing businesses up for
sale to nearly $10 billion.
Thomson Corporation has hired Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street bank, to handle the sale
of the unit, which has an estimated 25 per cent of the US higher education publishing
market. The auction, which could be confirmed as Thomson Corporation unveils its
third-quarter results, will see Thomson Learning join Houghton Mifflin, the US schools
publisher, and Wolters Kluwer’s education arm on the market.
Revamp
for academic network
Computing, 26 October
A £29m, next-generation network to support education and research launches today, to
deliver greater reliability, resilience and cost-effectiveness. Traffic on Janet, the
UK’s academic network, doubles almost every nine months, and the new fibre backbone,
known as SuperJanet5, will increase capacity.
New Digital
Book Standard Released
International Digital Publishing Forum, October 30
The
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the standards and trade association for
digital publishing, announced today the release of a new technical standard to facilitate
digital content creation, distribution and use by consumers. In addition to the Open
eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS), an XML standard for authoring digital books, the IDPF
has now released a new standard for packaging a digital publication, including the
contents of the publication, metadata, signatures, encryption, rights and other
information into one standard file. Entitled the Open eBook Publication Structure
Container Format (OCF), the new IDPF standard will allow publishers to release a single
standard file into their sales and distribution channels and will also enable consumers to
exchange unencrypted eBooks and other digital publications between reading systems that
support the new standard.
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