It’s all about the platform — except when it isn’t: Many speakers at paidContent 2012 spoke about the opportunities, challenges and constraints of creating digital content. Here are five key takeaways from the day. Jim Bankoff, Chairman and CEO, Vox Media Data helps destroy containers, and that’s a good thing. Data creates new content and information experiences and helps bring an end to the notion of content silos, Betaworks’ John Borthwick said: “The moment you start thinking about it as information, you start to think less about the package and more about the users.” Forrester’s James McQuivey pointed out that it’s not just a “tablet or iPad world,” but an “everything world” — and millions of people are consuming content not on iPads or e-readers ... Continue reading →

Here we go again. Another disruptive TV technology, another major lawsuit. This time Dish Network and the major TV networks are suing each other over what Dish calls its “best in class DVR” technology that lets viewers skip over tv commercials with a single click. “Ultimately, this case is about consumer choice,” said Dish in a complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court. The satellite TV provider wants the court to declare that it is not infringing copyright or breaching the terms of its contracts with Fox, NBC, ABC and CBS. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter reports that Fox has filed a separate suit against Dish to “aggressively defend the future of free, over-the-air television.” Dish’s ad-skipping device stands out because, unlike other DVRs, viewers can ... Continue reading →

Google today released a new picture of the millions of links it scrubs from its search results in response to requests from Microsoft, movie studios and other content owners. In a reflection of the evolving nature of anti-piracy enforcement, the company revealed that it takes down 250,000 search links each week over copyright concerns, a figure that exceeds the total number it removed in all of 2009. The data arrived today as a new section in Google’s Transparency Report, a set of findings that show how governments — and now private actors — are removing pages from the internet. Google’s senior copyright counsel, Fred von Lohmann, stressed in an interview that the vast majority of the takedown requests are legitimate and come in response to ... Continue reading →

Here comes Yahoo's own Web browser — Axis — Yahoo is announcing tonight that it's getting into the browser business with its new Axis browser. There are versions for iPad and iPhone, and plug-ins for the desktop browsers Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari. Continue reading →

When the novelist Jennifer Egan submitted her latest short story to The New Yorker, she hinted to Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor, that there was a catch. It soon became evident: Ms. Egan had written an entire work of fiction in 140 character bits, to be first posted on Twitter and then published in the magazine.“I had a sense it could work for a spy story,” Ms. Egan said this week while sitting in Ms. Treisman’s office.Ms. Treisman was receptive to the idea, so much so that this week the New Yorker will begin publishing the story, “Black Box,” in segments on Twitter. Starting Thursday night, the New Yorker’s Twitter fiction handle, @NYerFiction, will post a new tweet of text from Ms. Egan’s 8,500 word ... Continue reading →

Google today released a new picture of the millions of links it scrubs from its search results in response to requests from Microsoft, movie studios and other content owners. In a reflection of the evolving nature of anti-piracy enforcement, the company revealed that it takes down 250,000 search links each week over copyright concerns, a figure that exceeds the total number it removed in all of 2009. The data arrived today as a new section in Google’s Transparency Report, a set of findings that show how governments — and now private actors — are removing pages from the internet. Google’s senior copyright counsel, Fred von Lohmann, stressed in an interview that the vast majority of the takedown requests are legitimate and come in response to ... Continue reading →

If you haven’t yet heard of “phablets,” you might want get familiar with them because ABI Research expects 208 million of them to sell in 2015. The word is a combination of phone and tablet, just like ABI’s definition, which is a smartphone with a tablet-like large screen. Specifically, phones with displays ranging in size from 4.6- to 5.5-inches fit this category for ABI. I’m not a fan of the term ABI is using, but there is some recent precedent for the research firm’s sales estimates, which also include a 10-fold rise in shipments this year from last. Samsung’s Galaxy Note is probably the best known example of such a device due to its 5.3-inch display. By the end of March, the company sold 5 ... Continue reading →

Amazon is finally banning some of the junkier content in the Kindle Store. The company is making new rules on public domain and “other non-exclusive content.” Seth Godin got an e-mail highlighting the new rules (because he’s a Kindle author, not because he’s a spammer) and here they are: Public Domain and Other Non-Exclusive Content Some types of content, such as public domain content, may be free to use by anyone, or may be licensed for use by more than one party. We will not accept content that is freely available on the web unless you are the copyright owner of that content. For example, if you received your book content from a source that allows you and others to re-distribute it, and the content ... Continue reading →

Every session of paidContent 2012 will be livestreamed during the event on May 23 from 8:40 am to 5:40 pm EDT, as well as archived within minutes after the session ends. Stay tuned, we’ll be live soon! Participate in the discussion online, please follow us on Twitter: @paidcontent or use #pc2012. Continue reading →