Archive for: bbc

News Corp Strategy with Rupert Murdoch on Paid Content Online, Google, BBC and More.

Great interview with Rupert Murdoch on the paid content, BBC, YouTube and more.

BBC Hacks Into GMail eMail Account over WIFI

This article was just written over at TheNextWeb. I didnt want to just rewrite the article for everyone so here is what they said. I was wondering if anyone has any answers, mainly because this is a Gmail account and could affect millions of people.

BBC Watchdog is British TV program that investigates viewers’ reports of problematic experiences with traders, retailers, and other companies around the UK. A recent investigation has discovered that wi-fi hot spots across the country are not secure – leaving tens of thousands of users at risk of fraud.

In this particular case they reveal how easy it is to hack into someones GMail account over Wifi, sending emails and changing their password. According to Danny Sullivan who shared the link on Twitter, if he’d signed via secure https, he’d probably have been safe – can anyone verify?

If you can’t see the video below, watch it here.

Where Can I Watch The News Online

There are so many user generated video sites available on the internet these days, but sometimes you might not want to see user generated content. Thus, I thought I would put together a very quick list of the best places to view the news online as if you were watching it direct from your television at home.

livestation-home-page-logo

Livestation – Livestation is a free downloadable video players that streams live news, events, shows from some of the world biggest media companies. Livestation includes services like the BBC, CNN, Fox, MTV, Al Jazeera and more. The service is easy to download and it great to use. The player itself can be changed to any size and you are able to add additional news and radio sources that can be found on the Livestation website.

bbc-iplayer-logo-home-page

BBC iPlayer – The BBC iPlayer has been around for quite some time now, and even though they got a lot of harsh press at launch they have been quitely improving the service and it actually now isnt that bad. The iPlayer is a great place to head when you are looking for what has been happening from around the world in the last few days. On the iPlayer they have a dedicated section to BBC News in which will keep you up to date with the major headlines.

hulu-logo-home-page

Hulu – Hulu is a partnership between News Corp and NBC Universal. Hulu is for USA users only at the moment and it allows them to watch their favourite TV shows, movies and of course news programs all for free. Hulu was born when News Corp and NBC werent happy with the revenues they were receiving from YouTube, so they formed a strategic alliance and launched a free online television service that has been growing at a rapid pace. Hulu has a dedicated news section which allows users to view news from major USA sources as well as smaller sources like Cnet.

Google Are Going To Be The UKs Largest Ad Seller

It has already been reported by the BBC and the New York Times that Google should become the largest advertising seller in the UK by the end of the year.

Google earned $803 million, about £407 million, in the United Kingdom in the first quarter. If you assume that rate won’t grow, that makes £1.6 billion for the year. And since Google’s British earnings are up 40 percent from a year ago, it is a safe bet it will grow.

That means Google will overtake the ITV television network as the biggest seller of advertising in Britain this year, Mr. Cellan-Jones figures. ITV sold about £1.5 billion of advertising last year.

This year Morgan Stanley estimates Google’s total advertising revenue will be $21.9 billion. Excluding the payments it makes to companies that display its ads, Google’s total ad revenue will be $15.7 billion. Time Warner, the largest media company in the world, earned $8.8 billion in advertising revenue last year. Viacom had $4.7 billion in ad revenue last year.

I have been thinking the same thoughts for a while now, that is I think the next place to boom in terms of the internet is display advertising and whoever can actually get that right, will be challenging the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in the next 3-5 years.

BBC Blog Network: Joke or Actually Worth It

The BBC has long been toying with the idea of blogs. Today SixApart have announced as a nice piece of PR that they are running the blogs for the BBC on their software. The blogs themselves are for individual shows and for individual people. Each blog has its own distinct style and design. As a collective the design really lacks imagination and format. If you would like to know where you can find this lack of imagination please head to the blog network home page.

BBC Have Launched Their New Web2.0 Home Page

The BBC has launched their web 2.0 version of there home page and personally I think it is a great improvement on what they had before.  The new BBC home page allows each user to create there own personalised home page, thus making it quite similar in a way to Netvibes and what they are trying to achieve. This is a great step forward for the BBC who have always been seen as a little behind the times, and especially considering how bad I think their iPlayer is! However, this being said, make sure you head over to the new BBC website and let me know what you think!

Dragons Den: Lucky To Not Invest In A Flop!

The BBC’s Dragons Den show has long been a place for entrepreneurs to come and pitch their ideas to budding investors. I have always hated shows like this, the investors are just so greedy with percentages and most of the time i think it is all just a set up. However on tonight’s Dragons Den a few people i know from the music industry down here in Cornwall are pitching their idea for funding of a music festival. I know for a fact that music festivals in Cornwall, UK, just don’t work. Very few make money and the majority lose big money.

I have heard from a few friends that the idea for the music festival gets funding from one of the Dragons on the show, but the they turn it down for a better offer elsewhere.

The moral to the story is that a good pitch on a show like this really doesn’t mean the business is going to work. The people that ran the music festival and got the funding ended up losing approx £80,000. So the Dragons must thank their lucky starts they didnt get involved!