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24 July 2012 | Mashable

Twitter to Partner with NBC for Olympics Hub

Twitter will act as a narrator of sorts for the Olympics with a hub dedicated to covering the event in partnership with NBC, according to a report. Under the deal, which is expected to be announced Monday, Twitter will act as a curator for “millions of Twitter messages from Olympic athletes, their families, fans and NBC television personalities” which will be showcased on a single page on Twitter.com. NBC, which is airing the event, will direct viewers to the page “with on-air promotions and links to athlete interviews or video clips.” No money is changing hands in the deal, according to the report. Twitter sees the Games a chance to prove itself to A-list advertisers and has been courting companies to buy ads on Twitter to spread their ad messages. The deal between Twitter and NBC had been expected and the TV network announced a similar deal with Facebook earlier this month in which NBC will use Facebook data to inform viewers about which athletes and topics are garnering the most social media discussion. For its part, Twitter also inked a similar agreement with ESPN in May to create custom ad programs around major sporting events.

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24 July 2012 | RIA Novosti

Court Winds Up Russian-Owned France Soir

The Paris Commercial Court on Monday ordered the winding-up of France Soir newspaper, owned by businessman Alexander Pugachyov, the son of Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachyov, due to bankruptcy. The newspaper's assets, including its trademark rights and archives, will be sold at auction. Pugachyov spent 80 million euros on the paper which he acquired in 2009 in an attempt to save it from bankruptcy, and another 10 million euros on the launch of the paper’s website, Le Figaro reported in June. Pugachyov acquired France Soir in a bid to put the insolvent paper back on track. He initially managed to boost the paper’s sales by 250 per cent and the online edition’s audience by 350 per cent but failed to make the paper profitable.

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24 July 2012 | Olympic.org

IOC press office: “Written press adds value to the Olympic Games”

With the Main Press Centre at the London 2012 Olympic Park being officially opened, Kevan Gosper, the Chairman of the IOC Press Commission gave his comments about role that the media play during the Games, and how the IOC Press Commission helps facilitate their work. He underlined the importance of press media during Olympic Games, because it covers Olympiad from the very beginning to an end. “The written press, backed up by remarkable photography, sends the message out across the world. Without the written press, the Olympic Games would not be as well-known or respected”, - he said. There are 21.000 of media workers in total expected to cover the Olympics in London.

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24 July 2012 | Wired

YouTube is naming names

YouTube is pushing its notorious commenters to name themselves. When you comment on, or upload a video, YouTube will now urge you to “start using your full name on YouTube,” and ask if the video-sharing site can begin displaying the identity you’ve associated with your Google+ account. YouTube’s move toward real names was foreshadowed last month, when a YouTube product lead told developers at the Google I/O conference that the video service was planning some unspecified changes to its commenting system, widely regarded as a Hellmouth of crude abuse. Google is eager to polish into a venue more attractive to business owners, advertisers, and creative filmmakers.

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24 July 2012 | Press Gazette

Tindle claims 48 per cent sales boost for localised South London Press

Five weeks after Tindle replaced the Friday edition of the South London Press with seven new more localised titles – sales are said to be up 48 per cent on pre-launch averages. Before the move the South London Press had a circulation of around 19,000 a week on Fridays, according to its last ABC figure from 2008. The new localised editions are published in Streatham, Brixton, Wimbledon, Wandsworth, Dulwich, Deptford & New Cross and Forest Hill & Sydenham. The Tuesday edition of the South London Press has been retained in its previous form. Every one of the new localised editions is said to be continuing to show sales increases.

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24 July 2012 | The Vancouver Sun

The first social media Olympic Games were in Canada

Graeme Menzies is the former director of online communications and social media for the 2010 Winter Olympics reported to the Sun newspaper his disagreement with the statements saying that London 2012 are the first social media Olympic Games. “The Vancouver 2010 Winter Games were the first social media Olympics, and everyone on this side of the pond certainly knows it. It seems the Vancouver Games were not only the first actual social media Olympics, but they were also the last unfettered social media Olympics — the last Olympics where athletes, fans and local organizers could connect with each other through social media and share their experiences in a relatively free and less commercialized way”,- he said.

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