The X-Factor may have missed out on a Christmas number one this year, but TalkTalk believes the hit show it sponsored played a star role in it more than trebling analysts expectations for net new broadband customers in the last three months of 2009.
Figures out yesterday show that the ISP acquired 36,000 net new broadband [...]

Boxing Day is traditionally one of the biggest days in the online retailing calendar as shoppers with some credit left on plastic look for a bargain in the sales.
However, according to research commissioned by analytics company Webtrends, Christmas Day itself could soon be rivalling the traditional peak shopping day.
Its figures show that half of those [...]

Free wireless Internet access is being offered everyone living in the Wiltshire town of Swindon. It’s a million pound scheme, with the money coming from a mixture of public funds and private enterprise. However, it’s emerged there’ll be limits on what’s available without charge.

American video-on-demand service Hulu, hotly tipped to be coming to the UK to partner with ITV, is the latest media outlet to announce it’s considering charging for content. As the amount of money we’re paying for our bandwidth continues to fall, could the cost of what we actually do with our broadband connections be set to rise?

By its own figures, released today, Phorm would appear to have a year left to either convince a major ISP to roll out its controversial personalised advertising service or re-invent itself as a content recommendation service for publishers.
Figures for the first half of 2009 show the company lost $15m and now has just over $30m [...]

A new advertising campaign’s being launched to try and deal with what’s being called “Generation Y-pay,” using soft sell tactics and avoiding the sensationalism of previous attempts. At the same time, it’s emerged that a UK law firm is finally preparing to file its first court cases against online piracy – after sending out hundreds of letters warning alleged file-sharers it would do just that.

TalkTalk is to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority tomorrow that BT’s latest ‘up to 20Mb’ advert is ‘misleading’ and based on poor research.
The crucial point is the advert claims BT’s broadband service is ‘consistently faster even at peak times compared with the industry average’.
TalkTalk claims its investigations reveal just 20 lines were tested, over [...]

Project Canvas, if approved, could be the starting point for ITV to begin charging for access to exclusive clips, archived shows, behind the scenes footage and star interviews, according to Carolyn Fairbairn, Group Director of Development and Strategy.

The possible new revenue stream is opened up by the proposed internet television platform being open to all [...]

Privacy campaigners are often concerned about the amount of knowledge Google has on web users and so plans for its beta behavioural targeting platform, Interest Advertising Based, to go live before the end of the year will soon be big news.
However, the Senior Product Manager responsible for the service, Clay Bavor, is keen to point [...]

Just as the infamous Dragons return to their Den for a new BBC series of grilling budding entrepreneurs, it seems fitting that Rob Grimshaw. Managing Director of FT.com, should remind web publishers of the ‘turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’ line so often uttered to disappointed inventors.

Grimshaw is adamant that the measurability of online publishing [...]

Behavioural targeting may have been given a rough ride by criticisms levelled at the ill-fated Phorm platform but the technology actually already accounts for around 10% to 15% of the country’s £637m online display market.
Not only is that market share set to increase to around 20% by the end of the year, the practice is [...]

BT today revealed it is not going to roll out Phorm, prompting the interest based advertising company to counter the assumption that this spells the end of its involvement in the UK market.
Certainly City investors would appear to think its days are numbered in London. By lunch time today, following BT’s decision, Phorm shares had [...]

The countdown for Phorm could well and truly be starting, revealing by the end of the year if it really is on track to live up to its hype and serve £239m worth of adverts within two years.

Spotify has been pressured for months to seal its legitimacy and sign up for a PRS for Music licence and SamKnows can now reveal that the hugely successful music streaming service has agreed terms with the UK body which represents music writers and publishers.
Although Spotify’s Chief Technology Officer, Andreas Ehn, would only coyly reveal last [...]

The European Commission has said it is going to take the UK to court over its failure to enforce european privacy and data protection laws — and it’s all because of Phorm. Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has for the past few months been conversing with the Information Commissioner’s Office about the online advertiser’s controversial methods [...]

BT’s share price fell below £1 yesterday, a 25 year low, on the announcement of the 3rd Quarter financial results but there was some good news around in the broadband area. While the pension fund tanked from a £2bn surplus to a £2bn deficit and BT Global Services lost £0.5bn in a quarter, BT Retail’s broadband revenue [...]

BT today launched a free Wi-Fi service in Westminster which will allow anybody in the area with a laptop or mobile (with Wi-Fi) to find local information as well as book restaurants and reserve tickets to events.
The BT MyPlace service (BTMyPlace.com) is being launched with Westminster City Council through a partnership with technology providers io global, Intel and [...]

The boardroom comings and goings at Phorm continue as the UK Chief Executive, Hugo Drayton, left today ‘by mutual consent’.
A new role of UK managing director has been handed to Nick Barnett, who was Phorm’s commercial director. At the same time former Turner Broadcast Systems (Europe) president, Nan Richards, joins at Deputy Chief Executive Officer [...]

BT’s trial of the controversial targeted advertising platform, Phorm, has ended with both parties reporting success and a commitment to ‘move towards deployment’.
The trial began two and a half months ago to establish if the technology could be used on real life which, Phorm claims, it has shown it can.
“The trial achieved its primary objective [...]

Phorm is refuting suggestions that strategic differences have caused four senior board directors to quit and is also denying the departures show it is giving up on the America market.
Despite the departing American-based chairman and chief operating officer being replaced by non executives directors based in London, a spokesman for the company is adamant that [...]