Lessons from dmexco. The European Union's media startup initiative. A new editor for Italian Vogue. Alibaba gets into live entertainment. Snap blocks Al-Jazeera. The state of data journalism in differing geographies, and other curated global media reads.

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GERMANY       EVENTS
48 hours of innovation: What we learned at dmexco
Things we learned at Dmexco:

Brands need to be content creators, AI will drive personalization, customer loyalty is changing, and storytelling and creative tools are evolving at an unprecedented pace.

6 min read
 
EUROPE     STARTUPS
How the European Commission is supporting the future of European media
i3 (Impact, Innovation, Invest) is a 30 month-long program from the European Union  that is backing research development of media projects around Europe. This is sponsored content with Tech.eu, but worth a look as it's a great roundup of early-stage projects in Europe.

7 min read
 
ITALY    MAGAZINES
At Italian Vogue, a New Beginning
Vanessa Friedman of the NY Times speaks with Emanuele Farneti, the new 42-year old editor of Italian Vogue.

6 min read
 
CHINA     DIVERSIFICATION
Alibaba announces live entertainment business group
“To put it simply, our mission is to allow those who have fun shopping at Alibaba to truly live at Alibaba” - Yu Yongfu, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba’s Digital Media and Entertainment Group.

3 min read
 
MENA    POLICY
Snap blocks Al Jazeera in Saudi Arabia to “comply with local laws”
Snap gave into governmental pressure in Saudi Arabia and is blocking the Qatar-based Al Jazeera from the Discover section of its app.

2 min read
 
GLOBAL    DATA
The state of data journalism in 2017
The folks over at Google News interviewed 56 journalists from the U.S., Germany, and France in person, and over 900 journalists online, on their utilization of data. Of particular relevance to this newsletter:

There is a big international variation, even within our study. In France, 56% of newsrooms have  a data journalist, followed by Germany with 52%, the UK with 52%, and the U.S. with 46%.

3 min read
 
CHINA    AGENCIES
In China, platforms are cutting out media-buying agencies
In China, agencies are in trouble as many major brands have been buying media directly from BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent).

2 min read
 
USA    STREAMING
TIME’s streaming service gets rebranded as ‘PeopleTV,’ passes 100M views in year one
After a rebrand to "PeopleTV", TIME's celebrity and entertainment focused streaming service has seen explosive growth.

1 min read
 
GLOBAL     GDPR
GDPR is coming, and many U.S. ad tech firms aren’t ready
The upcoming EU legislation will bear the complexity of 99 articles and 173 recitals. Are American ad-tech firms ready to comply? Do they even know what an EU "recital" is?

2 min read
 

Edward Felsenthal, editor of TIME Digital and the group digital director of news and lifestyle at Time Inc., will succeed Nancy Gibbs, and is expected to continue the digital evolution of the brand. During his tenure at Time Inc., he has helped the adoption of a 24/7 newsroom spanning from New York to Hong Kong and ongoing expansion of the growing video operation.

Some of TIME's recent success includes coverage of the eclipse, which resulted in the largest traffic day of 9 million unique visitors. Consumers were able to experience a multi-platform journey including virtual reality coverage, interactive graphics and live 360-degree video.

Asked about the future, Mr. Felsenthal replies, “more high impact, multi-platform journalism and documentary work that builds on our access and talent.” For a full interview, click here.
CHINA     VR/AR
WeChat is quietly developing its own AR platform
ArKit, ARCore, and now QAR (and we still can't get enough of these AR demos).

1 min read
 
USA    VR/AR
Quartz is using Apple’s new AR tech to “help people understand objects in the news” on iPhones
Did we mention we really can't get enough of these AR demos? Especially when they're related to news!

1 min read