It’s aimed at encouraging viewers to engage with the TV show via the web, mobile and social networks.

The hub launch will coincide with the start of the new series on 6 September and will let viewers get involved in the daily news discussions, while their comments will be fed back to show’s hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.

The hub will be hosted by Loose Women panellist Coleen Nolan, ITN’s entertainment reporter Samanthi Jayawardena and Matt Johnson, a regular contributor to This Morning’s summer shows and host of HTV’s Entertainment Hour.

Each host will present live from the hub, keeping the TV hosts updated on viewer reactions and explaining how to engage via all media platforms including phone services, text, email and online contributions including Facebook, Twitter and Skype.

The broadcaster is also relaunching its This Morning site to feature exclusive behind-the-scenes video content and blogs from presenters and experts.

Viewers will also be able to buy This Morning’s latest home, garden and cookware products via the site.

Kate Bradshaw, ITV’s deputy MD and head of online commissioning, said commissioning the new site for This Morning made “absolute sense” because the show has “embraced all forms of interactivity and the website is central to what happens on air”.

She added it’s a “shining example of true integration” between TV and web production, adding, “It’s just the start of where we want to position ITV.com.”

Source: NMA

Carter spoke at the Westminster Media Forum on Britain’s Digital Future, yesterday.

He said: “All governments, like all management teams, have a chance when they are new to decide where the priorities are. This government is going to focus on macro-questions of reducing public expenditure.”

He did not condemn this as a “wrong decision” but said it was a decision, nevertheless, and it appeared that investing in and encouraging private sector contributions to building a fit for purpose broadband network were not high priorities for the government.

Carter said he did not agree with the colaition’s shift in target from 2012 to 2015 for universal broadband access in the UK and added: “We were pilloried for not being ambitious enough.”

Several panellists at the forum pointed out that the UK was slipping behind other countries in terms of supporting the creative industries and broadband infrastructure were once it led.

Carter, also a former CEO of Ofcom, said that it might be time to revisit some of the regulatory framework surrounding broadband and the digital spectrum and “look at what is the big strategic question for the next five years.”

The Digital Economy Bill was passed in April and faced a barrage of criticism for being rushed and watered down from the original proposals

One controversial element was a proposed 50p levy on phone lines to fund the improvement of national broadband speeds to 2MB. This was transferred to a Finance Bill, but that was also dropped.”

Source: Marketing Week

In his statement about today’s announcement, Google’s CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt notes that “It’s particularly exciting to see our relationship expand into video and mobile. These areas are now at the heart of users’ online experiences and at the core of both of our businesses.” As AOL is currently renewing its focus on mobile apps, it only makes sense for this renewed search agreement to specifically cover this area, too. While the two companies did not disclose any financial details of the new deal, AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong told Bloomberg earlier today that “this deal is a lot of revenue and a lot of potential profits for AOL.”

The new agreement between AOL and Google comes shortly after Microsoft and Yahoo finalized the transition from Yahoo’s search engine to Microsoft’s Bing. Based on comScore’s data, Google and AOL currently command about 68.1% of the search market in the U.S. and the combined market share of Microsoft and Yahoo is about 28.1%.”

Source: RWW

Cashmore joined the group last week and will be responsible for helping to drive the implementation of Hachette UK’s digital strategy, with a particular focus on new product. He reports to head of digital George Walkley and will deputise in his role as required.

Prior to joining Hachette Cashmore was innovation ecosystem manager at Lonely Planet, where he played a “key role” in delivering their content to mobile channels and iPad. Previous to that he was a senior research producer at the BBC.

Cashmore said: “This is an incredibly exciting time for publishers all over the world, but to have the opportunity to engage with and to drive real digital change at the most forward thinking of those publishers is a genuine pleasure. I’m looking forward to the new challenges.”

Walkley said: “Hachette UK is experiencing a period of rapid growth in digital sales, and Matthew’s appointment will strengthen the range and quality of our publishing. His deep experience in delivering content to mobile devices is especially welcome as Hachette works towards its aim of making its titles available on a broad range of platforms.”"

Source: The Bookseller

Data from Nielsen’s UK Online Measurement tool (UKOM) reveals that an online display advertisment for Euromillions attracted more new online visitors to the Camelot site in one month that any other website, including social networking site Facebook.

The research, which measures the increase in numbers of monthly visitors to websites, revealed that sites that operate a social model that allows users to contribute, dominated the list of the fastest growing companies online.

The campaign for National Lottery EuroMillions, which ran across sites such as eBay, Amazon and Gumtree boosted site visitors by 4.4 million to 9.4 million between July 2009 and July 2010 and more new visitors in one month than Facebook experienced during the year.

Facebook is the second-fastest growing brand online and attracts 25.1m UK visitors, which makes it the third most visited site behind Google and Microsoft.

The third fastest-growing company online was Demand Media, operator of social site eHow, which allows users to share knowledge and increased visitors from 1.9m to 3.6m.

Three of the ten fastest-growing companies represent traditional offline brands, Camelot, Carphone Warehouse and EDF, which UKOM general manager James Smythe says demonstrate how brands can capture consumers’ attention online and offline.

He adds: “Better internet accessibility and more new social applications for the internet seem to be the long-term drivers behind these growth sites, but Camelot’s performance illustrates how good online display advertising can also influence behaviour dramatically.”

The fastest-growing companies online by increase in unique UK audience numbers, July 2009 – July 2010

1: Camelot Group
2: Facebook
3: Demand Media (eHow)
4: Carphone Warehouse Group
5: Zynga (Social network gaming)
6: Wikimedia Foundation (Owner of social information site Wikipedia)
7: EDF Energy (Boosted by green initiative Team Green Britain and London 2012 Olympic Sponsorship)
8: PartyGaming
9: Peeplo (a media and blog search engine)
10: Google

The most popular companies online by unique UK audience numbers – July 2010

1: Google
2: Microsoft
3: Facebook
4: eBay
5: Yahoo!
6: BBC
7: Amazon
8: Wikimedia Foundation
9: HM Government
10: Apple Computer”

Source: Marketing Week

“Stunning. Just stunning. Color me wrong for saying that Apple wasn’t going social, because it just has. The Ping social network is a social network specifically for music. As you follow friends and artists, you’ll find more information about them.

Ping is broken down into two sections, to truly be a social network for music.

Artists:

• Posts
• Favorite songs
• Concert Dates
• Releases
• Social Updates

Friends:

• Posts
• Favorite Songs
• Events they’re attending
• People they follow

Privacy seems to be paramount, as Apple focuses on a circle of friends where you can choose who follows you. “You can get as private or as public as you want”, according to Jobs. In one fell swoop, Ping just opened to over 160 million users.

Jobs shows off browsing through artists pages, where we see full-screen video that has been posted by the artist, as well as the upcoming events section. Users are able to post comments on any contributions.

The Ping network is available on iPhone and iPod Touch, inside of the iTunes Store. You will need iTunes 10 in order to run it, but 10 is coming today.”

Source: TNW