(Left) Karin Fleming, Communications and Administration Officer at EMMA/the Future Media Lab..

In the fourth edition of our bi-weekly news roundup (the earlier posts can be read here), Karin Fleming shares the news that caught her eye in the past two weeks. The news round-up is a way for the Future Media Lab. team and members of the Future Media Lab. network to share articles about innovations and developments in the media sector, including references to relevant media policy debates.

Here are Karin’s choices for this week:

1) Carlo de Benedetti, President of Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso, says the future of journalism depends on lessons learned in the past in this speech from the WAN IFRA conference that took place in Turin on 11 June. Interesting soundbites include: specialised coverage will gain in importance while generalist papers will be less central; competition is changing dramatically as new, global players enter the market; and cooperation between news organisations will play a big role in the future.

2) According to eMarketer’s estimates, 68.5% of all net mobile internet ad revenue will go to two companies: Facebook and Google. That’s approximately $21 billion of ad revenue split between both companies – more than the total mobile internet ad revenue last year.

3) The European Commission’s anti-trust authorities are getting involved in the dispute between Amazon and Hachette Book Group as they attempt to agree to new contract terms. While both companies are keeping mum on the details of the clash, some media reports said that it was over the pricing of e-books. Earlier this week Amazon expanded its trade dispute to include Warner Bros.

4) A year and one day after the Guardian broke the story on NSA spying, the newspaper launched a secure, open-source platform for whistleblowers to use to submit confidential documents anonymously using the Tor network and Tails operating system. The SecureDrop system was developed by US activist Aaron Swartz, who passed away in 2013. It is currently being used by The New Yorker, ProPublica and Pierre Omidyar’s startup The Intercept.

5) While banking on the tablet boom that never came, have publishers lost smartphones to social network platforms? As different platforms compete for readers’ attention, news companies are finding themselves in the position (again) of having to adapt to their audiences move to a new platform. Taking hints from such apps as the New York Times’ NYT Now, Atlantic Media’s Quartz, and NBC News’ Breaking News, which put the smartphone user’s experience on the forefront, is a start.

6) In the UK e-books are poised to overtake paperbacks and hardbacks as the preferred reading format by 2018. This corresponds with a rise on the total UK consumer book market, but a loss of more than £500 million in print sales — a shift that is transforming Britain’s publishing institutions and pushing some publishers to seek new sources of revenue.

7) In another attempt to make wearable tech more, well, wearable, Google is collaborating with legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg to launch an exclusive, luxury Google Glass collection. But if all goes as plan and wearable tech finally takes off, what will this mean for privacy?

8) A new tool from Five Labs will analyze your Facebook posts to determine your personality based on the “Big Five” personality traits. Such a tool could have important impacts on advertising, but also self-realisation of one’s online persona. I tested it out and discovered that I’m “inventive, restless, easy going, friendly and outgoing.” I also discovered that I am as neurotic as Lebron James, but not nearly as conscientious as Obama. Test it yourself here.

Read something that you think needs to be shared? Please send me an e-mail: [email protected]

To see previous editions of this round-up, please click here.