AT&T has completed the blockbuster $80 billion takeover of Time Warner in a move that could spark a flurry of mergers as telcos seek to acquire content producers to boost their business.
The move combines AT&T’s fixed and mobile networks with Time Warner’s vast content portfolio which includes HBO, Warner Bros., CNN and Bleacher Report.
The acquisition has been two years in the making with the path to completion finally paved by a US court which found no reason to object. There had been concerns the move would harm consumers, but AT&T argued it was essential if it was to compete with Over the Top (OTT) players like Netflix.
AT&T TimeWarner
“The content and creative talent at Warner Bros., HBO and Turner are first-rate. Combine all that with AT&T’s strengths in direct-to-consumer distribution, and we offer customers a differentiated, high-quality, mobile-first entertainment experience,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO. “We’re going to bring a fresh approach to how the media and entertainment industry works for consumers, content creators, distributors and advertisers.”
The combined business will comprise four independent units – communications, media, international and advertising & analytics. Each have their own CEO who will report to Stephenson. Meanwhile former Time Warner CEO Jeff Bawkes will be an adviser during the transition period.
As traditional revenues are squeezed by changing habits and intense competition from OTT providers, telcos are looking at content as way of ensuring their networks aren’t just ‘dumb pipes’ for others to profit from. In the US, this is particularly true given the popularity of ‘cutting the cord’ with regards to cable television.
For AT&T, it believes its investments in fibre and 5G will help enable new content types such as VR and 4K.
In the UK, either Comcast or Disney is expected to acquire Sky. Both Comcast and Disney have an interest in acquiring 21st Century Fox, which wants to buy Sky before any transaction. However complicating matters is the fact that Comcast wants to purchase Sky directly.
Both Fox and Comcast have been given the green light by competition authorities to bid for Sky, but it is likely that Disney and Comcast’s bids for Fox will have to be cleared by regulators. Both will hope that the AT&T and TimeWarner deal will ensure a more favourable regulatory environment.
Companies spend a lot of money these days creating killer content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the various other social media platforms out there. Whatever business you’re in, reaching your customers, clients and readers relies a huge amount on the ubiquity of social media sites.
But there’s no point spending time and resources on fantastic Facebook posts and tremendous tweets if you then don’t know how to effectively monitor their impact and influence. Counting how many followers you have only tells part of the story.
Getting the most out of your chosen social media platforms is as essential to your business as finding the right CRM system. That’s why we’ve picked out five really useful social media analytics tools that will help you understand which of your posts are working, and which get a thumbs down.
Get insights to make a success out of using Snapchat
Elegant interface
Allows for better organizing your stories
Pricing not available upfront
Snapchat was released in 2011, so there are relatively few marketing tools available for the platform compared to big names like Facebook and Twitter. The app works through the creation of short-lived ‘stories’ with which users can interact.
Snaplytics is designed to help you manage this by taking regular snapshots of your Snapchat account and offering you Insights. The creators maintain groups of 20 accounts for each category, allowing you to benchmark your own account’s success.
You can also use Snaplytics’ library of previously created content to view past efforts, see how well users engage with them, and republish if you wish.
If you have a more complex marketing campaign, Snaplytics also supports scheduling stories ahead of time for later publication. You can organize stories with tags, allowing you to easily keep track of them as your campaign grows.
Snaplytics’ dashboard has been liberally praised online for its elegance, as has the app’s ability to display marketing performance on a platform by platform basis.
There’s a free 14-day trial, after which you must contact the Snaplytics team for a quote. This is the only real criticism of the app, as a tiered pricing structure would be more useful for marketers working to tight budgets and deadlines.
A central hub for managing all your social media accounts
Covers a wide range of social media accounts
Powerful data analysis capabilities
Helps with customer support
Sprout Social is probably first and foremost known as a one-stop shop for managing and scheduling all of your social media accounts through one simple-to-use platform. Very handy indeed for your company’s social media administrator when they’re trying to juggle Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more at once.
But it doubles up as a powerful tool for analysing your data, too. You can sort by various demographic and geographic measures to quantify exactly what content is working for which followers. Sprout can manage multiple accounts and monitor keywords across all social media so that you know when your brand is being discussed. It also helps your company respond to customers by directing messages to the people within the organisation who need to action them.
You can try Sprout Social for free with its 30-day trial. If you like it, prices then start from $99 (£75, AUS$124) per user per month.
There are quite a few social listening tools that we could have picked out for this list, but we’ve gone with the internationally-renowned Brandwatch. The Brandwatch Analytics tool puts its ear to the ground to eavesdrop on to the information that could be imperative to your company from Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums, news and every other corner of the web.
Social sentiment analysis shows the tone of the data collected from the profiles you’ve connected with, and it’s easy to tap into pertinent trends and themes emerging from the internet that could tip the balance in your company’s favour. We particularly like Brandwatch’s personal approach from the premium Enterprise plan, where you get a dedicated account manager who will give you bespoke advice.
A dead easy way to track the success of your marketing campaigns
User-friendly
Real-time analytics
Google Analytics integration
Rather like Sprout Social above, Buffer is another all-rounder that lets you post to your platform and then analyse the results. One of its major plus points is just how simple and straightforward it is to use, while also giving you flexibility. The fact it provides analytics in real-time makes instantly judging the impact of your content a doddle.
Use the “Top Post” icon to compare different forms of content to see which works best for each network. While the Buffer app also allows for seamless Google Analytics integration for tracking the success of your marketing campaigns.
If you’re flying solo, then you can get Buffer absolutely free, while the reasonably priced Pro plan allows connections to 8 social accounts and costs only $15 (£11, AUS$20) per month.
If you’ve got a little more leeway in your budget, then Simply Measured is probably the most thorough social media analytics tool here. Although the site offers a selection of free reports on sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Google+, its range of more sophisticated subscriber reports available to paying users are what really catch the eye.
Among its cleverest tricks are date and time engagement analysis, content type analysis to help optimise what types of content work and when and analysis on the community you’re trying to reach. Simply Measured now offers Instagram Insights which allow for further analysis into your Instagram account activity.
Again, you need to speak to Simply Measured to get a quote, with distinct packages aimed at social marketers, content marketers and digital agencies.
Far too many people don’t realise that Amazon Prime membership comes with way more perks than just super speedy deliveries.
There’s Prime Music, some Audible freebies, the Kindle Lending Library, lots of photos storage and the chance to stream great movies and TV shows through Prime Instant Video, Amazon’s answer to an on-demand streaming service.
Although Amazon has a pretty extensive back catalogue on its Prime Instant Video service, there are lots of mediocre TV options too that might fool you into thinking they’d be worthy of a watch, as well as lots of truly terrible ones, which we’d prefer you didn’t waste your time on at all, ever.
But don’t worry. That’s why we’re here to help you make that all important decision about which TV series you should binge watch this weekend and what we recommend you should skip for good. We’ve collected together a big selection of TV shows for you to choose from, including shiny new series through to Amazon’s own original shows.
In our guide you’ll discover our pick of the best Amazon Prime TV shows that are currently on offer. We have options for fans of thrillers, comedy lovers and those who enjoy nothing more than a fantasy police drama.
[Update: Last week Amazon launched Dietland, which is still proving to be a hit and will get a fresh episode each week. This week, season 3 of Ray Donovan has landed on Prime Instant Video, as well as new episodes of The Crossing.]
Amazon has been developing and creating titles itself over the past few years, which are called Amazon Originals or Amazon Original Series.
These homegrown TV shows are arguably some of the best that the Amazon Prime Video service has to offer (think The Tick and Transparent), which you can watch instantly when you have Amazon Prime access. There are many more shows you can watch through Amazon too of course, but some of these have to be purchased in order for you to start streaming.
We’ll be keeping this list constantly updated – if any paid shows become free that we feel need to be included, they’ll be added too. Scroll through to see our picks that we’ve divided up into the following categories: drama, comedy and thriller.
New Entry: Dietland: Amazon’s latest homegrown TV show Dietland is a TV adaptation of Sarai Walker’s popular novel of the same name. It’s about an obese woman called Plum (played by Joy Nash) who is ghost-writing a column for a magazine called Daisy Chain for the editor Kitty Montgomery (played by Julianna Marguiles). Plum is about to get gastric bypass surgery, but encounters a group of women under the blanket name Jennifer, who kill men accused of sexual assault. It’s a dark comedy that takes a very disturbing (and in many ways very real) look at diet culture, feminism and sexual abuse.
Amazon Prime or Netflix? Check out our comparison video below!
