Over the years, Facebook has half-heartedly tried to incorporate elements of Twitter into its social network, from @mentions to controversially making users’ updates and profiles public. With its latest feature, Facebook Subscribe, its efforts have become a bit more sincere: this provides an efficient way to “follow” people you aren’t friends with, and see what they’re up to.
Tagged ‘subscriptions’
There’s still a whole swathe of grey area surrounding Apple’s in-app subscription plan, which will be taking a 30% cut of any in-app subscriptions. While those running the subscription services will see some benefit from Apple’s one click system, there’s been a lot of unhappy publishers and streaming services.But now, a figure has emerged that could mean we’re waving goodbye to Amazon Kindle on the iPhone.
Apple has made a powerplay, to make everyone use its payment method. This means that anybody with an app that requires subscription now has to offer that subscription inside the app, using Apple’s in- app subscription options. For music services, this is bad news, and from the first stirrings of unrest, it looks like Apple’s big bet could be challenged. Read on for more info. Read more
Let’s face it: iPad subscriptions are the holy grail for magazine publishers hoping to make beaucoup bucks from iPad publications like Project and News Corp’s iPad newspaper, The Daily. Now there’s another good sign that the function will arrive before Christmas. The Guardian has released a statement saying it will kill the current Guardian app and replace it with a subscription based app. Meanwhile US Guardian readers will get an ad-supported app. The Guardian iPad app will emerge before Christmas and the timing fits with an Apple event this month. We are now watching our virtual postbox for that Apple invite…
Sony’s Playstation Network has been rumoured to be introducing charging for some time with Sony going as far as putting out a survey to check the options users would be most keen on. Now a Sony exec has pretty much confirmed that Playstation Network subscription plans are on the way.
Well done for slogging through the first morning of the working week. As a reward for your brave efforts, we’ve whipped you up a banquet of the latest tech news. Read on for a taste of today’s Lunchtime Lowdown…