Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Super Evil Megacorp Pushes Mobile Gaming Boundaries

Karol Severin
The company most known for its multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) title Vainglory, has announced that it successfully raised $19 million to further expand its studio space. Besides its name, Super Evil Megacorp is worth watching because of its persistent vision of mobile gamers deserving more than sub-par gameplay experiences, due to the limitations of their mobile device.
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Spotify at 60 Million Paid Subscribers: What’s Next?

Zach Fuller
Spotify announced on August 1 thatit hadreached 60 million paid subscribers, just five months after the company hit 50 million. This ispositive news for the music streaming economy, but with a prospective IPO, Spotify will need to continue this growth trajectory expected of tech stocks by Wall Street, and continue to seek new revenue streams.
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Bertelsmann and Penguin Random House: A Strategy Based on Extremes

Zach Fuller
Having created a next-gen music publisher in BMG, German media giant Bertlesmann are applying a similar strategy to their publishing division. Consistent with BMG’s tactic of investing heavily in legacy music publishing assets as well as niche Indie labels, Bertlesmann are doubling down on their most valuable publishing asset by moving to acquire an increased stake in Penguin Random House.
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What The New Season Of Game Of Thrones Tells Us About YouTube Engagement

Tim Mulligan
YouTube has been notoriously coy about its user growth, with the official PR line for the company still stating that it has ‘Over one billion users.’ For a company that has been the driving force behind online video consumption for the last 12 years, YouTube has been both derided for the superficiality of its video content and for using its safe harbour privileges to undermine existing media models.
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Quick Take: An Echo Sales Spike on Prime Day Is Another Win For Amazon’s Burgeoning Service Business

Zach Fuller
Amazon Echo revenues have until now remained relativelysmall. With the device still available in just three markets (US, UK and Germany), its main victories have been in its cultural impact, as well as spurring other tech majors (Alphabet and Apple) into the market away from their focus on other technologies, namely Virtual Reality.
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Why Net Neutrality Is Central To The Streaming Economy

Tim Mulligan
The existential question of the digital era is net neutrality. Since the utopian days of 1989 when World Wide Web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee first connected his colleagues via computers at CERN in Switzerland, the emerging interconnected world of academics and entrepreneurs has been engaged in an ongoing battle of the underlying principles of the infrastructure underpinning the internet.
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