Media Man News Blog
Star Entertainment, Australia
Street Talk, a division of the media outlet Australian Financial Review, indicates that several financial institutions are devising a financial plan to target the ailing company. This move comes in response to the dire situation at Star, as the funds it received through an equity sale only bought it a little time.
Media Man News Blog
Wrestling News
WWE star Rhonda Rousey tipped to leave WWE soon; May return to UFC - July 2023
“This was always, always, always the plan. What screwed it up, and admittedly, and everyone will admit this, as far as it was screwed up – when I was telling everyone a long time ago, hey, Ronda and Shayna are gonna win the tag team titles, it kept getting delayed and then Ronda got hurt.
“The thing was, and I don’t know the date, it might be SummerSlam, it might be a little bit after. The deal is that Ronda has a hard out. She gave a date, ‘This is my last date’.
“Because I remember talking to somebody there and it’s like, well, I know they’re gonna do this, make the big match for WrestleMania, and it’s like, ‘No, her hard out is long before WrestleMania’.
“The point is that, whatever it is that they’re planning to do… they wanna do a feud. The whole tag team was to set up Ronda and Shayna doing a feud. Ronda wanted to do this feud with Shayna, she got what she wanted. She’s always wanted to do it because Shayna’s the one that got her basically into pro-wrestling.
“Shayna developed Ronda’s love for professional wrestling, so to her pay her back, they’re gonna do a program. I don’t know if it’s one match, I don’t know if it’s two or three, but based on whenever that out is, they had to get it done now.
“This was the latest they could go. They wanted a long title reign to build it up and to do the whole thing where you can see the (turn) coming, the little teases and everything – they didn’t have time.” - Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer
Boxing News: Jake Paul speaks on PPVs
Boxing: "Piracy is rampant, competition for eyeballs non-stop. "Doing a million buys today is like doing two million buys 10 years ago." "current PPV movers no matter the opponent" are Tyson Fury, Canelo Alvarez and self. One of boxing's top 3 PPV attractions; Believes that he is one of the top attractions with Tyson Fury & Canelo Alvarez. "Selling PPV is really hard". "Less than 10 fighters in the world can truly move six figures on their own consistently: Jake Paul
Wagering, TV bodies slam proposed gambling ads ban; AFL wary of impact - June 28th, 2023
Some of Australia’s biggest bookmakers have decried a potential ban on gambling advertisements as an ineffective and short-sighted way to remediate gambling harm, after a parliamentary inquiry report recommended the Albanese government commit to a comprehensive ban across all sectors within the next three years.
Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA) is the body that represents gambling giants including Sportsbet, PointsBet and Ladbrokes. It said the proposal, one of 31 recommendations raised by the House of Representatives standing committee on social policy and legal affairs, was a step too far and jeopardised the future of sporting codes and local broadcasters.
“Other more measured options which could be considered by the government include capping the numbers of gambling ads to be shown,” RWA chief Kai Cantwell said on Wednesday.
“By doing this, the expectations of the community to see less advertising would be met, while also maintaining the crucial support to sporting codes and local broadcasters.”
Tabcorp, which is not a member of RWA, welcomed the proposal after previously joining advocates in supporting a total ban on gambling broadcast advertising.
Tabcorp chief Adam Rytenskild said the report’s release marked an important moment for the sustainability of the wagering industry, reiterating a point from the inquiry’s hearing that the proliferation of gambling advertising is excessive.
“Tabcorp welcomes the committee’s recommendation for a nationally consistent regulatory framework. All wagering operators should have to adhere to the same regulations.”
Tabcorp’s stance is motivated by a keenness to protect its market share, according to rivals, and Rytenskild’s comments offer a stark contrast to RWA chief Cantwell who said the recommendations fail to consider the evidence from the committee hearings earlier this year.
“RWA recognises community concerns around online wagering advertising and there are more effective ways of meeting community expectations,” Cantwell said.
RWA and Free TV Australia, which has acted on behalf of Seven, Ten and Nine (the owner of this masthead), have argued for frequency caps on the number of ads shown across different channels, rather than a blanket ban.
Cantwell said by capping the number of ads, the community’s expectations to see less advertising would be met, while maintaining the support to sporting codes and local broadcasters.
He added a blanket ban through a phased roll-out was “short-sighted, ineffective and not the answer”, and could lead to more Australians turning to illegal offshore markets.
The AFL’s chief financial officer and general manager of broadcasting and clubs, Travis Auld, said on Wednesday it was too early for the league to have a response, and it had been consulting with the federal government about changes that could work.
“Any changes we make and the consequences of those changes need to be well thought through and well understood. There are some significant decisions within there that have impacts potentially on our industry,” Auld said.
He said that money from wagering firms was part of the AFL’s infrastructure, helping the competition keep its prices low, as well as invest in the game at a grassroots level. The AFL has an $8 million a year deal with Sportsbet.
“Of course money is part of it. It’s what allows us to keep our prices where we are, it’s what allows us to invest in boys and girls playing football at this level,” said Auld.
Despite a record $4.5 billion broadcast agreement signed with Seven Network and Foxtel in 2022, Auld said the AFL and both of its partners would represent themselves independently in any conversations around potential financial impacts.
“The commerciality from their point of view will remain known to them. I think we’ve been clear on the impacts on us.”
Free TV Australia’s CEO, Bridget Fair, warned a “kneejerk move” to implement an outright ban “will ultimately hurt viewers and the television services they love”.
“Many of the sports broadcasting deals have been agreed to beyond the three-year phase-out
period for advertising,” Fair said.
An NRL spokesperson said it recognised the significant stakeholder and community interest in gambling, saying it is committed to ensuring the NRL’s approach reflects this interest, “while also encouraging a holistic, evidence-based approach to mitigate the risks of gambling harm more broadly”.
A report earlier this year from the Australian Gambling Research Centre found most Australians (64 per cent) believe governments should play the biggest role in how wagering is advertised.
Dr Kei Sakata, the research centre’s acting executive manager, welcomed the report’s recommendations, saying it is a crucial step in reducing gambling harm.
Sakata also welcomed the committee’s recommendations of a national classifications scheme and effective warning labels for simulated gambling games and loot boxes, as well ongoing funding for gambling research.
(The Sydney Morning Herald)
WWE Money in The Bank breaks records - 2023
WWE Money in the Bank 2023 set a huge company record, as did this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown.
Both the June 30 SmackDown episode and the July 1 WWE premium live event emanated from the O2 Arena in London, England.
Both shows were eventful, with passionate UK fans filling the arena on both nights.
During the post-show press conference, Triple H revealed that Money in the Bank 2023 was the highest-grossing arena show in WWE history.
Triple H didn’t specify how much WWE brought in, but this would mean that the show earned more than any other WWE event to take place in an indoor arena.
The Chief Content Officer also revealed that the previous night’s edition of SmackDown was the highest-grossing SmackDown in WWE history.
He did state that over 37,000 fans were in attendance at the O2 Arena across both nights, noting that WWE is proud of the success of SmackDown and Money in the Bank.
As far as attendance figures go, WrestleTix previously reported that 17,617 tickets had been distributed for the sold out Money in the Bank event.
The premium live event was certainly eventful, with Jey Uso pinning Roman Reigns in the Usos vs Reigns & Solo Sikoa Bloodline Civil War.
This marked Reigns’ first pinfall loss since December 2019.
Reading restrictions imposed on Twitter users - July 2, 2023
Elon Musk has imposed temporary reading restrictions for Twitter users, announcing paying customers will be allowed to see more tweets than unverified accounts.
Mr Musk says extreme levels of data scraping has prompted the social media company to limit users to reading 6,000 posts per day.
Accounts without a blue tick will be restricted to 600 posts per day.
New accounts yet to be verified will be capped at 300 tweets.
Several US Agencies Set Up New Crypto Task Force in Arizona to Combat Illegal Online Activity - June 2023
Federal agencies have joined forces to combat crimes involving cryptocurrencies in Arizona after seeing an increase in digital transactions related to narcotics, firearms, and other illicit activity.
On June 15, Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona and representatives from four other federal agencies signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the “Darknet Marketplace and Digital Currency Crimes Task Force,” according to a June 20 press release by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The other agencies who signed the agreement are the IRS, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.
Over the past several years, federal agencies have seen an increase in the use of the internet to facilitate illegal transactions involving narcotics, personal information, firearms, and other contraband, the report said, adding that the use of digital currency to facilitate these transactions has also risen.
The task force aims to “disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations that exploit the appearance of anonymity on the darknet or use digital currency to facilitate criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, theft of personal information, and child exploitation.”
The new task force is expected to serve the needs of Arizona.
Darknets are internet-based networks that require special software and authorization to access. They’re designed to provide anonymity, making them a haven for criminal activity.
Illicit Crypto Activity
According to a February 2023 report by forensic cryptocurrency firm Chainalysis (pdf), the illicit transaction volume in the cryptocurrency market rose to $20.6 billion in 2022 from $18.1 billion in 2021 and $8.4 billion in 2020.
The share of illicit activity in the overall cryptocurrency activity stood at 0.24 percent. Although this is the second-lowest number in six years, it is up from 0.12 percent in 2021.
Darknet markets and fraud shops made an estimated $1.5 billion in 2022, down from $3.1 billion in 2021, the report said. The reason for the drop is attributed to the shutdown of Hydra Market, a leading darknet marketplace.
“Hydra’s closure prompted a sector-wide decline in darknet market revenues, with average daily revenue for all markets falling from $4.2 million just prior to its closure and to $447,000 immediately after. While drug markets’ collective revenue hasn’t recovered fully, it climbed slowly back toward previous levels in the second half of 2022. Fraud shops, however, have continued to decline,” the report said.
When it comes to scams, U.S. victims of cryptocurrency scams lost five times more money in 2022 compared to other types of internet crimes, according to a June 6 study by cybersecurity company Surfshark.
Each American victim is estimated to have lost an average of $86,000 per year due to cryptocurrency scams compared to the average loss of $16,000 per year in scams involving traditional payment methods.
In total, over $2.3 billion worth of cryptocurrencies are calculated to have been lost to internet crimes across the United States last year.
Crypto Use by Sanctioned Entities
The Chainalysis report also pointed out that 43 percent of 2022’s illicit transaction volume came from activity associated with sanctioned entities. It gave the example of cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, which accounted for the majority of the sanctions-related transaction volume last year.
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Garantex in April 2022, but “as a Russia-based business, the exchange has been able to continue operating with impunity,” the report said.
“Transactions associated with Garantex or any other sanctioned crypto service represent, at the very least, substantial compliance risk for businesses that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, including fines and potential criminal charges.”
America’s rivals like China and North Korea also use cryptocurrency for illicit activities. A June 11 report from The Wall Street Journal claimed that North Korea stole more than $3 billion in cryptocurrency and used it to fund about half of its ballistic missile program.
A May 23 report by Elliptic highlighted China’s use of cryptocurrencies in its fentanyl trafficking operations.
“Elliptic’s blockchain analysis shows that the cryptocurrency wallets used by these [Chinese fentanyl precursor] companies have received thousands of payments, totaling just over $27 million, and that the number of transactions has increased by 450 percent year-on-year,” the study said.
“$27 million would purchase enough precursor to produce fentanyl pills with a street value of approximately $54 billion,” it said.
What's going on at Twitter? Elon Musk's latest controversial decision is 'read limits' - 3rd July 2023
As Twitter imposes limits on the number of tweets users can view, we look back at Elon Musk's tumultuous and confusing ownership of the social media platform.
KEY POINTS
Twitter has limited the number of tweets an unverified user can read to 1,000 a day.
The decision has been taken to reportedly limit data scraping.
Owner Elon Musk has cut the company's value by more than half since October.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has introduced a limit on how many tweets users can view, meaning verified accounts will have a 'read limit' of 10,000 posts a day and unverified accounts can only read 1,000 posts a day.
Twitter's decision was made to discourage "extreme levels" of data scraping and system manipulation by actors, including AI companies, Mr Musk wrote on the platform.
It's the latest eyebrow-raising move at the company since the billionaire bought the company for US$44 billion ($66 billion) and took over in October last year, with many wondering what his strategy is.
Here's a look back at the confusing and controversial decisions at the company, which even Mr Musk admits is now worth far less than what he bought it for - he reportedly sent a memo to staff suggesting it was worth US$20 billion ($30 billion).
Why did Elon Musk fire so much of Twitter's workforce?
One of Mr Musk's first decisions at the company was to sack thousands of workers globally, allegedly to reduce costs.
He has since said around 80 per cent of staff have gone from the company, meaning its books now have around 1,500 staff, compared to over 8,000 before his takeover.
The purge included former chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and other executives, and also led to mass sackings of curators and moderators which has had knock-on effects to the product's algorithm and advertisers abandoning it.
Twitter's Australia operation lost most of its workers.
Linda Yaccarino was appointed to take over the reins in May.
Many at the company were hoping the former ad executive would help bring back advertisers who had abandoned the platform since the Musk takeover.
What happened when Twitter introduced verified accounts?
Twitter began charging $12 a month for the iconic blue tick in a 'Twitter Blue' subscription, again under the banner of eliminating data scraping and managing bots.
The tick was once known as a symbol to verify one's identity and granted to high-profile figures such as celebrities, politicians and journalists for free, but those who declined to pay for the new subscription have since lost their ticks.
Mr Musk said that those who have a Twitter Blue subscription are being prioritised in the algorithm.
Twitter Blue users also get access to posting longer videos, the ability to edit tweets and an ad-free experience.
Is Twitter allowing hate speech to go unchecked?
Australia's eSafety Commission has issued Twitter a warning and threat of hefty fines if it does not deal with a surge of online hate.
Mr Musk allowed 62,000 banned or suspended users to be reinstated to the platform, many of which had been banned for hate speech.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in June there have been more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past year than any other platform, and complaints have spiked since October.
Ms Inman Grant said Twitter's policies prohibited hateful conduct on the platform but rising complaints to eSafety and reports of the toxic content remaining on the platform show that Twitter was probably not enforcing its own rules.
"We are also aware of reports that the reinstatement of some of these previously banned accounts has emboldened extreme polarisers, peddlers of outrage and hate, including neo-Nazis both in Australia and overseas," Ms Inman Grant said.
US advocacy group GLAAD has designated Twitter as the most hateful platform towards the LGBTQ+ community.
Research by the UK-based Centre for Countering Digital Hate demonstrated that slurs against African Americans showed up on Twitter an average of 1,282 times a day before Mr Musk took over the platform. Afterwards, they more than doubled to an average of 3,876 times a day.
Reversing ban on COVID-19 misinformation
Similarly, Twitter's terms and conditions were changed to reverse a ban on posting misinformation related to COVID-19.
"Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy," the terms said.
Public health officials condemned the decision and said it could lead to more false claims about the virus or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
With additional reporting by AAP.
Media Man News
'Indiana Jones' tops North American box office with $60M
Movie Box Office: 'Indiana Jones' tops North American box office with $60m. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the No. 1 movie in North America, with $60m in receipts this weekend, Box Office Mojo announced Sun. It's Harrison Ford's fifth and final time as the famed archeologist. No. 2 is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse with $11.5m, followed by Elemental at No. 3 with $11.3m, No Hard Feelings at No. 4 with $7.5m and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts at No. 5 with $7m. Then its Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken at No. 6 with $5.2m, The Little Mermaid at No. 7 with $5.2m, The Flash at No. 8 with $5m, Asteroid City at No. 9 with $3.8m and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 at No. 10 with $1.8m. It's fair to stay its a pretty flat month for box office compared to the past 5 year to decade period. Of course streaming by the likes of Netflix and HBO is all the rage these days and consumers are on stronger budgets than ever. Take this into consideration with numbers before we go down the sometimes "woke" aspects of film and how many audiences turned away from a once booming industry
WWE star Rhonda Rousey tipped to leave WWE soon; May return to UFC - July 2023
“This was always, always, always the plan. What screwed it up, and admittedly, and everyone will admit this, as far as it was screwed up – when I was telling everyone a long time ago, hey, Ronda and Shayna are gonna win the tag team titles, it kept getting delayed and then Ronda got hurt.
“The thing was, and I don’t know the date, it might be SummerSlam, it might be a little bit after. The deal is that Ronda has a hard out. She gave a date, ‘This is my last date’.
“Because I remember talking to somebody there and it’s like, well, I know they’re gonna do this, make the big match for WrestleMania, and it’s like, ‘No, her hard out is long before WrestleMania’.
“The point is that, whatever it is that they’re planning to do… they wanna do a feud. The whole tag team was to set up Ronda and Shayna doing a feud. Ronda wanted to do this feud with Shayna, she got what she wanted. She’s always wanted to do it because Shayna’s the one that got her basically into pro-wrestling.
“Shayna developed Ronda’s love for professional wrestling, so to her pay her back, they’re gonna do a program. I don’t know if it’s one match, I don’t know if it’s two or three, but based on whenever that out is, they had to get it done now.
“This was the latest they could go. They wanted a long title reign to build it up and to do the whole thing where you can see the (turn) coming, the little teases and everything – they didn’t have time.” - Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer
Boxing News: Jake Paul speaks on PPVs
Boxing: "Piracy is rampant, competition for eyeballs non-stop. "Doing a million buys today is like doing two million buys 10 years ago." "current PPV movers no matter the opponent" are Tyson Fury, Canelo Alvarez and self. One of boxing's top 3 PPV attractions; Believes that he is one of the top attractions with Tyson Fury & Canelo Alvarez. "Selling PPV is really hard". "Less than 10 fighters in the world can truly move six figures on their own consistently: Jake Paul
Wagering, TV bodies slam proposed gambling ads ban; AFL wary of impact - June 28th, 2023
Some of Australia’s biggest bookmakers have decried a potential ban on gambling advertisements as an ineffective and short-sighted way to remediate gambling harm, after a parliamentary inquiry report recommended the Albanese government commit to a comprehensive ban across all sectors within the next three years.
Responsible Wagering Australia (RWA) is the body that represents gambling giants including Sportsbet, PointsBet and Ladbrokes. It said the proposal, one of 31 recommendations raised by the House of Representatives standing committee on social policy and legal affairs, was a step too far and jeopardised the future of sporting codes and local broadcasters.
“Other more measured options which could be considered by the government include capping the numbers of gambling ads to be shown,” RWA chief Kai Cantwell said on Wednesday.
“By doing this, the expectations of the community to see less advertising would be met, while also maintaining the crucial support to sporting codes and local broadcasters.”
Tabcorp, which is not a member of RWA, welcomed the proposal after previously joining advocates in supporting a total ban on gambling broadcast advertising.
Tabcorp chief Adam Rytenskild said the report’s release marked an important moment for the sustainability of the wagering industry, reiterating a point from the inquiry’s hearing that the proliferation of gambling advertising is excessive.
“Tabcorp welcomes the committee’s recommendation for a nationally consistent regulatory framework. All wagering operators should have to adhere to the same regulations.”
Tabcorp’s stance is motivated by a keenness to protect its market share, according to rivals, and Rytenskild’s comments offer a stark contrast to RWA chief Cantwell who said the recommendations fail to consider the evidence from the committee hearings earlier this year.
“RWA recognises community concerns around online wagering advertising and there are more effective ways of meeting community expectations,” Cantwell said.
RWA and Free TV Australia, which has acted on behalf of Seven, Ten and Nine (the owner of this masthead), have argued for frequency caps on the number of ads shown across different channels, rather than a blanket ban.
Cantwell said by capping the number of ads, the community’s expectations to see less advertising would be met, while maintaining the support to sporting codes and local broadcasters.
He added a blanket ban through a phased roll-out was “short-sighted, ineffective and not the answer”, and could lead to more Australians turning to illegal offshore markets.
The AFL’s chief financial officer and general manager of broadcasting and clubs, Travis Auld, said on Wednesday it was too early for the league to have a response, and it had been consulting with the federal government about changes that could work.
“Any changes we make and the consequences of those changes need to be well thought through and well understood. There are some significant decisions within there that have impacts potentially on our industry,” Auld said.
He said that money from wagering firms was part of the AFL’s infrastructure, helping the competition keep its prices low, as well as invest in the game at a grassroots level. The AFL has an $8 million a year deal with Sportsbet.
“Of course money is part of it. It’s what allows us to keep our prices where we are, it’s what allows us to invest in boys and girls playing football at this level,” said Auld.
Despite a record $4.5 billion broadcast agreement signed with Seven Network and Foxtel in 2022, Auld said the AFL and both of its partners would represent themselves independently in any conversations around potential financial impacts.
“The commerciality from their point of view will remain known to them. I think we’ve been clear on the impacts on us.”
Free TV Australia’s CEO, Bridget Fair, warned a “kneejerk move” to implement an outright ban “will ultimately hurt viewers and the television services they love”.
“Many of the sports broadcasting deals have been agreed to beyond the three-year phase-out
period for advertising,” Fair said.
An NRL spokesperson said it recognised the significant stakeholder and community interest in gambling, saying it is committed to ensuring the NRL’s approach reflects this interest, “while also encouraging a holistic, evidence-based approach to mitigate the risks of gambling harm more broadly”.
A report earlier this year from the Australian Gambling Research Centre found most Australians (64 per cent) believe governments should play the biggest role in how wagering is advertised.
Dr Kei Sakata, the research centre’s acting executive manager, welcomed the report’s recommendations, saying it is a crucial step in reducing gambling harm.
Sakata also welcomed the committee’s recommendations of a national classifications scheme and effective warning labels for simulated gambling games and loot boxes, as well ongoing funding for gambling research.
(The Sydney Morning Herald)
WWE Money in The Bank breaks records - 2023
WWE Money in the Bank 2023 set a huge company record, as did this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown.
Both the June 30 SmackDown episode and the July 1 WWE premium live event emanated from the O2 Arena in London, England.
Both shows were eventful, with passionate UK fans filling the arena on both nights.
During the post-show press conference, Triple H revealed that Money in the Bank 2023 was the highest-grossing arena show in WWE history.
Triple H didn’t specify how much WWE brought in, but this would mean that the show earned more than any other WWE event to take place in an indoor arena.
The Chief Content Officer also revealed that the previous night’s edition of SmackDown was the highest-grossing SmackDown in WWE history.
He did state that over 37,000 fans were in attendance at the O2 Arena across both nights, noting that WWE is proud of the success of SmackDown and Money in the Bank.
As far as attendance figures go, WrestleTix previously reported that 17,617 tickets had been distributed for the sold out Money in the Bank event.
The premium live event was certainly eventful, with Jey Uso pinning Roman Reigns in the Usos vs Reigns & Solo Sikoa Bloodline Civil War.
This marked Reigns’ first pinfall loss since December 2019.
Reading restrictions imposed on Twitter users - July 2, 2023
Elon Musk has imposed temporary reading restrictions for Twitter users, announcing paying customers will be allowed to see more tweets than unverified accounts.
Mr Musk says extreme levels of data scraping has prompted the social media company to limit users to reading 6,000 posts per day.
Accounts without a blue tick will be restricted to 600 posts per day.
New accounts yet to be verified will be capped at 300 tweets.
Several US Agencies Set Up New Crypto Task Force in Arizona to Combat Illegal Online Activity - June 2023
Federal agencies have joined forces to combat crimes involving cryptocurrencies in Arizona after seeing an increase in digital transactions related to narcotics, firearms, and other illicit activity.
On June 15, Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona and representatives from four other federal agencies signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the “Darknet Marketplace and Digital Currency Crimes Task Force,” according to a June 20 press release by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The other agencies who signed the agreement are the IRS, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.
Over the past several years, federal agencies have seen an increase in the use of the internet to facilitate illegal transactions involving narcotics, personal information, firearms, and other contraband, the report said, adding that the use of digital currency to facilitate these transactions has also risen.
The task force aims to “disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations that exploit the appearance of anonymity on the darknet or use digital currency to facilitate criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, theft of personal information, and child exploitation.”
The new task force is expected to serve the needs of Arizona.
Darknets are internet-based networks that require special software and authorization to access. They’re designed to provide anonymity, making them a haven for criminal activity.
Illicit Crypto Activity
According to a February 2023 report by forensic cryptocurrency firm Chainalysis (pdf), the illicit transaction volume in the cryptocurrency market rose to $20.6 billion in 2022 from $18.1 billion in 2021 and $8.4 billion in 2020.
The share of illicit activity in the overall cryptocurrency activity stood at 0.24 percent. Although this is the second-lowest number in six years, it is up from 0.12 percent in 2021.
Darknet markets and fraud shops made an estimated $1.5 billion in 2022, down from $3.1 billion in 2021, the report said. The reason for the drop is attributed to the shutdown of Hydra Market, a leading darknet marketplace.
“Hydra’s closure prompted a sector-wide decline in darknet market revenues, with average daily revenue for all markets falling from $4.2 million just prior to its closure and to $447,000 immediately after. While drug markets’ collective revenue hasn’t recovered fully, it climbed slowly back toward previous levels in the second half of 2022. Fraud shops, however, have continued to decline,” the report said.
When it comes to scams, U.S. victims of cryptocurrency scams lost five times more money in 2022 compared to other types of internet crimes, according to a June 6 study by cybersecurity company Surfshark.
Each American victim is estimated to have lost an average of $86,000 per year due to cryptocurrency scams compared to the average loss of $16,000 per year in scams involving traditional payment methods.
In total, over $2.3 billion worth of cryptocurrencies are calculated to have been lost to internet crimes across the United States last year.
Crypto Use by Sanctioned Entities
The Chainalysis report also pointed out that 43 percent of 2022’s illicit transaction volume came from activity associated with sanctioned entities. It gave the example of cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, which accounted for the majority of the sanctions-related transaction volume last year.
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Garantex in April 2022, but “as a Russia-based business, the exchange has been able to continue operating with impunity,” the report said.
“Transactions associated with Garantex or any other sanctioned crypto service represent, at the very least, substantial compliance risk for businesses that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, including fines and potential criminal charges.”
America’s rivals like China and North Korea also use cryptocurrency for illicit activities. A June 11 report from The Wall Street Journal claimed that North Korea stole more than $3 billion in cryptocurrency and used it to fund about half of its ballistic missile program.
A May 23 report by Elliptic highlighted China’s use of cryptocurrencies in its fentanyl trafficking operations.
“Elliptic’s blockchain analysis shows that the cryptocurrency wallets used by these [Chinese fentanyl precursor] companies have received thousands of payments, totaling just over $27 million, and that the number of transactions has increased by 450 percent year-on-year,” the study said.
“$27 million would purchase enough precursor to produce fentanyl pills with a street value of approximately $54 billion,” it said.
What's going on at Twitter? Elon Musk's latest controversial decision is 'read limits' - 3rd July 2023
As Twitter imposes limits on the number of tweets users can view, we look back at Elon Musk's tumultuous and confusing ownership of the social media platform.
KEY POINTS
Twitter has limited the number of tweets an unverified user can read to 1,000 a day.
The decision has been taken to reportedly limit data scraping.
Owner Elon Musk has cut the company's value by more than half since October.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has introduced a limit on how many tweets users can view, meaning verified accounts will have a 'read limit' of 10,000 posts a day and unverified accounts can only read 1,000 posts a day.
Twitter's decision was made to discourage "extreme levels" of data scraping and system manipulation by actors, including AI companies, Mr Musk wrote on the platform.
It's the latest eyebrow-raising move at the company since the billionaire bought the company for US$44 billion ($66 billion) and took over in October last year, with many wondering what his strategy is.
Here's a look back at the confusing and controversial decisions at the company, which even Mr Musk admits is now worth far less than what he bought it for - he reportedly sent a memo to staff suggesting it was worth US$20 billion ($30 billion).
Why did Elon Musk fire so much of Twitter's workforce?
One of Mr Musk's first decisions at the company was to sack thousands of workers globally, allegedly to reduce costs.
He has since said around 80 per cent of staff have gone from the company, meaning its books now have around 1,500 staff, compared to over 8,000 before his takeover.
The purge included former chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and other executives, and also led to mass sackings of curators and moderators which has had knock-on effects to the product's algorithm and advertisers abandoning it.
Twitter's Australia operation lost most of its workers.
Linda Yaccarino was appointed to take over the reins in May.
Many at the company were hoping the former ad executive would help bring back advertisers who had abandoned the platform since the Musk takeover.
What happened when Twitter introduced verified accounts?
Twitter began charging $12 a month for the iconic blue tick in a 'Twitter Blue' subscription, again under the banner of eliminating data scraping and managing bots.
The tick was once known as a symbol to verify one's identity and granted to high-profile figures such as celebrities, politicians and journalists for free, but those who declined to pay for the new subscription have since lost their ticks.
Mr Musk said that those who have a Twitter Blue subscription are being prioritised in the algorithm.
Twitter Blue users also get access to posting longer videos, the ability to edit tweets and an ad-free experience.
Is Twitter allowing hate speech to go unchecked?
Australia's eSafety Commission has issued Twitter a warning and threat of hefty fines if it does not deal with a surge of online hate.
Mr Musk allowed 62,000 banned or suspended users to be reinstated to the platform, many of which had been banned for hate speech.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in June there have been more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past year than any other platform, and complaints have spiked since October.
Ms Inman Grant said Twitter's policies prohibited hateful conduct on the platform but rising complaints to eSafety and reports of the toxic content remaining on the platform show that Twitter was probably not enforcing its own rules.
"We are also aware of reports that the reinstatement of some of these previously banned accounts has emboldened extreme polarisers, peddlers of outrage and hate, including neo-Nazis both in Australia and overseas," Ms Inman Grant said.
US advocacy group GLAAD has designated Twitter as the most hateful platform towards the LGBTQ+ community.
Research by the UK-based Centre for Countering Digital Hate demonstrated that slurs against African Americans showed up on Twitter an average of 1,282 times a day before Mr Musk took over the platform. Afterwards, they more than doubled to an average of 3,876 times a day.
Reversing ban on COVID-19 misinformation
Similarly, Twitter's terms and conditions were changed to reverse a ban on posting misinformation related to COVID-19.
"Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy," the terms said.
Public health officials condemned the decision and said it could lead to more false claims about the virus or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
With additional reporting by AAP.
Media Man News Blog
Casino News: US commercial gaming revenue sees eighth straight record-breaking quarter - May 2023
U.S. commercial gaming revenue reached a quarterly record of $16.60 billion in Q1 2023, marking the industry’s eighth straight record-breaking quarter. The quarter was highlighted by the industry’s highest-grossing month ever of $5.90 billion in March, according to the American Gaming Association.
Across the country, 18 of 35 commercial gaming markets set new revenue records for the quarter, with only Mississippi trailing its quarterly revenue from Q1 2022.
Retail gaming accounted for 75.3% of total revenue while online gaming represented its largest share ever, 24.7%.
“After two full years of successive growth post-COVID, the U.S. gaming industry has never been stronger,” said AGA President and CEO Bill Miller. “With records across every gaming vertical—from brick-and-mortar casinos to mobile gaming—American adults continue to choose gaming as one of their top entertainment options.”
Media Man News Blog
SEO News via Media Man: Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO) Ways to Improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO)
New strategies for Search Engine Optimization
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential digital marketing practice that plays a vital role in making your website visible to both visitors and search engine crawlers. The primary objective of SEO is to optimize relevant and authoritative content to assist visitors in finding solutions to their queries efficiently.
The ultimate aim of SEO is to create high-quality and informative content that increases the volume of traffic that your website receives daily. Optimizing your website involves creating and expanding your content to ensure that search engines will choose your site over its competitors.
The focus of SEO is to perfect the quality and quantity of your webpage to make sure that your website has an edge over others. Therefore, SEO plays an essential role in driving traffic to your website, which is crucial for the visibility and success of your online Business.
1. Publish Relevant, Authoritative Content
This article provides valuable suggestions on how to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and enhance website ranking on search engine results. Creating quality content that caters to the user’s needs is the driving factor of SEO marketing, and the article emphasizes that there is no substitute for great content.
The article further provides guidance on identifying appropriate keyword phrases for each authoritative content page and making use of them strategically throughout the content. Creating distinct web pages for each distinct targeted keyword phrase is advisable to enhance ranking.
The article suggests using keywords in headings, subheadings, URLs, and titles, and stressing the importance of readability and user-friendliness of the content. Using emphasis tags and strategically linking to relevant sources is also encouraged. By following these valuable suggestions, users can create SEO-friendly content that benefits the readers while improving their website’s overall ranking.
2. Update Your Content Regularly
Maintaining updated content is crucial to improve your website’s relevancy, and it is a crucial factor that search engines prioritize as well. We highly recommend scheduling regular content audits, for instance, on a semesterly basis, to update your webpages and blog posts accordingly.
Writing additional content frequently on your departmental news blog can enhance your search engine rankings by incorporating relevant keyword phrases. Brief blog posts can also be helpful if they offer specific updates related to your targeted topics.
Moreover, interlinking your related CMS webpages and blog posts can provide readers with a better understanding of your website’s content and additional information on the subject. Thus, keep your website updated and relevant to improve your visitor’s user experience and attract more traffic to your site.
3. Metadata
Website designers use metadata to provide information about a website’s content. When creating a webpage, a space between the “head” tags is reserved for metadata.
If you use a CMS website produced by the UMC web team, they have already filled in the metadata. However, as your content changes, it is important to review and update the metadata.
Title Metadata
Title metadata is the most important because it determines the page title that appears at the top of a browser window and in search engine results. For those with a CMS website, the web team has automated this process based on your page title. Therefore, it is essential to use well-thought-out page titles that include keyword phrases.
Description Matadata
Description metadata is a brief and interesting summary of what your website contains. It’s like a store’s attractive display that encourages people to visit. Usually, it should be two sentences long. Search engines may or may not use this summary, but it’s good to have it in case they do.
Kayword Metadata
Keyword metadata is not very helpful in improving your search engine ranking. However, it’s useful to include some of your important keywords in the metadata. You should select a few phrases with one to four words each and add three to seven of them. For example, “computer science degree” is a good keyword phrase to use.
4. Have a Link-worthy Site
Making your website popular involves efforts in developing valuable content and enhancing its search results. To achieve this, you must focus on creating informative and unbiased content that caters to the readers’ interests and queries.
Furthermore, your website might earn a backlink from other websites if it provides good value to the readers. This can improve its search engine ranking immensely, which can bring in more visitors. It is also crucial to incorporate descriptive hyperlinks in the text as opposed to generic “click here” links.
This helps in giving proper context to people who use screen readers and makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. You can lift your website SEO performance by using appropriate keywords in your content and developing internal links. These techniques can help you build a better online presence and increase your website’s popularity.
5. Use ALT Tags
Want search engines to find your website and to make it more accessible for people who use text-only browsers or screen readers? Simply put, use alt tags to describe your media content, like images and videos, with alternative text descriptions.
These descriptions act as labels for search engines and help them identify your page better. They also provide context for those who cannot view the media directly. By making your website more accessible and searchable, you can improve its overall user experience.
News
New strategies for Search Engine Optimization
New areas of digital marketing are as changeable and require so much adaption and new-thinking as the world of SEO. Search Engine Optimization has come a long way from its beginnings in the 1990s, and the technologies deciding what is “good SEO” or not changes from year to year.
That’s why tech companies such as IncRev are launching new strategies aimed at long-term goals in both data-driven and relations-based SEO all over the world, by implementing tactics from both traditional PR and modern SEO and link-building.
Below, we will discuss the nature of SEO, how SEO is changing, and why choosing an agency such as IncRev will be the key to your SEO success.
Best SEO practices 2023:
Find your customers with data-driven market analysis
Find authoritative marketing partners using data-driven PR
Reach your customers with high quality outreach and credible link-building
What is SEO?
In order to discuss the ways in which SEO works, it’s important to understand the basic principles on which the concept is built. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, and is an umbrella term for processes in which users optimize their websites in order to rank higher on search engines such as Google whenever customers search for keywords relevant to their website.
By optimizing the various aspects of a website, SEO aims to improve its ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs), thereby increasing the quantity and quality of traffic. In layman’s terms, it helps more people to find your website by increasing its digital visibility.
Why is SEO important?
There’s an old SEO joke that goes like this: A man asks a detective “Where’s the best place to hide a body?” The detective answers “Why, on the second page of Google, of course!”. In other words, ranking on the first page of Google is the key to getting traffic and therefore sales or viewings on your webpage, as few people bother to look past the first results page.
In fact, the first spot on Google is ten times more likely to get a click than results number ten, and the top three results receive over half of all clicks. That’s why the goal of every SEO strategist is to get a website into the top ten search results on Google, and preferably in the top three.
That’s why SEO marketing lives on, despite some people saying that SEO is dead. The answer is: it’s more alive than ever. It just doesn’t fit into the mold of the quick-results culture of the modern world, but it is still effective.
The evolution of SEO
SEO as a term first came into use in 1997, despite the first website being published in 1991. The coin was termed John Audette of Multimedia Marketing Group early that year, and so the hunt for the top of the search engine results pages began.
In the beginning, there were several competing names for the concept, including search engine ranking, website promotion, etc. The strongest competitor was the term “search engine marketing”, which was originally pitched as a successor to SEO. But ultimately, search engine optimization proved to be the most steadfast and all-encompassing term, while SEM is used to describe concepts like paid search marketing and advertising.
Google’s rise to power
In the 2000s, Google grew to become the search engine giant we know it as today. Soon enough, the organization was able to survive on its own. At that time, they also launched effective web crawlers and PageRank algorithms, which changed the SEO game.
Google began measuring both on-page and off-page content to decide SERP listings, forcing SEO to expand their work sphere and link-building took off as a popular tactic. Around the same time, Google also introduced PageRank scores, a website score between 1-10, which was an early version of today’s Domain Authority.
These measures were broken down further with the introduction of Google Analytics and the Google Webmaster Tools (Search Console) in 2006. Later major updates, such as Panda and Penguin in 2011 and 2012 respectively, were put in place to sort out poor quality SEO work and reward those with quality websites.
To this day, Google continues to release core and minor updates that impact the way that SEO can work. The platform has grown to be such a reputable platform that in 2022 it was estimated that Google accounted for more than 85 percent of the search engine usage, which is why it’s the platform that most SEO strategies focus on today.
The big three: Local, social, mobile
There have been three major changes in the way that people search the web, that has not been a result of search engine updates. The first of these came in the mid-2000s, when there was an adaptation toward geographical searches, which birthed local SEO. This meant that people were now searching for businesses near them, such as restaurants or car washes, thus increasing the need for separate local search engine strategies. This development also resulted in the advancement of end-user data, including search history and personalized interests.
Fast-forward another decade into the 2010s, and a whole new set of searching and web-using emerged. Rather than just using the universal search-functions, users were now turning to medias such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social medias for news and knowledge. Most importantly for SEO, these networks became revolutionary in building brand awareness. As such, the old term of search engine marketing (SEM) became ever more important on these platforms.
As users started to bring their lives and entertainment from the big screens, such as laptops or TVs, they also began to use search engines straight from their mobile phones. This third change in user patterns led to mobile searching overtaking desktop searches in 2015, and added mobile adaptability to the list of SEO tools.
The 2020s, AI, and the future of SEO
We’ve finally arrived at our current time. The 2020s have brought with it a continued increase in digital usage and SEO is perhaps more important than ever. One of the biggest challenges the world of SEO stands before today is generative AI. Chat GPT, the free global access to generative AI as a search function, was released in the winter of 2022/2023, and has garnered instant attraction from both customers and competitors, including Google. It is still unclear what impact generative AI will have on SEO practices such as keywords analysis, although it is already affecting the quality of content on the web.
New strategies for new challenges
As new SEO directives arrive from Google’s updates, they also require new strategies. However, some companies – such as IncRev – have decided to create new strategies with a focus on longevity. Among IncRev’s new strategies are both traditional link-building and outreach including, in combination with inspiration from the traditional PR marketing sphere.
The other two strategies that they’ve developed are strongly data-driven market research and PR. The market research is a process in which the company can help customers who want to scale globally to find the best geographical place for them to start their SEO journey, based on SEO factors such as demand and competition.
The market-driven PR can build on that market research or stand alone, as a new way of reaching new marketing partners in international business circles. From these new partners, it is then possible to continue with link-building as well as traditional PR strategies. This is a unique way of piercing niche markets across the globe to attract potential customers.
How does SEO work?
Now that we’ve seen the evolution of SEO it’s time to get to the real question: what is SEO marketing actually, and how does it actually work? In order to understand how SEO works, it’s important to understand these two things: what Google wants and what the customers want. Only by doing so will you understand how you should optimize your web page.
What Google wants
One of the reasons why Google rose to such immense heights early on was due to the founders’ initiative to implement RankPage, or clear guidelines for how to rank content on their platform. Initially, the program worked by ranking content dependent on the linkstructure of the website, that built the foundation for the modern linkbuilding strategies. Simply put, links to the webpage acted as votes of confidence for the webpage.
Today, this concept has developed into the E-E-A-T formula, where Google ranks content based on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These measures are interpreted by what the site’s linkbuilding looks like, such as what EEAT websites include links back to their landing page. They then ensure that the webpage produces reliable and accurate information, and are most likely to answer their customers’ questions.
Ultimately, the reason why Google wants to prioritize high quality content is because happy Google customers are more likely to return to Google for more information, and therefore generating income for the search engine.
So, how does Google find and rank the webpages? They do this through three stages: crawling, indexing, and serving results.
Crawling means that Google sends “bots” or computer programs to scan through large chunks of the internet to find new or updated pages. They can only find it by going through a link.
Googles then sorts through and organizes the content and puts it in the huge Google Index – a database for webpages.
Lastly, Google serves the results by how relevant they are to the customer queries.
What the customer wants
Broadly speaking, there are three types of searches that customers make, and they can be described as Do-Know-Go. Whenever we search the internet, we either want to do something (such as make a purchase or visit a tourist attraction), know something, or go somewhere. These three types of searches can be further broken down, but these are the basic concepts.
These three prompts can help you optimize your content so that you are answering the demand of the people. By realizing what your customer wants, you can provide SEO-optimized content which is relevant and fresh, which Google will reward you for.
SEO components, or how to do SEO
So how does a webpage get to that top of the search engine results page? While there is no quick fix, SEO provides a long-term strategy which aims at doing just that. SEO incorporates several different tactics in this long-term strategy, in which there are three main components:
Technical SEO
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO refers to optimization on your webpage. This can for example mean implementing site maps so that Google can crawl the page more easily, increasing the website speed, or making the site mobile adaptable.
On-page SEO refers to edits to the content that is already on the webpage, rather than the technicalities behind it. This can for example include keyword optimizing headings, producing SEO-optimized blog posts, URL and picture optimization, and adding meta titles and descriptions.
Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is part of the link-building strategy. The focus here lies on building credibility and brand awareness by for example writing guests posts and linking to your webpage on other, reputable sources. The key here is to create backlinks, which give authority and endorsement to your website, and thus giving Google a sign that you are a credible source too.
To get good results, it’s important to implement all of the tactics above in a combined effort to get Google’s attention. However, these general descriptions are only scraping the top of the iceberg of SEO. Beneath these lay a whole science of various methods and strategies to rank at the top of the results page.
Link-building
The on-page and off-stage SEO practices can also be called SEO link-building. That’s because they both refer to building a link-system which Google will reward, whether it’s by driving links to your website from other credible sources or creating a seamless link-flow internally on your webpage.
Links to and on your website act as votes of trust, credibility and authority, which is why they are a crucial part of your SEO strategy. However, the links need to be carefully and thoughtfully crafted so that they maintain the right level of relevance and credibility, which can be done through producing high quality SEO content.
SEO content
For both on-page and off-page work, SEO content plays a huge role. As mentioned earlier, Google ranks webpages depending on both their link-building and how credible, authoritative, and expert their content is. However, these two factors are not as separate as one might think: with high quality content, it is also easier to build a good SEO link-building network.
Often when we discuss SEO content, we tend to think of texts of lesser quality that are packed with poor quality links. However, due to Google’s updates, such as Penguin, poor content is continually being phased out. That means individuals and agencies are having to spend more time recruiting better writers and spending more time on content.
As we discussed earlier, SEO content needs to be adapted to both the demands from the customer (a.k.a. the searching person) and Google. That means texts need to be relevant, authoritative, credible, and high quality. These texts also need to be SEO optimized using meta-data, such as titles and descriptions, and keywords in the headings in order for Google’s crawlers to pick up better on the relevancy factor.
That being said, the research and preparation for both good and bad content remains the same – all SEO content needs proper keyword research.
Keyword research
Finding the right keywords will not only make you more competitive as an SEO user, but will also help you understand your audience better. That’s because keywords are clues to who your audience is. For example, the keywords “how to ski” and “ski maintenance” could technically be placed in the same text contextually, but they imply that we’re dealing with skiers of different skill levels.
The keywords are both guides for the link-building process and the content. When building links, it’s important that both the link, the placement, and the publishing website are relevant in the context in order for Google’s crawlers to give it a credible ranking.
There are several tools on the market for finding the best keywords, and there are also a ton of metrics for understanding how good a keyword is and what the chances are of breaking into the competition for that specific keyword. Common metrics include keyword difficulty, traffic potential, cost-per-click, etcetera.
Brand awareness
Ultimately, what these various tactics aim to do is to bring brand awareness to your website. People are twice as likely to purchase from a brand they recognize. An American study found that 75 percent of shoppers tend to go for known retailers, and nearly 70 percent do the same when deciding what search result to click on.
Doing SEO: alone or SEO agency?
As you can tell, there is a lot of information and knowledge that goes into producing and completing good SEO strategies. If you are considering adapting some SEO strategies, you may be wondering whether you should do it all on your own or hire an agency.
Without sugarcoating it, doing SEO alone is a lot of hard work. First and foremost, you got to have basic understandings of both SEO tools, Google Analytics, and good writing skills. Then you need good networking skills and a sense of price bargaining to get your links out to credible sources. On top of this, you need to stay up to date with all the latest developments within Google updates, market changes, and new technologies such as generative AI which can impact your SEO strategies. All of this can be both time consuming and costly.
If it feels overwhelming, there are a ton of SEO agencies on the market that are ready to help. Some of them focus solely on SEO content production, whereas others focus solely on technical SEO or solely on SEO link-building.
Some agencies, such as IncRev, offer entire packages, where staying SEO updated, building and optimizing webpages, link-building, content production, and publishing is included. Together with the new data-driven strategies and tactics, IncRev offers services that are great for both those who are somewhat new as to those who are already familiar and wanting to grow beyond.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions about SEO
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a digital marketing form that focuses on creating digital visibility on search engines such as Google by improving websites’ rankings in the search results.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and works with creating organic ranking improvements on platforms like Google. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and focuses on paid promotions and marketing on platforms like Google.
How long does SEO take?
Good SEO typically takes between 4 months to a year to see good results. However, it’s crucial to understand that SEO is a long-term strategy, that is never really finished. If you are lucky enough to rank at 1 on Google, the job doesn’t stop there: then you want to maintain that spot by continuing your SEO work.
Why do you need SEO?
SEO helps to build brand awareness, which is key in gaining credibility amongst both Google and potential customers. That’s why SEO is worth it, even if it is a long game.
Media Man
The Media Man Group is primarily and online news, media and sports management firm and website portal developer. By default Media Man developed many effective SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniqes and strategies since their launch in 2001. SEO helped elevate Media Man websites into Hitwise "Top 10" status (entertainment - personalities) category. Media Man also offers a range of media and convergent media services including article copy, PR (public relations), text link based campaigns, product placement and endorsement, buzz marketing (via websites and social media) and brand building. The company is best known for insightful media analysis, specalising in pop culture/entertainment, streaming and subscriber television including PPV (Pay-Per-View), pro wrestling aka sports entertainment coverage, MMA (mixed martial arts), and commentary and coverage on an array of trending topics, with strong focus on Twitter, Alphabet (Google, YouTube, Blogger etc) and new and emerging technology and news platforms and developments. Media Man is often referenced in both mainstream, niche and alternative news media stories. The company motto remains "Putting Your Name Out There".
