While editorial and sales have long been uneasy bedfellows in the world of newspapers, they’ve been forced to get a bit cosier in recent years. That’s exactly what APN and Tourism Australia did for the ‘Explore Your Australian Passions’ campaign and the content-led initiative caught the eye of the judges at the International News Media Association Awards (INMA), winning first place in the ‘Best Marketing Solution for an Advertising Client’ category.

With increasing numbers of eyes turning from televisions to consume content on mobile devices, advertisers are having to adapt and find new ways to promote their clients’ products or services. So, in an effort to take its content to those migrating eyes, the promotional team behind Tranformers: Age of Extinction has created a new app that features interviews, trailers and other teasers.

Every time it seems as though all the app voids in the world have already been filled, someone finds some unchartered territory in the app landscape. This trend has now continued with the emergence of the North Korea Travel app, which makes it easier for people to visit the “hermit kingdom”.

The internet is awash with creative ‘for sale’ ads, but Swedish art director Christoffer Castor is being held up as a master of the art after releasing a ridiculous—and ridiculously entertaining—video for his bright orange 1993 Volvo 245GL, which, potential buyers will be impressed to know, is equipped with both an inside and an outside.

For the 55th year, the BNZ Literary Awards will celebrate the work of both aspiring and established writers in New Zealand. As was the case last year, BNZ is once again accepting entries through Facebook, via a specially designed app dedicated to the short story competition.

By 2020 the number of things connected to the internet is expected to be around 40 billion and less than 20 percent of those will be smartphones, tablets or PCs. The data those things gather aims to make our lives easier or, in the case of a company like Nest, more efficient. And Cisco has shown that the internet of things can also be applied to outdoor advertising.

Movie and TV streaming service Quickflix has announced the launch of a pay-as-you-go service, which it is offering to non-subscribers.

The first rule of speech club is to insert an inspirational quote at the start. The second rule of speech club is to show a whole lot of case study videos. Giles Tuck, head of Google’s inhouse agency The Zoo-APAC, failed on the former in his presentation about social creativity—the first Champion Speakers event for the recently rejigged CAANZ PR, Experiential and Social Media Committee (PREScom)—but he embraced the second. And the main outtake for the 150-strong crowd of gathered marcomms folk was that you can’t just do social, you’ve got to be social.

In an effort to remove the hack of going to the gym from consumers’ daily schedules, US-based startup Peloton developed an exercise bike that comes with a specially designed tablet, which connects users to professional spin classes. Through this system, bike owners can access pre-recorded sessions with a range of different trainers—thereby making it possible to enjoy the benefits of a spin class without having to leave the house.

Soulwax has just released the final edition to their set of 24 hour long mixes, with 60 minutes of awe-inspiring audiovisual goodness from their 2002 mashup classic As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt 2, which was released under their alias, 2ManyDJs.

Despite the rampant adoption of social media and mobile technology, there’s been a bit of a backlash against that shift recently, with Gary Turk’s Look Up clip being watched 35 million times on YouTube (as pretty much everyone has pointed out, it is slightly ironic that it’s probably being watched on the devices he hopes to get humans to put down). And now State, a “global opinion network” that allows people to “quickly state about whatever matters to you, get counted, and connect to like-minded people around the world. No need for hashtags, followers or fame”, has added another clip to the growing oeuvre of anti-social media.