Users are downloading more e-books, music, TV shows and movies than ever: Digital content and subscriptions were the fastest-growing retail e-commerce category in 2011, according to a new ComScore (NSDQ: SCOR) report.

After quickly gaining a warm reception and a rapid post-launch investment from BSkyB, the social TV app startup co-founded by ex BBC iPlayer head honcho Anthony Rose is making its first real play at monetisation.

It would be dramatic to say that independent booksellers nationwide are boycotting Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Publishing titles en masse—and hey, it could still happen. But a new decision from the American Booksellers Association’s IndieCommerce—which comes as bookstore chains Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Indigo are making similar decisions—is not so…

The content payment system which signed up many of Slovakia’s leading publishers in 2011 is now adding two more.

Microsoft’s plan for Windows Phone 8—which appears to be moving in step with its overall Windows 8 launch strategy—has been leaked, and the company is planning to take some big steps forward in terms of overall performance, mobile payments, and voice calling.

Apartment-letting site Airbnb will get investment, endorsement and distribution from the publisher of Europe’s most-read newspaper.

Hoping to tap into India’s rapidly growing e-commerce market, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is launching Junglee.com in the country today.

paidContent understands Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is set to make some big first-anniversary upgrades to its OnePass paid content system in the next few weeks, designed to increase slow take-up among publishers.

It’s an election year, which means politicians are frantically trying to raise money for their campaigns. President Obama’s re-election campaign has decided to add Square’s mobile payments technology to its arsenal and is deploying the company’s credit-card readers to its staff.

Telegraph.co.uk reports the UK’s main commercial free-to-air TV broadcaster has delayed a programme under which it wants to charge online viewers for some content. But that’s not quite the case.

—ESPN: The sports network is seeing a reorg: John Kosner has been promoted to EVP, digital and print media, from SVP and GM of the divisions. Marie Donoghue has been promoted to SVP, global strategy, from SVP, business affairs and business development. Meanwhile, longtime leaders John Wildhack and Norby Williamson…

Square, the high-profile mobile payments company started by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, has yet to launch outside the U.S. But in the meantime, another, similar-looking competitor has sprung up in the UK: mPowa.

Mecom is to introduce digital pay models across its top newspaper titles, slash costs by €70m and potentially close or sell 65 free titles, following a wide-ranging strategic review by new chief executive Tom Toumazis.

Polar Mobile—the Canadian startup that develops apps for big-name publishers like CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS), Conde Nast, Sports Illustrated (NYSE: TWX), Shanghai Daily, Future Publishing (LSE: FUTR) and the WSJ—today announced two steps up in its growth: it has picked up an additional $6 million in funding and has launched…

Losing your phone is never fun. But losing your wallet is much worse, and that’s one argument where those trying to roll the mobile-payments boulder up the mountain might find some help.

News Of The World’s closure deprived News International of data on which it could have based a decision to introduce digital fees at the UK’s most popular newspaper.

The UK’s largest regional newspaper title, the Wolverhampton-based Express & Star, is ending the premium online payment tier it introduced in April 2011, whilst introducing updated paid tablet and smartphone editions.

Dorling Kindersley, the division of Penguin that publishes children, travel and reference titles, made a strong case for how it is moving to a “flat” content model, where a printed book is only one of many output options. The digital publisher of DK also said that companies like his need…

News International’s The Times may shed its social media invisibility cloak by letting subscribers gift paywalled articles to friends.