Quick out of the 2012 starting blocks, Apple are rumoured to be planning a media event for late in the month of January, to be held in New York.

Before you get your hopes up for an iPad 3 or revamped Apple TV however, it seems that this event will be reserved for announcements concerning digital publishing and advertising across the iOS devices.

In other words, more interactive publishing content, improved delivery methods and finely tuned advertising techniques will be likely hitting your iPads, iPods and iPhones in the near future.

Apple's Eddy Cue, SVP of Internet Software and Services, is thought to be helming the event, further suggesting a focus on iTunes, the App Store and the iCloud service than on new hardware.

Last year Cue was on hand to reveal The Daily digital newspaper from News Corporation, so expect similar announcements when the event kicks off.

Via: All Things D

Tech gifts don't have to be about screen sizes or processing capabilities these days. In fact, they don't have to be physical gifts at all. You can put a smile on a loved one's face just by setting them up with one of the many ace online digital services and subscription packages that are tied into apps, download and streaming sites too.

From music packages like Spotify to productivity programs like Dropbox, there's something here for everyone.

When you're done here, be sure to check out the rest of Tech Digest's 2011 Christmas wishlists too.

YouTube could reveal as early as next week that it is launching its own channels with original content, according to sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal.

YouTube is thought to have signed a series of partnership deals with media companies to produce unique content. Also believed to be onboard is Anthony Zuiker, creator of crime drama CSI, and skateboarder Tony Hawk. Media companies involved include ShineReveille at News Corp and RTL Group at FremantleMedia.

A spokesperson for YouTube declined to comment on the developments, but the site has long been working on becoming a new class of entertainment provider. It already manages several online channels, but it's thought the new launch would present channels operating on a subscription model, focusing on things like comedy, news or food.

YouTube hopes to attract traditional media advertisers with its new products. If successful, this could be a boon to the trend of watching online content on living room TV sets.

The Sun website has yet again fallen foul to a hacking attack, which may have lead to the release of thousands of users' sensitive information being released online.

The attack has been attributed to a hacker known as Batteye, who claimed responsibility for the breach in a Pastebin post. The hacker stated that:

"We will begin today by presenting to you, various files obtained from the Sun, a company within the News Corp group. We will continue, then, by exposing the world for what it is; a less than perfect place where we cannot trust those who we ask to protect our information."

News International, owners of The Sun, have responded by calling in the police and information commissioner to investigate the breach. It is thought that readers' names, addresses, dates of birth, emails and phone numbers were accessed, though password and financial information remained secure.

The news couldn't come at a worse time for News International, who have already had to wipe egg off of their faces after LulzSec hackers posted a fake story on The Sun's homepage claiming that owner Rupert Murdoch had died after a drug overdose, all in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that has rocked the massive media empire to its core.

"Cybercriminals will be rubbing their hands in glee at getting hold of data such as names, email addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security specialists Sophos.

"The stolen information can be used to target innocent individuals. For instance, a scammer could email a beauty contest applicant, trick them into believing that it was the newspaper contacting them and attempt to steal money or further information."

"Large scale, high profile data breaches continue to hit the headlines and companies really need to take heed about what's going on, and consider the security of the information they store on their systems," Cluley continued.

"Questions will inevitably be asked to why the sensitive information about readers and competition entrants wasn't safely stored using strong encryption."

LulzSec, the computer hacking collective thought to have disbanded after hitting a string of high profile targets including Sony, have returned to strike at News International in protest towards the recent phone hacking scandal.

Targetting The Sun newspaper's website, the group redirected the tabloid's homepage to a fake story reporting the death of News International owner Rupert Murdoch. It claimed the media mogul had died from a drug overdose. Lulzsec also redirected the paper's official Twitter feed to the group's @LulzSec account.

"We have owned Sun/News of the World - that story is simply phase 1 - expect the lulz to flow in coming days," threatened the LulzSec Twitter feed before jokingly adding:

"Hello everyone that wanted to read The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good."

It's not merely faked news stories that LulzSec are touting however. They claim to have nabbed plenty of personal information on News International employees, with the group posting The Sun journalists phone numbers online, as well as email details of former News International chief Rebekah Brooks.

LulzSec claim to have plenty more sensitive information to share too, so expect to see more headaches for News International head online in the coming hours and days.

Via: Tech Crunch

In the light of the recent hacking scandal that has rocked News Corporation to the core, Rupert Murdoch's media empire has decided to withdraw its bid for BSkyB, a monopolising move that seemed almost certain to be green-lit just a few short weeks ago.

"News Corporation announces that it no longer intends to make an offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC not already owned by it," reads the News Corp statement.

"We believed that the proposed acquisition of BSkyB by News Corporation would benefit both companies but it has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate," added News Corporation's Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer.

"News Corporation remains a committed long-term shareholder in BSkyB. We are proud of the success it has achieved and our contribution to it."

News Corp had appeared on the brink of finalising the bid (which they were expected to win with) earlier this month, with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt stating that he would make no moves to block it. In a 180-degree reversal of fortunes, all major UK political parties are now banding against News Corp, as the Tory government prepare a mojor investigation into the details of the hacking scandal.

YouTube's new TrueView advertising proposition, allowing users to skip an advert once 5 seconds of it has been viewed, has been a great success according to figures revealed at the Media360 event in Manchester.

70% of YouTube viewers so far are choosing not to skip ads when the option to do so is given, with YouTube saying that the TrueView model leads to 75% more engaged viewers than tradtional online video advertising.

"TrueView challenges the old models and for the first time advertisers can see how often their ad is being skipped and it gives the media agencies the chance to challenge the creative execution, by simply pointing out that a certain ad is less effective than the previous one, simply because the user hasn't viewed it as much," Bruce Daisley, sales director of YouTube and display at Google, told MediaWeek.

Real-time tracking of an advert's popularity is not the only attractive element of TrueView advertising for companies wishing to adopt the model; advertisers only have to pay for their adverts if a user watches it in its entirety, or if they watch over 30 seconds of the clip, depending on which comes first.

Introducing Technode; the new, free quarterly digital technology magazine from the editorial team behind Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny!

Available on all iOS devices as an app, as a web edition and PDF version for other operating systems via Magcloud.com and also as a traditional print edition too, each issue will focus on a key tech trend, with this first issue giving an overview of gadgetry in 2011 as a whole.

You can also read Technode online via Scribd

Check out the video above for a closer look at what's on offer.

How To Get Technode

Technode is available as a free iPad and iPhone app, as an online edition, and available for other tablet and smartphone OS's via Magcloud. Alternatively, you can order a print copy by clicking here, though this service comes at a small charge. We also plan to have a Kindle edition for future issues too.

We hope you like it! Any feedback can be left at Technode's Facebook page.

Oh how embarrassing to be a certain footballer right now. He's been busted, the game's over, and we're all just waiting for him to lower his head and do the apology dance. But lo and behold, this isn't at all what's happened. Instead, the cad-du-jour has gone ahead and sued Twitter. Seriously? Does this mean Fred the Shred will sue the House of Lords next, the culprit that broke his own superinjunction?

The embarrassment is no longer so much about the footballer's actual affair, but now it's more about how he's handled being exposed. You know the footballer in question - we all know. It's all over Twitter, and yesterday he was even pictured on the front page of the Sunday Herald. The Scottish newspaper claims the superinjunctions have no power across the border, and whether or not that's the case is another debate. But either way, the Scottish paper went ahead and published a photo with only the eyes covered, leaving it obvious who the person was. So now that's all over Google too, if you are one of the few who don't know already.

While celebrity dalliances are good tabloid fodder, the more interesting issue here (for the geek squad at least) is how this issue may affect the internet. Twitter is an American company, meaning it's not likely to expend any resources to enforce a gagging order from a foreign country - even if it's Britain and not some 'obscure' country with draconian laws. If online businesses were made responsible for adhering to laws in all the countries where people accessed the site, it would be a very slippery and messy slope.

Filtering tweets in real time may be difficult, but the lawsuit is simply calling for Twitter to reveal the identities of the people who broke the superinjunction on the site. But this is starting to veer onto the issue of censorship. You could argue no one would be hurt at being forced to stop talking about cheating footballers, but if we open the door at any kind of censorship it will be hard to close again. We tut at stories about China allegedly censoring Gmail and shake our heads at the Chinese not being allowed to access Facebook - but it's all sides of the same story. Okay, so it's sad about the exposure of the footballer's kids. But the issue here is so much bigger than that.

It seems that publishers' initial fears that iPad magazine subscribers would not be willing to share their personal info when buying digital reading content were ill-founded, as Apple have now confirmed 50% of all digi-mag subscribers happily offer their personal data up too.

Reader info is incredibly lucrative to publishers. It's a great way of better understanding their readerships, as well as snaring better advertising deals through targeted campaigns. Publishers got a little quesy when Apple revealed that their terms for iPad publishing would include opt-in personal data sharing, but it seems it hasn't been too bad overall.

Sure, in a traditional subscription format publishers would get information on 100% of their subscribers, but it's still a better figure than many assumed we'd see.

The identity of the gentleman with which Big Brother star Imogen Thomas has had an affair is hidden away behind a superinjunction, meaning no UK media outlet is allowed to breathe a word of it. But if you google it, the name of a certain athletic fellow will be presented to you in a matter of seconds.

While Twitter and Facebook has been ripe with rumours of the details of these indiscretions, Wikipedia provides perhaps a more direct link to the information - some industrious contributors have gone ahead and added it to the relevant people's sites.

The site of Imogen Thomas' former boyfriend has been littered with references, and even when Wikipedia administrators go in to clean up, the information remains in the logs. Among other targeted sites is that belonging to the actor who allegedly paid Helen Wood for sex.

There isn't much that can be done about this, it seems, as these sites are located abroad. A spokesman for Wikipedia told the Daily Telegraph that if the allegations were posted repeatedly, it was possibly to restrict editing access to the pages. But still, Wikipedia is not breaking any laws by exposing the information:

"The servers are based in the US so Wikipedia is not liable. ... People have tried to sue the foundation for libellous content but it's been thrown out. Our material has to be really well referenced or it is chucked out immediately."

We're not going to get into how the information on Wikipedia is backed up - but one thing's for certain: no court of law can keen an industrious googler down. Those celebrities better stay on the straight and narrow, then.

Following the high-profile $315m takeover by AOL, the popular liberal news site Huffington Post will be joined by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

"Strategic adviser for social impact" is Stone's title at AOL, where he will among other things work on a platform where people can co-ordinate work in their local communities.

Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington said:

"[Stone will] advise The Huffington Post Media Group and all of AOL on social impact and cause-based initiatives, develop a platform to facilitate people doing service in their communities, rally other companies to invest in and deploy the best corporate practices, and create and develop a video series spotlighting leading companies and executives at the forefront of philanthropy and corporate responsibility."

This is the latest new recruit by Huffington, who has also brought onboard former New York Times and Los Angeles Times editor John Montorio, and Howard Fineman, a former analyst for NBC and MSNBC.

AOL is undergoing significant changes at the moment, as its advertising revenues are dropping and Google is gaining ground. The company has just slashed 20% of its workforce, equivalent to 900 people.

Stone will keep his existing duties at Twitter.

Competition is about to hit the whistleblowing market, as former WikiLeaks staff is breaking away to form OpenLeaks.

With a launch expected this summer, OpenLeaks will be lead by the former deputy head of Wikileaks. Daniel Domscheit-Berg left WikiLeaks last September following a bust-up with boss Julian Assange.

Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of sexual misconduct. Now a dozen of his former colleagues are taking matters into their own hands, launching OpenLeaks as a 'revised vision' of WikiLeaks' transparency efforts.

OpenLeaks will try and avoid the 'influence of a single figurehead', according to sources speaking to the New York Times. OpenLeaks will avoid handling physical documents, instead becoming a neutral conduit to connect leakers with media and human rights organisations.

'OpenLeaks is a technology project that is aiming to be a service provider for third parties that want to be able to accept material from anonymous sources, without a political agenda except for the dissemination of information to the media,' Domscheit-Berg told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

Assange has deliberately made himself the centre of attention in order to increase the buzz around WikiLeaks. However, as Assange attracts increasingly negative publicity, the credibility of WikiLeaks has suffered as a result. OpenLeaks has taken a lesson from this, and will instead aspire to be a neutral news conduit. Now there's a thought.

Fancy yourself as a bit of a computer whizz? Is breaking into a restricted Area 51 server for you a piece of cake? Then you may soon find yourself fbeatured in Hackers!, a brand new newspaper "about doing things you're not supposed to do."

Issue 1 (available now) has one of the most inventive feature lists we've seen in ages, with articles on how to hack one of London's "Boris" hire bikes and how to build your own laser-powered bong.

"Why hackers? I kept seeing this very fresh, very motivated creativity everywhere, individuals quietly looking for possibilities to subvert and improve given systems and technologies with their ideas - and refusing to accept that it can't be done", said editor Leila Johnston.

"There was a shared attitude, but no single place to go to find it all. So I spotted a gap for a new publication, respectfully and professionally produced, but made in the spirit of hacking rather than simply reporting on it. Hacking has many meanings - it's as much about ingenious problem-solving as it is about mischief. People are beginning to realise that, and that's definitely something to celebrate."

Grab Issue 1 here.

Richard Branson and Virgin's first roll of the iPad-publishing dice has touched down on the App Store. Issue 1 of the iPad only magazine Project is now available to download.

Housed within a reader app, Project can then be bought on an issue-by-issue basis, with the first edition featuring Tron's own dude, Jeff Bridges on the cover.

Seemingly taking it's cues from the Wired magazine iPad app, it seems to have an editorial slant similar to GQ, with key areas including culture, technology and business.

"Project, alongside other launches, is both a bold new chapter in media, and a blind pitch into a potentially humiliating void," said Project's Chris Bell. "Whether it changes the fortunes of the written word remains to be seen; built into any new launch these days is the largely optimistic hope that people still exist who like reading stuff, and don't mouth the words as they're doing so."

Bell also had some cheeky words for News Corp's Rupert Murdoch, whose company are planning to soon launch their own iPad magazine, The Daily:

"As Project went on sale, reports emerged that Rupert Murdoch will soon launch an iPad-only newspaper called The Daily, after it came to him in a dream or something.

"Which, like all Murdoch products, shall doubtless enrich humankind with its impartial political analysis and rolling coverage of shit exploding. Also: hi-def nudity, fingers crossed. But the point stands: the irascible Aussie despot doesn't throw his corked hat into the cyber ring until he's sure of a market. Apart from the Times paywall, maybe. And MySpace. But, well, you know."

Click here to grab the free Project app reader, with each indiviual issue costing £1.79.

Scroll down for some preview pics of the magazine.

Richard Branson's Virgin are expected to unveil an iPad-only magazine in the next few days, according to the Financial Times. The digital magazine, rumoured to be called Project, will be in direct competition with The Daily, the newly announced iPad newspaper from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Set to be reaveled officially on November 30th, the Project will focus on culture, business and travel, whereas News Corp's The Daily will focus on news and world affairs.

Tablets have long been hailed as the saviour of publishing, offering unique incentives through the use of videos, graphics and interactivity to lure users into paying for digital news. Please use the link to reference this article.

Edward Hill-Wood, analyst at Morgan Stanley, said tablets could be "transformational" for the publishing industry.

"Tablets are different because the consumer feels there is a benefit, they feel that the product is good and gives them the sense of ownership which they don't have online," he said.

"There is no question people want to read newspapers on iPads, the question is how much people will pay for them. They will pay more than perhaps people thought they would, but it's still very niche."

Three Mobile Broadband users will today be offered free subscriptions to The Times newspaper's raft of web content.

Now sitting behind a paywall, Three Mobile Broadband subscribers will get three months free access to the news sites, including the Sunday Times and iPad app.

Three's Head of Customer Propositions Mobile Broadband, Alys Mathew spoke of the new deal, "As more people consume news online, a partnership with The Times is a perfect offer for our mobile broadband customers. Three's network has over 97% population coverage for 3G services, so we're happy to expand the reach of The Times online readership across the country to more mobile devices."

Once your three month free subscription is up, PAYG users can continue reading providing they top up within 30 days, while contract users will ahve to cough up £2 a week.

Paid content. It's the future, or so Rupert Murdoch thinks, and he might well be right. Content is the lifeblood of the Internet -- without it, it'd be little more than a place to chat and buy stuff.

Most people spend the majority of their time on the web consuming content. And they've been used to gorging on it for free, for a long time. The free content model has kind of worked. At least it did while we were enjoying the economic equivalent of a big fat money binge. But for a model to be truly viable it has to work in the bad times as well.

The main problem has been ad-revenue -- turning UVs into £££s (or $$$s or €€€s or whatever). Since the dawn of online advertising there has been a bizarre attitude among advertisers who've stubbornly refused to treat online advertising with the same credence as print, and maybe, initially that conviction was right. Buying ad-space in a paper, buys with it the authority and credibility of the paper.

Since then though attitudes have changed, online has began acquire the same credence as print, and in many places has surpassed it. This is in part due to the nature of the medium itself. Whereas respect for print was based on a long-standing sense of authority and space -- the news almost seemed like it belonged to the papers. The Internet's authority comes from its inherent immediacy.

And yet, the advertisers' attitude remain. It costs roughly eight times as much to buy ad-space in a paper with a circulation of 200,000 as opposed to a website with the same UVs, despite the former having the innate ability to direct traffic, and judge pick-up.

Nonetheless the problem remains -- how do you to monitise content?

None of the advertising models work on a full-scale. Sure maybe Adsense will work for a golf blog, or Amazon Associates will work for a photography tips website, but neither are going to provide the type of long-term sustainable revenue streams larger, professional media networks recquire to build the premium content that they believe sets them apart.

That's why some sites are making the first forays into the world of paid content. It's a term we're all used to, it's been batted around since the Internet really got going, but what are the models -- how could it really be done? We're going to give you the quick low-down on the current models people are flapping their gums about.

1. The Paywall
In this instance, all the content belonging to a website is protected behind a paid-for login. The Times and The Times on Sunday are the newest iterations of this fairly conventional model, based on a print style subscription-esque policy. The only really variations come on the different levels of subscriptions, tailored to your content desires.
Positive: It works (though with varying success). 50% of the Wall Street Journal's revenue comes from subscriptions while Murdoch and industry experts were hopeful for a good pick-up when The Times disapeared behind it's paywall.
Negative: It's mainly how inflexible and badly implemented they are. The Times for example, say you're not down with their politics coverage, but you like their Sports, well it's looks like you won't be able to pick and choose the content you want. It's all or nothing. Journos at the New York Times successfully lobbied to bring down their paywall saying they felt removed from the broader public conversation. Traffic streams such as social bookmarking, search engines, and link swapping, are abandoned for cold hard cash.

2. The Payfence or Metred access
it's like a paywall only it's fence, you know, because you can see over it -- metaphorically speaking. There is a certain amount of free content a month but once you've hit that wall, you gots to pay up -- sucker. This can be done as a flat-rate or in terms of micropayments -- little pocket-sized nuggets of cash you exchange for words about news.
Positive: It doesn't whip you, lock, stock and barrel out of the social content shareosphere and your content still turns up in searches, thus your ad-revenues don't take quite the beating they would with the paywall.
Negative: There isn't the same take-up in terms of subscribers as the imperitive isn't there. It's a pain in the arse to implamenet and measure and is even harder now in terms of mobile internet and WiFi hot spots.

3. Micropayments
Consider micropayments the pay-as-you-go model of paid content. It's ideal because it doesn't take your site out of the shareosphere, nor does it hit your ads-revenue in the same wall as the payfence or paywall models do. Paypal is working on a universal model, and there is talking of browser integration, possibly with some sort of buy button and notifications as to your running content bill.
Positive: A universal standard model with browser integration and the ability to stratify content pricing that doesn't take content out of the shareosphere or destroy ad-revenue in quite the same way as a paywall.
Negative: A poorly implemented, overpriced system has the potential to put people off paid content for ever. The thought of a content bill on top of already disproportional ISP bills isn't going to be a vote winner.

4. Pay to talk
As pioneered by Emap, the pay-to-talk model, allows user to see news and articles for free while charging for use of web tools, forums, comments etc.. It has proved to be a viable model for niche sites and some academic databases though it would seem unlikely to work in a mainstream context.
Positive: Proved to work. Free news drives traffic to whom the premium features can be promoted. Has long-operated on specialist sites.
Negative: Adopters may be accused of pricing people out of the conversation -- something that is seriously sociologically problematic, and really quite wrong.

NME and BlackBerry are to team up on a new social network. Breakthrough will be primarily aimed at musicians and music fans, allowing users to upload music and videos onto a network teeming with music aficionados.

Uploaded music will also have a chance of being featured in the coveted NME magazine itself, as well as offering opportunities for bands to play at high-profile shows such as the Lovebox festival in London.

David Moynihan, NME.COM editor, said: "NME Breakthrough supported by Blackberry is a step for us in providing a channel for artists and our users to connect with each other. Our website and magazine play a key role in keeping our audience informed with the latest news and expert reviews, and this new social networking platform is giving our users direct interaction with bands.

"It also acts as an important medium for bands to listen to what their fans want, through a simple rating feature. In addition, we are going to offer amazing opportunities on the site; the rewarded artists will perform at an NME Radar event as well as a key festival this summer."

With NME's cool-seal of approval lending the network some credibility and direct access to key music journos, Breakthrough could be an up-and-coming artists best shot at stardom.

Check it out here.

The 2010 General Election is almost upon us, and after months of long, hard campaigning up and down the streets of Britain, it's turned out to be pretty riveting, nail-biting stuff. A real three-horse race for the first time in over 50 years, it's really going down to the wire. Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg; it's all up for grabs and it's still anyone's game.

Here then, is Tech Digest's guide to the General Election in 12 YouTube videos.

The First Election Debate

The race for Number 10 may have been running for months, but it was the first televised debate between Labour Leader Gordon Brown, Tory David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg that really saw the election go up a gear. All candidates looked visibly nervous, but it was one of the most accessible formats with which to help the public form their opinions before voting, attracting around 9.4 million viewers.

Cleggmania!

After a sterling effort in the first Election Debate, the Liberal Democrats had their first vote of confidence from the public in an incredibly long time. From Nick Clegg Who? to Cleggmania overnight, Clegg struck a chord with a nation increasingly disillusioned by the governments of the two "old guard" parties.

David Cameron egged

David Cameron has been knocking "Broken Britain" right the way through his election campaign, with his views on hoodied youths marginalising younger voters up and down the country. Tired of being tarred by Cameron's brush of generalisations, an angry hoody eggs David Cameron during a visit to a college. More ammunition for Cameron showing ASBO land at its worst, or an example of a youth fed up with being unfairly labelled as one of a nationwide epidemic of broken moral values? You decide.

Gordon Brown and "Bigotgate"

If there was one FAIL moment throughout the whole of the campaign, it undeniably has to be Gordon Brown and "Bigotgate". After a seemingly pleasant chat with loyal Labour supporter Gillian Duffy, Brown, believing to be out of earshot and off camera as he drove away from his tour of Rochdale, described the voter as a "bigoted woman" into a lapel-mic, and into wringing hands of the media. Brown quite valiantly returned and apologised at length (an apology Duffy accepted), but for many the damage was already done.

David Cameron "The Common People"

With over 313,000 views David Cameron's take on Pulp's classic Common People anthem is the most hilarious viral the 2010 general election has produced. Giving an insight into his privileged background and rise to Tory power, the song is a satirical warning against Cameron's policies, reminding viewers of the Thatcher-era problems re-electing a Conservative government could bring.

General Election 2010: Hang Parliament!

With this election closer to being a three-horse race than any other in history, there's the very real possibility of a hung Parliament as the end result. The Guardian's John Harris talks the pros and cons of this potential outcome, and the need for electoral reform.

Eddie Izzard and Brilliant Britain

Did you know that gender-bending comedian Eddie Izzard recently completed a run around Britain? Well if you didn't, now you do. Far from seeing it as the "Broken Britain" the Conservatives saw, Izzard here waxes lyrical on all the wonderful people he met, and the positive changes he saw that a Labour government had brought to many areas.

Nick Clegg's Fault

Nick Clegg's Election campaign success took most of the country by surpise, and none more so than the traditional media outlets, many of whom had pledged allegiance to the Tories. A quick and ill-considered media backlash against Clegg ensued, with some very unfair and ridiculous results. If the Daily Mail could have blamed cancer on Clegg, they would have.

And so the Twitter hashtag #nickcleggsfault was born, quickly attributing all the world's ills to the Liberal Democrat leader with comical results.

This clever news skit sums up the "Nick Clegg's Fault" trend with aplomb.

Paxman nailed by Plaid Cymru economist

A little removed from the General Election campaign trail, here is a great video of Newsnight stalwart Jeremy Paxman getting a right rollicking from Plaid Cymru's economic adviser, Eurfyl ap Gwilym.

Arguing over the finer points of the redistribution of Welsh taxes, the usually steadfast Paxman gets rather flustered when he fails to find the figures backing up his argument. Great, heated stuff.

Leaders' Wives

More-so than any other Election campaign, the wives of the party leaders have been thrust into the media spotlight. From Sarah Brown's Twitter feed to Samantha Cameron's perfectly timed conception, they've been integral on the trail pretty much every step of the way. This little sketch rips into all three, including Nick Clegg's mysteriously elusive with Miriam.

David Cameron exposed

Classic Armando Ianucci here in this clip from Time Trumpet. David Cameron's suspect PR techniques are laid bare in this scathing deconstruction of the Tory leader in an alternate reality in which he's already in Number 10. The actor playing Alastair Campbell deserves a medal.

May 3rd: Gordon Brown hits his stride

It's been a long time coming, but Gordon Brown really came out fighting yesterday, speaking at a Citizens UK event. A really impassioned speech, touching on everything from the civil rights movement to Brown's own humble beginnings as a church minister's son, it was both more confident and more well received than any event held by Brown's rivals.

Brown's beginning to look like a real leader now, and it'll be interesting to see if this final push will be enough for him to retain office.