Bug Editorial, headquartered in New York, is about to go bicoastal. The company, headed by editor/owner Andre Betz, is slated to open a full service Santa Monica facility in early spring.
Editor Lucas Spaulding, who joined Bug in fall 2005, will work out of the new Santa Monica operation. He and the entire Bug roster of editors will be available to cut out of both company offices. In addition to Betz and Spaulding, that lineup includes editors Adam Jenkins and Josh Towvim.
Spaulding–whose recent editing credits include spots for FedEx, Coca-Cola, Burger King, K-Mart, E*Trade and Miller Brewing–also has an ad agency pedigree. He began his career as an agency producer at what was then Hal Riney & Partners (now Publicis & Hal Riney), San Francisco. He then joined MacKenzie Cutler, New York, as an assistant editor, becoming a full-fledged editor there in ’00. Spaulding moved over to bicoastal Cosmo Street in ’03. Cosmo Street was his roost prior to Bug.
Among Spaulding’s other ad endeavors over the years include work for such clients as Heineken, New York Sports Clubs, Mercedes-Benz and Snickers.
Meanwhile Arrow Kruse is coming aboard as executive producer of Bug, Santa Monica. His Bug exec producer counterpart on the East Coast is Jane Weintraub. Kruse was most recently freelance producing for agencies Deutsch and Berlin Cameron United, both in New York. Among his freelance assignments were commercials for Samsung, Coca-Cola, Coors Light and Boost Mobile.
Prior to freelancing, Kruse was head of production at Amster Yard, New York. Earlier he served as a broadcast producer at Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More