Business

If you’ve been weighing up whether to go to the Guardian’s Mobile Business Summit on 19 November, knowing the list of speakers – and that Andreas Gal, director of research at Mozilla, is one of them – may help you make up your mind.

The Olympics provided a great deal of numbers – for instance, Britain came third in the medals table, with 65 over all, 29 of them gold – but did you know that the BBC’s coverage of the Games got 12 million views from mobile devices?

Demand for IT professionals from companies looking for contractors is surging, new figures reveal, as the pace of change in the sector accelerates.

Freelancers and other small businesses have so far enjoyed only a tiny share of the economic benefit of the London 2012 Olympic Games, new research suggests, prompting calls for many to take a more proactive approach.

In case you missed it, last week saw Zarin Patel, the BBC’s chief financial officer, standing up for the practice of paying freelancers through their own companies, rather than paying them directly.

According to Charles Wilson, CEO of Lovetts debt-recovery law firm, late payment has become a ‘badge of honour’ for British businesses, who are failing to see the knock-on effects stalling payments can have for the entire economy.

Freelancer.com, the world’s biggest online marketplace matching freelancers with potential employers, has bought Scriptlance, the Canadian firm which operates a similar business in its own market.

The fall in the unemployment rate seen over the past two months is directly linked to a sharp increase in the number of Britons who are now self-employed or freelancing, official data reveal.