Results matching “how google is a”

20 Minutes, the French free daily, will undergo a makeover this November.

The newspaper will create more space for photos and change the font. It will not reduce the editorial content. Management wants to make the newspaper more visual, spacious, and clearer. These changes at the newspaper have been in the pipeline for sometime.

The Editor-in-Chief, Johan Hufnagel, of 20Minutes.fr was fired recently due to a difference of opinion with the Editor-In-Chief of the print edition, Corinne Sorin. 20 Minutes President France, Pierre-Jean Bozo, believes there cannot be two Editors-in-Chief at the publication.  This action provoked a five-day strike at the website editing department in August. Negotiations are ongoing at the newspaper.

Source: AFP via IFRA Executive News

Google is dropping a section of the licensing agreement for the new Chrome browser after complaints.

Google reported yesterday that it is removing the section that gave the company, "a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through" the new browser.

Shortly after Chrome was launched users raised concerns about the language in the copyright. Some critics said the language would allow Google to use any Web content displayed in Chrome without copyright permission.

Google has indicated that this is a misunderstanding, and that it simply borrowed language from other products, "in order to keep things simple for our users," when it inserted the copyright provision in the Chrome license.

Source: PC World

Google unveiled a new Web browser on Tuesday, with which it hopes to lure users away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Google's Chrome browser, launched just a week after Microsoft presented an updated version of Internet Explorer, is designed to be faster, easier, more stable and more secure. This is supposed to aid users who use the Web to run complex applications, such as watching videos and running sophisticated programs that were once housed exclusively within a PC's hard drive.

The Chrome browser has a single box to type in keywords and Internet addresses. It's designed with "tabs" at the top of the page that access individual Web sites independently, so if one stalls it does not cause the others to crash. Furthermore, like the new version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, it offers an "incognito" feature that lets users surf online without storing cookies or a history of which sites they visited.

Source: MercuryNews.com via IFRA Executive News Service

Google reports that it is launching Chrome, an open source web browser that will be competing with Internet Explorer and Firefox. Chrome would be "lightweight" and "fast" so as to adapt to modern web applications that rely on multimedia and graphics, reports the European Journalism Centre.

The Onion, a "fake news" source, announces the launch of Decider, a serious local entertainment website featuring interviews, event information and restaurant reviews, writes Tech Crunch. The site's content will focus on the Chicago area, although more cities are planned to be included soon.  

Decider"s "clean" interface will use Google Maps to locate reviewed restaurants and provide a calendar showing future events. "Regular" editorial content would be accompanied by users' own reviews and comments, reports Tech Crunch.

The Onion previously included "legitimate" local reviews and event calendars. While the site may be known for its satirical news content, Decider will be more sober.

Tech Crunch suggests that Decider would bee in competition with sites like CitySearch and Yelp, although it may "do just fine" as an expansion of The Onion's newspaper.

Source: Tech Crunch

Prominent French daily regional newspaper Sud Ouest reports that it intends to re-launch its print edition in mid-November, focusing more on reader's needs, whether they are from Bordeaux or the nearby region, says Patrick Venries, the paper's information director.

The revamp will make Sud Ouest more "coherent", "logical", well-organized", "well-sequenced" and give it a stronger anchor to the region, says assistant editor Francis Dupuy, who will be in charge of the development at Sud Ouest starting from January 1 next year.

The tabloid format will remain the same but the logo will be squeezed into two lines to form a square on the top left in order to have a more organized frontpage. The re-designed paper will also have more content dedicated to leisure activities.

The makeover is led by the Scottish Palmer Watson, who also helped re-design the Spanish daily El Pais and the French daily Le Monde.

Source: AFP

Yahoo News Japan reports it has now joined the likes of Wikipedia and Google's Knol in offering user-generated content in its "Editable related section", allowing other readers to suggest and edit material using their "expert knowledge", reports the European Journalism Centre.

The sources may be outside of Yahoo and may even be in other languages. However, Yahoo's influence in Japan implies that the majority of referenced content "is its own anyway".

The way in which Yahoo Japan differs from its US counterparts is that user editors have to apply for the non-paid position and take a test to distinguish the "sheep" from the "goats".

Japan's Yahoo only retains the name in common with US Yahoo.

Source: European Journalism Centre, Tech Radar

See also:

Yahoo! aims to be "number one" independent news source
Opinion: Is Google closer to becoming a media company after releasing Knol
Knol could learn from predecessors

Yahoo! News may be considered as a news organization, according to Jessica Barron, director of editorial programming. Unlike online news outlets that aggregate news content from the Web, Yahoo! is not only investing in its own journalists but is also signing agreements with wire services and "traditional" sources.

"Our aim is to reach these bigger names and use our reporting talent to break news. We are really going for the kinds of questions that will make news," said Barron."We have been doing a lot of original reporting and we are going to be doing a lot more."

The original reporting she refers to include interviews with South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, US leader George W. Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Yahoo!'s global audience of 500 million helps to formulate its news judgement, since the outlet pays attention to what stories get most traffic. According to Barron, online readers have shown that they are interested in both hard facts and the human value of stories.

Barron intends to make Yahoo! the premier independent online news source.

Source: AFP through IFRA Executive News Service

NewsCred, a news aggregator site that ranks the credibility of online news stories, launches in a beta. The site lets users gauge a story, its author and the publication's credibility and then directs it towards an algorithm that decides the most "prominent headlines", according to Media Channel.

NewsCred was established following the increase in digital alternative news sources as well as a reaction to a study that found that less than a fifth of Americans believe what is written in news articles, reported Journalism.co.uk.

Google will set up a blog headquarters for bloggers who will be covering the Democratic convention in Denver next week, as well as for the Republican convention next month.

The move shows the development of new media, as Google competes with other well-established media outlets by providing users with the chance to use its YouTube site as well as other social media services in order to report on political events.

Around 500 bloggers paid US$ 100 to be able to access the "Big Tent" blogging facility, reports European Journalism Centre.

Source: European Journalism Centre

US broadcaster NBC reports "phenomenal" ratings for its multimedia coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with Alan Wurtzel, research president for NBC Universal, saying the broadcaster has been "stunned" by the popularity of its mobile content.

On 8 August, 210,333 people accessed the NBC mobile service, but by Monday this had more than doubled to 476,062. "These Olympics are influencing how people are using new technology," Wurtzel said. "Half of the people viewing on mobile are using it for the first time. After the Olympics, it will be interesting if these habits become part of their behaviour."

NBC has been using a new measurement system to combine viewing figures across all media outlets.

The NBC website saw unique users increase from 4.2 million on 8 August, the first day of the games, to 7.8 million on Monday, August 11, when viewers wanted to replay Phelps' US swimming victory. NBC recorded 1.7 million downloads of the final 4x100 relay final.

Wurtzel said NBC had feared that online content would negatively impact its TV audience share, thereby hitting its most lucrative advertising. However, this has not been the case. NBC's research showed that just 0.2% of its audience used the web exclusively.

"The internet hardly cannibalises - it actually fuels interest," said Wurzel. He went on to say that half the online viewers were watching events they had missed and about 40% wanted to see replays.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

See also:

Media companies reporting the Olympics, Google launches online tool

Google offers the most satisfying online experience when compared to other portals, online news outlets and search engines, according to a University of Michigan report tthat studied customer satisfaction in the US.

The report suggested that news sites might need to face the challenge of becoming destinations on their own, instead of having users directed through search engines or portals.

Google's rating jumped by 10% to 86 since last year, while Yahoo's fell by 3% to 77. Meanwhile, NYT.com and USAToday.com both scored high in the category of news and information sources, having a 2.7% (75) and 1.4% (73) surge in their ranks year-on-year, respectively.

Local and regional newspapers' sites topped the list with a rating of 76. However, the study pointed out that major outlets "have not been able to distinguish themselves as leaders."

Source: Editor and Publisher

The biennial Pew Research Center has revealed in its report that Yahoo, MSN and CNN are the three most popular web news destinations.

Traditional media brands are still favoured, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic and the BBC, the Pew survey of 3,600 adults found. But only 47% watch TV news on an average day.

Users gave many of the leading mainstream media websites low credibility ratings. Only 6% said the Huffington Post was very highly credible and just 13% said the same of Google News, which aggregates news from mainstream news organisations.

The report presents a picture of a steady decline in the US newspaper industry, with the percentage of Americans who regularly read print titles falling from 58% in 1993 to 34% in 2008.

"For more than a decade, the audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined, as the number of people getting news online has surged," said the Pew report.

15% of Americans have a smart phone, such as an iPhone or a Blackberry. More than a third of the owners of these devices (37%) say they get news from their phones.

The report highlights the changing news audiences, describing 13% of the US public as "net newsers" - web users under 35 who read more political blogs than watch national news coverage, rely heavily on web-based news during the day and are interested in technology and technology news.

Net newsers are generally wealthy and 80% are graduates, making them a highly desirable demographic for advertisers.

The research also found that the proportion of young people in the US getting no daily news has increased from 25% in 1998 to 34%, with only 10% of people using social networking sites for their news.

Source: Guardian.co.uk and Pew Research Center

Four out of the five online news sources that experienced the largest increase in unique users since July 2007 year-on-year were newspaper Web sites, according to a Nielsen Online study which tracked 30 current and global news outlets.

New York Daily News was the biggest increase in unique users, growing by 66% to 4.3 million, despite ranking No.29 on the list. Cox Newspapers' unique users rose by 57% to 5.8 million. Advance's papers grew by 42% to 8 million unique users whereas New York Times rose by 38% to 19.5 million.

MSNBC had the highest number of uniques, having increades by 44% to 37.5 million.

Gannett papers had a 4% decline to 13.2 million uniques. USA Today fell by 2% to 10.4 million and The Washington Post decreased by 2% to 8.9 million.

Editor and Publisher provide a list of the Top 30 Online Current Events & Global News Destinations for last month, compared to July 2007:

Media Oulet - July '08 Unique Audience (000) - July '07 Unique Audience (000)

MSNBC Digital Network -- 37,516 -- 26,015
Yahoo! News -- 35,225 -- 32,674
CNN Digital Network -- 32,977 -- 29,757
AOL News -- 22,010 -- 23,103
NYTimes.com -- 19,513 -- 14,149

Tribune Newspapers -- 16,177 -- 12,218
ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 13,534 -- 9,876
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 13,254 -- 13,812
Fox News Digital Network -- 11,540 -- 9,343
Google News -- 10,776 -- 8,973

USATODAY.com -- 10,404 -- 10,611
McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 10,380 -- 8,338
CBS News Digital Network -- 9,197 -- 9,203
WorldNow -- 9,070 -- 7,604
washingtonpost.com -- 8,935 --- 9,157

Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 8,225 -- 7,596
Advance Internet -- 8,044 -- 5,648
MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 7,574 -- 6,843
Topix -- 6,229 -- 5,949
Cox Newspapers -- 5,842 -- 3,723

Slate -- 5,763 -- 4,875
IB Websites -- 5,633 -- 6,202
BBC News -- 5,253 -- 6,408
Gannett Broadcasting -- 5,010 -- 3,893
Fox Television Stations -- 4,940 -- 4,550

New York Post Holdings -- 4,937 -- 3,952
Boston.com -- 4,891 -- 4,029
MailOnline -- 4,645 -- 4,137
Daily News Online Edition -- 4,301 -- 2,586
NPR -- 4,282 -- 3,327

Source: Editor and Publisher