Results matching “social environm”

As far as niches go, mothers represent one of advertisers' most coveted groups. Now, some newspapers are joining the chase.

Newspaper companies, including the New York Times Co., Journal Communication, and Gannett, are launching hyperlocal websites geared toward mothers. Billed as community centers, the sites hope to attract mothers looking to review restaurants, arrange play dates, or just meet other mothers.

"They're [mothers] using the Internet to reconstitute the social capital that would come from physical interaction in a dense urban environment," said Clay Shirky, an Internet analyst and adviser to MeetUp Inc., a social networking business.

For advertisers, the appeal of these sites is enormous. With such an active core - 86 percent of moms go online at least once a month - advertisers are almost guaranteed results. But the market for mom sites is crowded; similar ventures (see BabyCenter or CafeMom) already exist.

Newspapers, however, show no signs of conceding the market to pre-existing competition. Gannett has gradually increased the number of its mom sites, and hopes to unify them soon into a nationwide network; the Boston Globe, owned by the NYT, released BoMoms.com last month; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Dayton Daily News are creating similar sites.

As the competition stiffens, the key to success for mom sites, says Stacy DeBroff, founder of Mom Central, a marketing consulting firm, will be maintaining the sites' hyperlocal appeal.

"People in different cities are really looking for different kinds of information," Debroff said. "If moms don't sense the sites are truly localized, then they'll find another place that is."

Source: Wall Street Journal, New York Times

In this short interview with Gianni Valenti, deputy editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, the world's largest 'sports' newspaper and leading daily in Italy, he explains how the paper has balanced its focus on sports with coverage of the protests against China and the Olympic Games in general.

Should sports sections concentrate on the actual events, and leave the rest to the politics desk? Can they really get away without putting sports into context?

As a newspaper focused on sports, Gazzetta dello Sport evidently has vested interest in the upcoming Olympic Games. How have you balanced coverage of sports and of the protests?

Gazzetta dello Sport isn't only a sports newspaper anymore. It's a sports newspaper that includes a general news section. The paper naturally is in favor of the Olympic Games, but it has dedicated entire news pages to the events that took place in Paris when the Olympic torch went through.

For the last six months, many pages have gone to coverage of social, political and environmental issues in China. In preparation for the future, a team of reporters will be dedicated to covering social issues. But the Gazzetta will not make a distinction between sports and social issues and reporters from both desks will collaborate.

Was the Gazzetta's coverage of the protests factual or did the newspaper take a stance?

The paper has special correspondents covering the International Olympic Committee and China. Its coverage remained factual on those aspects and the exactions in Tibet. Regarding the Olympic Torch, the Gazzetta took position, to an extent, arguing that the torch should pursue its route throughout the world. In practice, the Gazzetta did 'equidistant journalism' about the protests, recapping both the pros and cons.

After the events in Paris and London, there was lots of debate online. The Gazzetta created forums to host these discussions, but it didn't advocate a particular political stance for Italy - this was at the time of general elections in Italy.

However, now that the government is in place, and when a real debate will be engaged about whether Berlusconi should go to the Olympic Games or boycott them, then the newspaper will take a side - which is yet to be determined. But I predict that most political leaders will end up going.

How substantial will be Gazzetta Dello Sport's coverage of the Olympic Games?

We will have 23 journalists who will travel there. It will be the biggest coverage the paper has ever given to the Olympic Games, and it will involve collaboration between both print and online.

Source: Gianni Valenti, deputy editor Gazzetta dello Sport

Through social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, people can keep updated with their friends by posting messages back and forth or by checking status updates. But imagine if the social networking world became 3-D. Based in Menlo Park, California, Vivaty has been creating 3-D virtual chat rooms that people can add to sites where they spend most of their Internet time.

Users will choose pre-existing avatars to represent themselves as they do on services such as Second Life, and navigate through a gothic urban warehouse, seaside villa, or another of the dozen environments. Users will also be able to create their own environment wherever HTML code can be imbedded. Vivaty plans on allowing companies to construct their own virtual rooms with their own décor and messages.

In this virtual space, users may see Facebook photos hanging from walls or a YouTube video playing on a TV. A maximum of 15 users can enter the same room at the same time for "text-based live socializing." This technology does not require downloading any programs.

"We want to take all your content on the Web and move it to a more visually immersive, immediate experience," said Keith McCurdy, Chief Executive at Vivaty and a former Vice President at the big game maker Electronic Arts.

Vivaty has been working on its technology for three years, and this week it will launch a private test period on Facebook.

If this technology is successful, newspapers will also have the opportunity to integrate itself into these 3-D environments, either creating their own spaces or displaying headlines within other environments.

Source: The New York Times

What can readers do when they discard their free papers? Tossing them in a recycling bin is one solution. Building a house is another.

Earlier this year, London's freesheets began to actively participate in recycling efforts, forced by a Westminster Council decision last year.

A Londoner found another way to express her annoyance with the amount of waste caused by freesheets - and waste in general.

Karen Janody, along with colleagues Gillian McIver and Sumer Erek, are building the skeleton of the Newspaper House in East London with free newspapers, between March 3 and March 8. The house is located in Gillet Square Hackney.

Thanks a £15,000 contribution from the arts and social change Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, this should be the first construction of several, in cities across the UK.

The house will be dismantled afterwards to be sent to recycling.

"I am confident the project will be a big hit with the public and hope it will be able to tour the UK, involving the public and making a contribution to environmental awareness in a truly adventurous way," said Gulbenkian director Andrew Barnett.

Source: The New Zealand Herald

The Associated Newspapers' Metro has announced the launch of its first mobile service and two new online portals.

User-generated content is described by SFWeekly.com’s Matt Smith as “getting people to write for free.” UGC blogs, which are usually not edited, could cause more problems for newspapers than they are worth.

Paul Bradshaw of The Online Journalism Blog (OJB) and creator of the “news diamond,” which rethinks the editorial newsroom process in terms of speed and depth, has now come up with what a 21st century newsroom does after a story is published.

The 2007 winners for the first edition of the Social Environmental Responsibility World Journalism Prize, jointly organized by the World Forum de Lille and the World Editors Forum, have been announced.

Veosearch, a new search engine, offers to redistribute 50% of its ad revenues – generated by users’ searches – to agencies promoting social and environmental development.

On September 24, 2007, the Social and Environmental Responsibility World Forum, in partnership with the World Editors Forum, will name the three top articles pertaining to social and environmental responsibility around the world. 

On September 24, 2007, the Social and Environmental Responsibility World Forum, in partnership with the World Editors Forum, will name the three top articles pertaining to social and environmental responsibility around the world. 

On September 24, 2007, the Social and Environmental Responsibility World Forum, in partnership with the World Editors Forum, will name the three top articles pertaining to social and environmental responsibility around the world. 

As Earth Day approaches, several US newspapers and publications have launched environmentally-friendly websites and features. As Green increasingly becomes an issue for investors and companies, newspapers seem to be tapping into the market.

Friday 24^th of November, a good 80 Dutch and Flemish editors and researchers gathered in the European Journalism Centre, Maastricht, Netherlands, to assess and discuss several prototypes of novel newspaper products or services. All are web-based one way or another, and ready for the Web 2.0 publishing environments. The in total six demonstrators feature remote reporting tools, video content based on strategic alliances with non-journalistic partners, e-paper trials and online reader communities. Most were developed in close cooperation with specialised R&D centres. Together, the prototypes reveal the contours of the future electronic newspaper.
Al least half of the demonstrators will make it to real applications, the other are subject to further testing in living lab conditions.
General conclusion of the event: we need further experimentation to capture the essence of digital presence. In the conference report, the applications as well as the editors’ appraisal are described more in detail.

While Bertrand is off basking in the glorious Dubai sun at the Middle East Publishing Conference, I've been asked to post some of the conference's developments from here in dreary old Paris. Here's a press release talking about press freedom in the Middle East.

While Bertrand is off basking in the glorious Dubai sun at the Middle East Publishing Conference, I've been asked to post some of the conference's developments from here in dreary old Paris. Here's a press release talking about press freedom in the Middle East.

Here, in totality, is an important and creative piece about media ethics and black Africa written by Claude-Jean Bertrand, the editor of presscouncils.org. It reminds us all that our responsibility toward journalistic ethics extends past recent plagiarism and fabrication scandals, and proposes a sort of "adopt-a-newspaper" program between newspapers in the developed world and in Africa: "On Press Freedom Day (May 10), economist Amartya Sen repeated that there are no famines in democracies with press freedom. May I add no genocides either and few civil wars or mass epidemics ? News media in emerging democracies can help avoid such disasters. And news media in established democracies should help their less fortunate brethren...

Technology is driving or enabling profound changes in how individuals access, assess and respond to information. These changes, and emerging technologies that will propel them further, are visible now.
We see the mobile lifestyle becoming dominant in Asia and Northern Europe; around the world we see online news, social networks, blogs and other forms of participatory journalism challenging newspapers, television and all forms of traditional media – both for revenue and for audience time and influence on consumer purchasing decisions.