August 2008 Archives

Internet users who downloaded podcasts to watch or listen to later increased from 12% to 19% since last year, according to a study by The Pew Internet and American Life Project. In early 2006, only 7% of Web users downloaded podcasts for later use.

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

Poynter journalist Steve Myers is using Twitter to cover the Republican and Democrat conventions this election season and he writes today about the various ways users can utilise Twitter to get the inside track on the conventions.

Myer has created a Twitter account called DNCjournalists (he is the early stages of establishing one for the Republicans, which will be called RNCjournalists), that will aggregate Twitter updates about the Democrats from other journalists at the conventions.

He also reports that C-SPAN's Republican and Democratic convention sites will display any Twitter updates (called "tweets") that contain the tags #DNC08 or #RNC08. All Twitter user can participate in the forum.

The National Press Club recently announced a Twitter training session and ended up training 29 people, some of whom will tweet from the conventions.

Journalists are using Twitter in a variety of ways, some are using it to push their stories and others use the service to comment on what's going on in the news or to seek comments on their work. Plus, they can simply use it to answer the question "What are you doing?"

Myers believes that this is one of the most interesting things about Twitter; he says that although the platform and the purpose seem to be quite limited, the service can be used a number of ways.

Source: Poynter Online

See also:

US: New media makes an impact at political conventions

Interview: Twitsms exploits gap in the market after Twitter axe SMS
 

The success of Brazilian newspapers may be a result of a growing economy that gave rise to better education and a middle class that wishes to belong to the "mainstream reading public", reports The Readership Institute (RI). Internet usage remains relatively low in the country, so Brazilians look to the daily papers, "their anchor to the world."

Over 18 million watched live events of the Olympic Games on TV websites or on Eurovision (the pan-European video portal) according to figures released by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

According to EurActiv.com this increase in viewers will make it necessary to update networks to satisfy surging demand.

The Beijing Games has seen about the largest online audience ever recorded for an Olympics at European level. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin attracted an audience of less than two million, an audience that was still higher than for the 2004 Games in Athens.

The EBU believe that the growing audience is due to increased Internet viewing options (120 million broadband video streams were offered by EBU members for the Beijing Olympics in comparison to 23 million for the Turin Winter Games). An EBU representative, it is also reflects a "rapidly increasing acceptance of these new distribution mechanisms, especially among younger audiences."

A typical user visited the EBU video portal for 30 minutes, watching on average five different live streams per visit.

Source: EurActiv.com

Since 2004, the number of new, "citizen-generated" media and reporters at the US political conventions has significantly increased. It has become more difficult to differentiate between independent bloggers and traditional ones as traditional media is adopting a "multi-platform" method, according to Media Shift's Mark Glaser.

Reuters announces that it is spreading out its mobile journalism to include coverage of the US political conventions, so that the event is captured from "the ground up" and through "unique perspectives" reports Journalism.co.uk.

Guardian.co.uk, News International, Associated Newspapers, Trinity Mirror, Telegraph Media Group, Bauer and ITV Sport have all signed up Perfrom, a company that specialises in "monetising sports and entertainment rights in digital media."

Perform is a sports video provider that provides publishers with an e-player to show sports highlights.

The embedded video widget shows sports video clips and a produced sports bulletin.

Sports copyright has emerged as a real battleground in recent years, with publishers, sports governing bodies and rights holders fighting for control of lucrative live coverage and highlights.

Source: Press Gazette

Boston.com, the online edition of The Boston Globe, intends to be more "neighborly" with its visitors by boosting its local presence through a number of social networking projects while focusing on publishing, aggregating and convening, reports NewsAndTech.com.

The site's convening tasks will be improved through the upgrading of the forum and commenting abilities for stories. Readers will be able to track other users' participation with more ease, according to NewsAndTech.com.

BoMoms, a section geared towards young mothers in the Boston area, is available with articles and forums on topics that may be of interest to them.

Boston.com's user-generated content and social networking plan also includes a deal with Good2Gether, a non-profit organization, which will link viewers with local non-profit associations.

"The whole area gives us a chance to provide a platform for cause-based marketing," said Bob Kempf, vice president of Boston.com. "We know that a lot of our major companies locally have cause-based marketing messages they want to get across."

A hyperlocal platform is planned to be launched before the end of 2008, featuring Wiki-based websites discussing a town's news and information, to be written by Globe writers and external contributors.

"Newspapers tend to take some of those separate brands and products and keep them isolated and not integrated with the core content experience," said Kempf. "We need to get that mix exactly right. I think isolating your user-generated content in one place makes for a difficult business and audience proposition."

Source: NewsAndTech.com through IFRA Executive News Service

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) reports a re-launch of IJNet.org, its online portal that links global journalists and media organizations through social networks, discussion spaces, forums and news about journalism.

The re-designed site will offer:

-Networking tools in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Persian and Arabic.
-The ability to create advanced profiles where work activity can be highlighted, news can be posted and other journalists or media outlets may be invited to join.
-Users can interact by joining discussions or posting on IJNet Answers.
-Users can search for each other by any information that is provided to a profile, such as an e-mail address or location.
-The Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) section that provides industry news

IJNet currently over 18,000 worldwide subscribers and receives around 20,000 unique visitors monthly.

Source: International Center for Journalists Press Release

The Press Association has undergone a senior management restructuring to reposition the agency for its increasingly digital future.

PA's focus today is as much about video as photographs and text, and the company needs to position itself as a versatile producer of content of all forms.

Tony Watson, the former Yorkshire Post editor who was promoted from his editor-in-chief role on Tuesday, said that while text, pictures and listings would remain a core function of PA, it expects customers to require more digital content in the future.

He told the Press Gazette in an interview: "Text and photos are still very much part of our proposition. But with the advent of broadband and the huge public uptake means the possibilities of online are so much greater than they were only a few years ago.

"You used to watch a video online, go away and make a cup of tea whilst it loaded. But it is so high-quality now that it's opened the possibility of integrating text, photos and video in a way that tells a story in the best possible way. It's not either/or, it's all of those things."

PA has hired three consultants as part of a government-backed knowledge transfer partnership with the London College of Communications; a two-year project to find commercial opportunities for original story-telling methods for the agency.

Source: Press Gazette

Earlier this year, UK paper the Daily Mail introduced its unlimited text messaging service MailTXT. The paper reports that new users will get to send 50 free international SMS messages if they sign up.   

MailTXT was launched in order to increase users on the Mail's mobile portal. Journalism.co.uk writes that the purpose of the new move is to "build a more interactive relationship with readers."

Internet users are charged for their network connection and a text message from one registered user to another costs 1.4 pence, whereas a message to a non-user costs 6.4 pence.

Users will receive 0.5 pence as "MailTXT Credit" each time a message is sent and received, and are urged to view Daily Mail material and special offers through their mobile phone.

The Mail said that tens of thousands of users have already signed up for the service.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Brazilian regional newspaper Correio da Bahia has announced a makeover last Wednesday that includes optimized graphics and better visual aspects, such as improved images and more color.

The re-designed paper also has a new price, a new motto ("What Bahia wants to know"), a new Berliner format and a new editorial formula that includes the sections "24 Hours", "More", "Life" and "Sports."

Source: Innovations in Newspapers through IFRA Executive News Service

Fairfax Media are planning to outsource much of the editorial production for its two flagship Melbourne and Sydney newspapers to a subsidiary of the Australian Associated Press, called Pagemasters.

Since last year Pagemasters has handled the bulk of rival newspaper group APN News & Media's sub-editing and design function in New Zealand. The hiring of Pagemasters is a key factor in Fairfax deceision this week to reduce headcount by 550.

Pagemasters will take over the production function for several Herald fixtures. According to a memo by Lloyd Whish-Wilson, Fairfax's chief executive for metropolitan publishing in NSW: "The layout and sub-editing of some sections and special reports will move to ... Pagemasters. This will enable us to reduce the current extensive reliance on casual editorial production staff."

Asked if Fairfax's Age and Sunday Age newspapers would follow the same Pagemasters route, Fairfax spokesman Bruce Wolpe said: "I don't have anything definitive."

Journalists at the paper said yesterday the outsourcing of production had created problems at other newspapers that had gone with Pagemaster due to loss of control and variable sub-editing quality

Fairfax owns 46 per cent of Pagemasters through its AAP stake.

Source: The Australian