Recently by Evelina Myrbäck

Six newspaper groups needing a new content management system (CMS) have become one multimedia group with one integrated newroom: Welt Online. Oliver Michalski, Deputy Editor in Chief of Die Welt, talked about the advantages and disadvantages of their choice, EScenic, at the 15th World Editors Forum.

Welt Online is now the fastest growing online newspaper in Germany. All decisions are made in their newsroom, with the editors working hand in hand. The online editors are free to decide when to publish material on the site, a power that allows news to appear online days before it is printed.

Welt online needed a CMS that allowed them to publish video pods, photo galleries etc. in a fast and easy way. They chose EScenic, and now have 15 months of experience with it. These are the advantages and disadvantages of ESenic according to Welt Online:

Advantages:
High performance
Easy and flexible development and backend
Fast publishing
Separate content and design
Support for every type of media

Disadvantages:
Problem with archive
Weak social media
Easy I/O

The UK's Trinity Mirror PLC has successfully trained its staff in multimedia, explained Neil Benson, Trinity PLC's Editorial Director, at The 15th World Editors Forum.

Multimedia knowledge at Trinity Mirror was, according to Neil Benson, patchy. They needed quick solutions and had no time to study the experiments of other newsrooms. They decided they needed external experts since they didn't have the knowledge within the company. Thus, the company decided to work with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN).

The staff was split in three groups. The first was reporters and photographers. Many of the younger reporters could easily handle the new technique, but Trinity Mirror had to get all of the others up to speed. Their aim was not to train their staff in an academic way, they wanted it to be hands on, quick and effective.

The second group consisted of desk heads and assistants, people who are highly influential and can push the multimedia idea every day in the newsroom. Neil Benson said this is a group that still needs quite a lot of work.

The third group was a very crucial one: Deputy and assistant editors. They had to be given tool kits to be better leaders within the new multimedia paradigm. But the editors were not always happy to take part in the training, the solution to this problem was to have bimonthly forums where they invited challenging guests.

The editors are now responsible for different parts of the web page. There was also a multimedia blog created so the editors could share the ideas they'd picked up.

Trinity Mirror concentrates on seven main things in their staff training:
1. Strategic understanding
2. The management toolkit
3. Real world projects
4. Technology and applications
5. New ideas, new content
6. Confidence - (the editors have become more confident)
7. Influence - six delegates have been promoted to new multimedia roles after the training

The web community Oma Kaupunki offers a new way of being hyperlocal, explained Reeta Merilainen, Editor-in-Chief of Helsingin Sanomat, Finland, at the fourth session of the15th World Editors Forum:

Oma Kaupunki - My Own City - was launched last august. It is a local community and search engine based on information rather than interaction. It offers local information from municipalities and companies. Users are also able to rate companies, services, restaurants etc. You can reserve a table or link info about it to a friend. Oma Kaupunki also offers local news produced by journalists.

Merilainen believes there is huge potential in readers; they have a wealth of information. But Oma Kaupunkis problem is how to get more interaction and still maintain credibility. According to Merilainen it's been a lot of hard work. They have to "clean" and structure all the information and data, but she is very happy with the result. Reeta Merilainen claims they don't make a lot of money on Oma Kaupunki, but the future still looks bright.

So has it been worth all that hard work? Yes, says Reeta Merilainen. Oma Kaupunki is something that no one else can offer in the Helsinki region. It's a good way to create communities even by traditional media.

Oma Kaupunki has further development ahead including:
Neighbourhood groups
Votes on articles  
Hobby groups
Today's events
Going mobile
Expansion of database

Oma Kaupunki is also going from local to global, in the figurative sense. The hyperlocal project My Own World is under construction and will use the same platform as Oma Kaupunki. Merilainen thinks being hyperlocal is not only about geography but also about mental proximity.There will be no Ivory Towers but close encounters with readers both virtually and physically.

Oma Kaupunki is the brainchild of Finish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. It is the paper in Finland with 420 000 copies in circulation and 985 000 readers. 950 000 people consult the paper's website. Oma Kaupunki has been a large success in Finland with 60 000 unique visitors every week. The target is to get 100 000 unique visitors by the end of the year, a target Reeta Merilainen think will be met. 

Michael Cooper, Director of Advanced Reading Technologies at Microsoft, USA, presented his company's forays into mobile news and e-readers at the 15th World Editors Forum.

Cooper talked about how there are many people who now use their mobile phones and devices to read news and to get information. But for news publishers, the differences between the various types of devices are creating problems. For example a regular mobile phone has a small screen but the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle has large screens. Some have colour, some don't. There is a wide spectra of devices, each has their own way of displaying content. And the content the news editor is sending to the devices is not suited for all.

Microsoft's News Reader Starter Kit solves this problem. It allows publishers to send the same content to different mobile devices with minimal technical know-how. The NewsReader works automatically. Publishers simply add their logo and customize the designs. It is free and available for all publishers. The News Reader Starter Kit also means lower costs for news producers. Microsoft's aim is to deliver the best combined user experience on any device from an iPod to a Plasma TV.

Integrated newsrooms are a great hope for us and a great excitement, said Almar Latour, Managing Editor, wsj.com. Speaking at the 15th World Editors Forum, Latour said that the integrated newsroom at the famous Wall Street Journal has been an inspiration for its journalists. 

The Wall Street Journal started integrating its newsroom about twelve months ago, commencing a year of tremendous change. Since online editors and journalists were separate from print editors and journalists, they did not even know each other. Work was being duplicated and there was some competitive friction between the two newsrooms. The solution to these problems was an integrated newsroom.

Wall Street Journal editors now work side by side, creating a news factory. News move faster, there are fewer duplicated edits and print editors have started to gain online skills. There are new sections and more videos since the editors are thinking about the news online.

They focus their online attention on:
Videos
Images and photos
Infographics
Community Outreach
New Projects

The new online strategy has worked. The Wall Street Journal online's unique page views has doubled.

But Almar Latour says it has been a challenge to convince reporters to spend time on activities other than writing. Not only are many reporters and journalists devoted to the written word, producing videos etc., the online edition adds to their work load. One tool to convince their journalists about the advantages of posting stories online has been their Most Popular List. This is a list that shows how many people have read the story, watched the video etc., on the web site. Reporters can now actually see that their stories are read. This creates healthy competition among the reporters. They can see if they are in the top ten for example.

At the Wall Street Journal experimentation is welcome. Reporters are given cameras and are encouraged to do what they will with them. Failure is accepted: some things have worked, some haven't. But Latour sees much promise in the integrated newsroom. For example, many journalists have learned that video compliments the written word and offers a different way of telling a story.

Latour took the example of journalist Jeffrey Zaslow. He wrote a story about a teacher with terminal cancer whose last lecture was captured on video. Zaslow posted the edited video aside his written aritcle on the website. Mr Zaslow discovered that through the video he could connect to new people. He could show something that the written word could not. People started to link to the video and it got a lot of attention. Posting it on line also generated a lot of responses from viewers. The story was later turned into a web site and a book published in 29 languages.

Matha Stone, Director, SFN Project, World Association of Newspapers, gave a brief overlook on the Report on Global Impact and Digital Revenues at the Digital Media Round Table at the 61st World Newspaper Congress.

The advertisment market share for printed revenues is going down, and the internet is taking the market share. Internet advertisement is the big winner today and, according to Martha Stone, it will be so in the long run. Internet is much cheaper than print media, which makes it hard to compete with. So print media has to get online! The use of broadband is increasing so newspapers have to take advantage of that.

However, WAN's  Report on Global Impact and Digital Revenues shows that internet revenues are growing. Unfortunately they are not growing fast enough to make up for the loss in printed revenues.

The WAN Report also states that online revenue growth is the fastest and largest in North America.

The largest newspapers are still taking down more revenues, but local papers are increasing their revenues since local ads online are getting bigger.

JO Christian Oterhals, Head of Development at VG Multimedia & Chairman of the Board at Nettby Community AS, Norway, spoke about his companies' forays into social networking at the Annual Digital Media Round Table, a session at the 61st World Newspaper Congress.

Mr Richard Seyler Ling, Sociologist and Senior researcher, Telenor Research & Development, Norway talked about the new way we use mobile phones and how this opens up a new market for mobile advertisement at The Annual Digital Media Round Table, a session of the 61st World Newspaper Congress.

Over 90% of the Europeans have a mobile subscription. But more and more people in the developing world are using it. According to Richard Seyler Sing the developing world is on the move and that is where it happens!
 
Men talk longer than women but on the other hand it's teen girls who text message the most - up to 15-20 texts per day. As the girls get older the number of texts drop. So it's a teen thing!

Richard Seyler Ling has studied the social consequences of mobile phone usage. In the developing world it's a matter of basic connectivity. It makes a larger number of people able to use a phone than a landline ever did.

Mobile phones also change the way we look at telephone calls: now we call a person, not a place. It's individual addressability. Parents give mobile phones to their children so they can be accessible.

The young people of today have access to their friends in a way older generations never had. According to Richard Seyler Ling mobile phones generate social cohesion. It's the first technical device to do that.

Social rituals are holding people together, and mobile phones is no different. Our mobile usage create new social rituals. Although face to face communication is the number one thing to hold together social ties, mobile voice is in second place.

The industry of mobile advertising is still in its infancy. The money spent on that kind of commercial is still peanuts compared to the more traditional ways. But Infoma Telecoms and Media predicts the market for mobile ads will be 11.4 billion by 2011.That means in just over three years time the mobile ads market will grow fast!

There are different ways of mobile ads, for example:
-Push based text messages
-Click through web ads
-Ads for services (Get X free minutes on the internet if you look at this ad)

But the key is to make it not look like spam. For people to accept it it has to look like information - a good thing for the news business!

So far there are not many web capable mobile phones. But if you are to believe Richard Seyler Ling the market is out there.