Results matching “newspaper web portal col”

The launch of Economia e Financas, an Angolan state-owned economics weekly newspaper that is published by Edições Novembro-EP, may indicate that there is a growing interest in the Angolan economy, according to Manuel Miguel de Carvalho "Wadijimbi", Deputy Minister of Social Communication, reports AllAfrica.com.

According to AllAfrica.com, the paper, launched last Tuesday, will "help publicise locally and abroad the advances in agriculture, industry, expansion of the country's electric network and other achievements."

Around 10 contributors as well as some contributors will be writing for the paper. The first issue of Economia e Financas (to be published on August 29 with 20,000 copies) will be released as a special edition that will be given out for free to invitees.

José Ribeiro, the Director General of Edições Novembro-EP, suggests that the amelioration of the design and contents of the publisher's titles are part of an initiative by the Social Communication Ministry.

In 2007, the only daily in Angola was redesigned in order "to adjust it to the modern standards of the world journalism", according to AllAfrica.com.

De Carvalho pointed out that the Social Communication Ministry is optimizing its media outlets and that the Angola Press Agency is advancing its information services by launching an online portal that will provide "privileged" and "reliable" information, writes AllAfrica.com.

Agostinho Chitata, director of the newly launched Economia e Financas, is urging sources to cooperate with the media.

Source: AllAfrica.com through World News

Indiatimes.com has undergone a makeover after undertaking market research. The newspaper website will now prioritise entertainment content to appeal to its younger readers.

In an interview with afaqs!, Mohit Hira, director, Indiatimes.com, said, "From our own research and the traffic details on our site, we figured out that users look more for entertainment and leisure oriented content. So, we decided to bring more features-based content upfront. Indiatimes.com is targeted at young users and they look out for social networking, videos and community oriented features."

The news section, which was at the top of the page previously, is now located below a features-based section called Showcase, which is now at the top of the page.

The site has started aggregating video content from the video- sharing site, YouTube.com and news and entertainment videos sourced from Times Now and Zoom TV, respectively. Previously, the video section displayed news content.

Indiatimes.com, a portal owned by Times Internet has integrated its other sites with Indiatimes.com. Social networking site iTimes.com, automobile portal Zigwheels.com and the website for Virgin Radio have also been integrated with the portal. The level of integration for iTimes.com and Virgin Radio is limited as users are only directed to the home pages of iTimes.com and Virginradio.co.uk.

After revamping Indiatimes.com, Times Internet is getting ready to launch more websites. Hira says, "We have plans to launch a Gujarati website for the Gujarati edition of The Economic Times. We will also launch one or two Internet portals in a couple of months."

Newspaper Web sites designed for mobile phones may help in boosting local paper readership. Verve Wireless, which already provides mobile editions of The Associated Press and the McClatchy Company papers, is offering the technology to do that.

"It's important and smart for newspapers to get out in front on the mobile phenomenon and not make the mistake they made in waiting too long to embrace the Internet," said Greg Sterling, who analyzes the mobile Web for Opus Research.

Art Howe, Verve's chief executive, said that local news content would always be appealing to people, even if it isn't in print format. However, to be more functional, mobile paper sites "cannot be Internet lite", according to Howe.

The US currently has 95 million mobile Internet subscribers, reported The New York Times (NYT). The number of people who access the Web from their phones has nearly doubled to 40 million since 2006.

The most popular sites are, in descending order, portal sites, e-mail services and newspaper content such as weather, news, entertainment.

Verve offers tailored ads that target a given audience. However, not many advertisers are willing to pay for mobile ads, according to The NYT.

Source: The New York Times

French daily newspaper Le Figaro decided to celebrate its status as the premier online news source (3.173 million unique users in June) by reformatting its front page to resemble its Web version.

According to Figaro's chief editor Etienne Mougotte, the Web isn't a competitor for large papers like Le Figaro; it is an "important complement" to print editions.

The audience figures are reassuring the Figaro group, who decided to reinforce its status as an online news portal by engaging in a development scheme that focuses on the digital version of the paper over three years ago.

For the paper to remain loyal to its values, it has to enter the digital age with full force, said Mougotte.

Source: AFP

Nokia is teaming with two South African universities to sponsor a project in which students will create mobile journalism ('mojo') packages. Students at the University of Witwatersrand (UW) and CityVarsity will use 'mojo' broadcasting kits, featuring the Nokia N95 handset, to capture video, audio, and images.

"This is one of the first projects in the world to use mobile phones as the tools for gathering stories and as the platforms that the audience will watch them on," says Indra de Lanerolle, a lecturer at UW's journalism program.



The project began in mid-June and will run until October. Students are expected to produce new material at least once daily.

"The challenge we are setting our students is to use these great storytelling devices to produce content that their peers will want to watch and download," says de Lanerolle.

Related: The cost-efficiency of mobile journalism

Source: Sangonet, 24.com

Gannett Co. and New York Times (NYT) Co. both announced this week that their total revenues have dropped in May 2007, by about 10 percent and 6.6 percent respectively. Yahoo reports that ad revenues decreased in both cases and could not be compensated.

Gannett, operating some 85 US newspapers and 23 TV stations, said its advertising revenues fell by 14 percent from $404.9 million to $347.1 million since last year. Classified ad revenue dropped by 10 percent, retail ad revenue by 19 percent and real estate ad revenue by 31 percent.

Over the same period, the same trend occurs with the NYT and ad revenues cannot be counteracted by an increase in circulation revenue. Meanwhile, Internet revenue grew by 9 percent and Internet ad revenue augmented by 14 percent.

While Internet may be providing a new portal for ad revenues for newspaper and media, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report said that the "oft-reported death of traditional media remains greatly exaggerated."

Source: Yahoo

Newspaper Le Figaro and mobile phone service Orange have partnered to offer a unique feature: it is the first live daily show about politics, entitled "The Talk," to be conceived exclusively for the Web and mobile phones.
The show will launch on Monday June 2 with French Prime Minister François Fillon. Every day, at 6pm, a political or financial celebrity will be interviewed by Figaro's star political reporter Anne Fulda or by Figaro.fr managing editor Laurent Guimier.
The show will be shot in the Figaro's own video studio (see the interview about their video studio) and will be broadcast live and for free on figaro.fr and on the news portal of Orange, both on the Web and on Orange mobile phones.
Truly innovative, this service will also be interactive, as Internet users can submit questions before the show and react to it live on the blog of "The Talk."
The show's business model is entirely based on its audience, thanks to banner ads sold on the sites of both the newspaper and mobile operator, for which both partners will share revenues.
The show's time, 6pm, was also geared to fill a 'news void' for the French audience, as they  are still at work or on their way home.
"There's on one side the best of content with Le Figaro, on the other the best of distribution with Orange. It's a win-win situation," said Orange President and Director, Didier Lombard.
Source: Figaro (here and here, links in French) through IFRA Executive News Service

The Washington Times unveiled Tuesday a preview of its revamped website, tailored to facilitate user interaction and allow readers a more personalized experience. The renovation marks the Times' switch from a "newspaper enterprise to a full media company offering news 24/7," said the Times' press release.

Most prominent among the new features is the News Cube, a design that enables readers to flip through articles in two ways: vertically, through general topics (Business, Sports - traditional news sections), or horizontally, through news themes adapted to specific interests (family issues, video games, the military). These news themes will include all stories written by the Washington Times since 1999.

The Times will also introduce a question forum and social networking communities monitored by citizens "who function as the bloggers-in-chief and moderators," said the release.

The prototype launched today will enable the paper to get feedback from readers before the print edition is relaunched on June 2, along with an e-edition of the print newspaper.

Source: Business Wire, press release

Last month, Mecom-owned Drammens Tidende (DT) invited its readers to help them cover this year's World Cup Ski Sprint, but DT discovered that local readers seemed to be more interested in the Children's Ski Cup, submitting pictures of their own children instead of the professional skiiers. (First photo shown is reader submitted while second one is a pro-snap, both from DT.)

"The traffic to our news site doubled on the day of the World Cup, and the shots submitted by readers garnered quite some interest, but people were particularly interested in viewing and submitting pictures from the Children's Cup," said Geir Arne Bore, Editor-in-Chief of DT.

Readers can upload text, pictures, and videos onto the online portal The Reader's Newspaper, (still in Beta version) which was developed by Edda Media, Mecom's Norwegian branch. As of now, DT, an early tester for the portal, finds that their readers have mostly uploaded text and pictures about entertainment events, while another early tester Budstikka.no's readers are more involved in local sports events.

Over the upcoming months, all of Edda Media's regional and local papers are expected to have access to the portal.

"Our experiences confirm the general impression which is taking root in Norwegian media: user generated content does not come unsolicited, and if it does come it is on issues people are very passionate about, or as a result of substantial marketing," said Bore. "I guess you could say this in line with the trend described in The State of the News Media 2008."

Source: Journalism.co.uk

Must-read. AJR's Senior Editor Carl Sessions Stepp has noted that while news remains as valuable as ever, journalism is certainly changing as daily newspaper circulation has declined every year since 1987.

Is it time for newspapers to panic? It could be, had Stepp not come up with an expansive list of very good editorial and business ideas for newspapers.

Instead of cutting everything, from staff to newspaper sections, Stepp argues that newspapers should be creating a product that is high quality and indispensable. Journalists need to embrace arriving technologies and make their articles more exciting. But how?

Here's a list of Stepp's ideas, more or less in his words, that could help newspapers recapture "domination of the overall information market":

-  A four section daily paper with journalists and readers sharing and discussing news together.
Section 1: a "dynamic, definitive guide" to local news featuring digests, analysis, listings, links, columns and audience contributions; excerpts and synopses of top content appearing elsewhere; and an annotated guide to the top material concerning international, national, regional and local news, sports, business and arts.

Section 2, the most important local, national, and foreign news, fully updated and differentiated from earlier Web copy.

Section 3, an in-depth package that changes everyday, which would present serious, investigative, quality journalism, not available anywhere else.

Section 4, all the expected features from crosswords to comics, plus new ones including reader creations.

- An online information superstructure built around a double home page, with an easy toggle back and forth: one screen for an orderly display of news and other content, the other a portal-type screen offering a master index of anything useful and appropriate for your audience, with more choices, more services and a nontraditional license to experiment.

- A new, more conversational tone, both online and in print, including staff and outside blogs, behind-the-scenes essays from staff members and a higher proportion of analysis and explanation.

- Archives and galleries with a more user-friendly format like Google or Yahoo! that cluster content by precinct, neighborhood or topics. Searches that index advertising or searches programmed to answer questions such as where a movie is playing or when the school board will meet.

- Expanded interactive guides to movies, shows, concerts, galleries and other arts, with amazon.com-like reader reviews and interaction.

- Real-time online traffic and weather blogs.

- Contests every day for the funniest, weirdest, most helpful or most outrageous local images, audio and video.

- Tournaments, online and in-print, pitting local individuals and teams against one another in solving puzzles, predicting sports or election outcomes..

- Online book clubs and discussion groups on local sports, religion, relationships and more.

- Original uploaded programming, in which readers Web-cam their neighborhood news, read political commentary, offer Leno-like stand-up comedy bits on the news and debate key local issues.

- A complaint forum, directed toward local government or business, in which editors or audience choose which questions have merit and pose them to local authorities.

- A local records center, providing agendas and minutes of every significant meeting in your area; text or links to as many public records as feasible; and your homemade community databases such as local sports stats, crime maps, home values or restaurant menus.

- Greater capitalization on the treasures of your archive; readers can develop and download scrapbooks featuring every article, photo or other mention of themselves and their families in your library; or publication and sale of special in-depth or feature reports drawing on your archives and research capabilities.

- A help-needed feature, a sort of super-classifieds, that lets readers pose questions, seek products, evaluate services and possibly engage in transactions from which you share the profits.

- Moderated forums and advice segments for personal finance, health, travel and other subjects.

- New products and revenue sources: frequent-visitor points, premium services (such as customized news delivery, conferences featuring star journalists, first crack at ads and coupons, local discounts), neighborhood magazines, daily auctions (lunch with the editor!), grants from nonprofits, vastly upgraded searching services and search-related ads, customized magazine and book-length reports on key topics.

- Staging regular creativity meetings throughout the news organization and in the community.

- Hosting an ongoing online suggestion box with prizes.

- Spend real money by giving $100,000 to three or four of your smartest people and challenge them to design something breathtaking.

Read Stepp's article for more of his ideas.

Source: AJR

The Editors Weblog is running a series of exclusive interviews about the future of journalism with top editors at leading newspapers around the world. Here is the latest installment with  Jaroslaw Kurski, first deputy editor-in-chief, Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland.

The list of upcoming interviews will be updated as they are published (click here to view all interviews in this series). Among the other titles that have been asked to participate in these interviews are:

- The New York Times - Jonathan Landman (US)
- Financial Times (UK)
- Guardian (UK)
- Washington Post - Jim Brady (US)
- Globe & Mail - Ed Greenspon (Canada)
- The Times (UK)
- The Economist (UK)
- Gazeta Wyborcza - Jaroslaw Kurski (Poland)
- Le Monde (France)
- Die Welt (Germany)
- The Hindustan Times - Pankaj Paul (India)
- Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
- JoongAng Ilbo (South Korea)
- The Age / Fairfax - Mike van Niekerk (Australia)
- The Nation - Pana Janviroj (Thailand)
- Punch (Nigeria)
- El Tiempo (Colombia)
- Clarin (Argentina)
- Gulf News - Abdul Hamid Ahmad (UAE)


Questions: "News, journalism, newspapers: same past, different futures?"

1. How long do you think you will define your company as a newspaper company or a print company?

We stopped being a newspaper-only company in 1993 when we launched our first internet discussion board. Today we have millions of boards. Our web portal website Gazeta.pl reaches now 6 million unique users per month. It is a magic figure, as it is also the total number of readers of the printed edition of Gazeta Wyborcza.

We started our company in 1989 with a newspaper, but today we are one of the leading multimedia companies in Central and Eastern Europe. We publish newspapers, magazines and books, we run networks of radio stations and an outdoor company.

And we strongly invest in digital media. Our board has an ambition that in three years time more than half of our revenues will come from other sources than print. Until now all our websites reach 44 per cent of internet users in Poland. This is an extraordinary outcome for a newspaper publisher like us.

2. At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, a panel of futurists claimed that print newspapers wouldn't exist by 2014. To what extent do you agree with this?

Futurists like bold predictions, but as a journalist I prefer to look at facts.

Since 2003 there have been seven new national printed daily newspapers launched in Poland. So we faced a new competitor every single year. Is this rush any sign of weakness of the printed medium?

I believe that as long as we have something important to say and people here care to listen to us and talk with us, Gazeta Wyborcza will exist. The message is important, and the dialogue; and not the channel.

If print becomes irrelevant, we will spread our ideas in any other way. Newspapers will not die, they will change.

Last but not least: a Polish word for a newspaper - "gazeta" - does not have any "paper" in it. So even if futurists are right and print newspapers will disappear, Gazeta will remain.

3. In journalism's multi-centennial history, do you view the emergence of digital journalism as part of the continuity, or as a complete breakaway with previous forms of journalism?

Journalism is about intelligible conveying of news and about telling stories of importance that move the community. I appreciate digital tools, they are great and helpful, but they are tools only. You still need a story, a teller and a community. So has anything really changed in journalism?

4. Do you believe in the increasingly active role of the user in the news process, and is it a threat or an opportunity for professional journalists?

This active role is more than welcome. Let me give you some recent examples from Gazeta Wyborcza.

Since 1996 we have been reviewing maternity wards in Polish hospitals; we wished to improve a quality of healthcare in our country. We could have sent there 100 journalists, but a single mother - who really gave birth in any hospital - can tell you more than reporters. So we asked young mothers for help. In 1996 we got 2000 (two thousand) letters by post. In 2006, thanks to the internet, we gathered 40 000 (forty thousand) personal reviews. We were able to review 423 or 96 % of all hospitals in Poland. We would not be able to do this without our readers.

When we recently reported a huge migration of Poles to the Western European countries after Poland joined the EU in 2004 - we asked readers for help. Hundreds joined our reporting effort.
When we called for saving Rospuda, a wild river in North-Eastern Poland that was sentenced to death by the government - we asked readers for support and thousands marched in the streets, hundreds protested on the spot.

When we discussed a crisis in pensions system - we asked readers for advice and published the best investing guides ever.

We see interaction with readers not as a column of letters on page number 86. It is about inviting readers to play a crucial part in the editorial process.

5. Do you consider the Golden Age of investigative journalism is already past, or just beginning?

Investigative journalism is a core of our editorial practice and as our world and lives become more complex, I see the need for this kind of public service rising.

We live in the world flooded with information, but it is served in bites, so many bites, that it is getting harder and harder to see the whole picture. We need wise journalists to solve this puzzle.
We live in the world of instant news, but it is often reaching only the surface of problems and challenges that we face. We need great journalits to show what was NOT on TV and the net. We need to understand what really happened.

We live in the world influenced more and more by professional public relations; it changes the way politics is done. We need clever journalists to see what's behind the curtain, to ask the hard questions, to watch hands of those in power.

We live in the world of global economy and large corporations that affect people's lifes and business. We need investigative journalists to provide us all with reliable information to make better decisions.

On Monday (March 10) we broke an exclusive news about a Catholic priest who reportedly sexually abused young boys and about three bishops who - although informed and alerted about the abuses - have been reluctant to investigate the case for 13 years! We publish Gazeta Wyborcza also to uncover stories like this.


Thanks to Kurski for sharing his views. And stay tuned for the next interviews in our series.