Editors Weblog: Search Results

Smartphone sales soar in 2009

Posted by Maria Conde on February 9, 2010 at 12:50 PM

Vendors shipped a record 54.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2009, 39% more than the 39.2 million shipped in the same quarter in 2008, according to IDC information on PC World.

Four of the top five smartphone sellers beat their shipments records for a single quarter, according to numbers released by the International Data Corporation (IDC). Following a 98% increase in smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2008, Apple has regained its spot as third largest smartphone vendor, behind longtime leaders Nokia and Research in Motion

Editors Webinars - Matt Kelly

Posted by Antoine Laurent on February 9, 2010 at 12:36 PM

Sports stand-alone websites

How to re-engage your audience and find new revenue streams by launching sports websites.

Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Time: 14h00 GMT (London Time)

Speaker: Matt Kelly, Digital Content Director, Trinity Mirror Group.

Buy the Sports stand-alone websites Webinar for only €59!

Niche strategies are a good weapon to struggle against the fall of online advertising revenues. This is particularly true in the field of sports, because of its passionate and engaged audience. Matt Kelly, who led the developpment of mirrorfootball.co.uk, will share with you the elements that led to the success of the website. He will tackle the following points, among others, to give you the key steps that will enables you to succeed yourself:

1.    How to find your unique offering and accentuate your brand
2.    How to re-engage your users and turn them into regular readers
3.    Win new and loyal commercial partners for targeted, innovative advertising
4.    Open up new revenue streams: mobile, e-commerce, promotions

About the guest speaker:

Matt Kelly is digital content director for Trinity Mirror national newspapers, in charge of its sites including mirror.co.uk, dailyrecord.co.uk, 3am.co.uk and mirrorfootball.co.uk. He has worked at Mirror Group for the past fifteen years, enjoying a varied career including features editor, night editor, production editor, associate editor and columnist. In 2008 he led the redesign of the Daily Mirror newspaper and followed that with a significant overhaul of mirror.co.uk.

Buy the Sports stand-alone websites Webinar for only €59!

Newspaper liveblogs local council meetings

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 9, 2010 at 12:12 PM

A newspaper in Manchester has been using various multimedia tools to liveblog council meetings from across the Greater Manchester Area, Press Gazette reports.

Meetings of the local authorities are attended by a reporter from the Manchester Evening News (MEN) or one of its sister weekly publications. Reporters then use Twitter to file updates minute-by-minute. Their updates are then streamed on MEN websites using CoverItLive technology, which allows liveblogging and other forms of real-time updating.

The MEN has so far used this to report on meetings of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities and the Greater Manchester Police Authority. The newspaper wants to extend the service so that it can cover every full meeting held by ten local authorities across Greater Manchester.

MediaNews Group to adopt metered paywalls

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 8, 2010 at 4:48 PM

The MediaNews Group has released details of its plans to charge for content online, announced in November last year, Bloomberg reports. The publisher will adopt a metered system similar to that planned at The New York Times.

Two newspapers, the Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania, and the Enterprise-Record in Chico, California, will start charging in May. They will give users access to up to 25 'premium' articles a month, after which they will be required to pay a fee. Print subscriptions will include access to the website. Premium content may include some columns and investigative reporting, MediaNews president Joseph Lodovic said.

Survey finds majority of journalists use social media sites as first port of call for research

Posted by Helena Humphrey on February 8, 2010 at 1:42 PM

The founding director of a Political Management master's degree program at the George Washington University surveyed 371 print and web journalists from September to October of last year, with the aim of establishing to what extent social media tools are used in the research and distribution of articles.

The results of the online survey, reported on the university's newspaper website, found that 56 percent of those surveyed said that social media was important or somewhat important for reporting and producing stories, with the overwhelming majority citing the internet as the starting point for their research- despite the fact that 84 percent said news and information delivered via social media was slightly less or much less reliable than news delivered via traditional media.

German news websites put up paywalls: Morgenpost and Abendblatt

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 8, 2010 at 12:40 PM

German publisher Axel Springer has made good on its promises and put up online paywalls for two of its German newspapers, Paid Content reports.

Two of its newspapers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt, are now charging for online content. It now costs €4.95 a month for access to all content on morgenpost.de. By contrast, abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and premium content, with a premium subscription priced at €7.95 a month. It appears to charge extra for content specific to the Hamburg region while providing national news for free. Subscriptions for both sites are renewed on a monthly basis.

ProPublica investigates politicians' Super Bowl fundraising

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 8, 2010 at 11:07 AM

Non-profit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica is taking advantage of the Super Bowl to dig into the fundraising efforts of politicians, Poynter Online reports.

Reporter Marcus Stern planned to use the football game, held yesterday, to spot members of Congress who were attending and figure out how they obtained their tickets. But since he knew that trying to contact 535 members of Congress would be too big a task for one person, he turned the investigation into a crowdsourcing effort and asked professional journalists and the public to help collaborate.

"To some extent, this is going to be a test of the privacy or the openness of members of Congress when it comes to fundraising," Stern told Poynter Online.

Mobile news gains ground in France

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 5, 2010 at 5:48 PM

News applications for iPhone have met an undeniable success with French readers, but the task of monetising this through selling content, services and advertising still remains, according to Les Echos.

The director of electronic editions for Libération, Ludovic Blecher, said that the iPhone had revolutionised the consumption of news on mobile platforms. The Libération iPhone app was launched in the autumn, as was that of Le Figaro, and they have been downloaded 400,000 and 600,000 times respectively. "Around 30,000 people open it every day," Blecher said. Figures for Le Monde are even higher: it launched its app in November 2008 and has just reached 1.3 million unique downloads, attracting between 200,000 and 250,000 hits a day.

iPad changes the story for newspaper-subsidized e-readers

Posted by Maria Conde on February 5, 2010 at 3:55 PM

The launch of Apple's iPad has garnered much optimism in the newspaper industry, driving hopes that the innovative tablet computer will be able to breathe some new life into an industry battered by an advertising downturn.

Much speculation has placed very high hopes on the capacity of the iPad and a slew of new generation e-readers to revamp the industry and bolster its business model. But, as Poynter Online's Bill Mitchell reports, the iPad will probably not be the solution to all of the newspapers' woes, but this sleek electronic device could play a substantial role in the migration of users from a cost-heavy past to a more efficient future.

Local newspaper liveblogs its own newsroom

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 5, 2010 at 12:59 PM

Local newspaper the Northampton Chronicle and Echo is today running a day-long live discussion with readers about what's going on in its newsroom.

Using the liveblogging software Cover-it-Live, which the newspaper has previously used to cover sporting events such as the away games of local teams, editorial staff plan to interact more directly with readers.

News International seeks social media agency

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 4, 2010 at 5:12 PM

Newspaper publisher News International has launched a review of its search, affiliate, social media and pay-per-click business for some of its online newspaper brands, Media Week reports.

The publisher is looking for a search and social media agency to handle online brands including online bingo for The Sun and News of the World, as well as its online fantasy football game Dream Team.

UK: Council newspaper costs revealed

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 4, 2010 at 3:22 PM

There's more fuel for the debate over council-run newspapers in the UK today, with one local newspaper revealing that its council-supported rival costs taxpayers almost £28,000 a month.

In the town of Salford, near Manchester, the council magazine Life in Salford competes with newspapers the Salford Star and Salford Advertiser. The Salford Star filed a freedom of information request to determine the cost of producing the council magazine. It determined that the council spends £27,797 per month, or an average of £333,564 per year.

By contrast, outside advertising income for the paper totaled just over £19,000 for eight issues.

iCurrent: Can personalised news help newspapers?

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 4, 2010 at 12:55 PM

The iPad isn't the key to monetising news online, opines journalist and consultant Steve Outing in a new post on his blog, but personalisation might be.

He suggests that he will be no more likely to pay to read news websites on the iPad than on his computer. Since he reads many different news sources, he finds that there is too much news to pay for all of it, and highlights the importance of personalisation beyond iGoogle or Twitter feeds amid all this choice.

In this context, he compares the personalised web news service iCurrent, still in beta, to the personalised music service Pandora, which offers similar music to songs and artists that the user already likes. It learns more about what users enjoy as they click thumbs-up or thumbs-down on different songs.

YouCommNews: public interest journalism in Australia

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 3, 2010 at 5:09 PM

It's a question that can get lost in all the talk of business models and content creation: how might journalism best serve the public?

In Australia, the latest group to ponder this is The Foundation for Public Interest Journalism, directed by a group of journalists, editors, academics and members of the community. Part of the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University in Melbourne, it is setting up a project called YouCommNews, modeled on the American site Spot.Us, which will allow the audience to commission the stories they want to see.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Dr Margaret Simons, chair of the foundation, and to David Cohn, founder of Spot.Us.

Freesheet launch: All quiet on the London Weekly front

Posted by Helena Humphrey on February 3, 2010 at 12:32 PM

Back in November the newspaper rumour mill whispered word of an all-new freesheet to grace the streets of the capital, The London Weekly. By December, marketing manager Paul Morris announced a launch date of the 1 February and its partnership website went live.

Despite a rather unpolished online offering (from a company that claims to have £10.5 million in the kitty), displaying few regular news updates written by just two users and registered from a German server, Morris last week maintained that the 250,000 copies of the freesheet would be handed out every Friday and Saturday - although the start date would now be delayed until the 5 February.

Journalism Online's payment system to be in place in a matter of weeks

Posted by Emma Heald on February 3, 2010 at 12:10 PM

The Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era intends to start using Journalism Online's payment system in the next few months, reported the New York Times. The software system will be called Press+ and GlobalPost and the Fayetteville Observer are also interested, said the NYT.

Journalism Online has also sent a memo to its affiliated publishers (reproduced by paidContent) in which it informs them that the company is "just weeks away" from having the technology ready for use, and that multiple publishers are currently integrating the software.

News Corp announces big profits and plans for pay walls

Posted by Trafton Kenney on February 3, 2010 at 12:06 PM

As News Corp announced profits of $254 million over the three months up to December, Rupert Murdoch said his company is close to implementing online subscription models for all of its newspapers like the Times, the News of the World, and the Sun.

The company is also in "advanced negotiations" with handheld-device manufacturers about possible paywalls that would allow customers access to News Corp content "whenever and wherever they want it," said Murdoch.

According to Murdoch, "ingenious and fabulous devices" like the iPad and the Kindle "would be unloved and unsold" without the creative content supplied by newspapers. "Content is not just king, it is the emperor of all things digital. We're on the cusp of a digital revolution from which our shareholders will profit handsomely," said Murdoch.

Former editor takes on Birmingham Post with web launch

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 5:31 PM

This week, independent regional business news website, TheBusinessDesk, launched a third regional edition in Birmingham today with Marc Reeves as its new editor, Press Gazette reports.

Reeves, the former editor of the business and public affairs daily, the Birmingham Post, left the newspaper in January after it was turned into a weekly. His new position will place him in direct competition with his old paper.

Gannett sees profits and circulation increase in 4Q

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 2:15 PM

In a time where newspapers seem to be losing more and more revenue, figures from Gannett Co. Inc.'s fourth quarter released today, showed potential positive results for the months ahead.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gannett swung to a profit in the fourth quarter following $5.6 billion in prior-year write-downs. Lower declines in advertising sales combined with much lower expenses helped the newspaper publisher show improvement.

Guardian executive: specialist content could be charged for

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 2, 2010 at 1:11 PM

The Guardian has ruled out implementing paywalls on its website, but may still decide to charge for specialist or niche content, the Financial Times reports.

Chief executive of the Guardian Media Group Carolyn McCall told the Financial Times that although her position is not entrenched, she sees no commercial evidence that paywalls generate returns. "It is not really the way the web works," she said.

"That is not to say there are not areas of specialist content that cannot be charged for," she added.

The paywall you can't see: bundling newspaper and TV subscriptions

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 11:50 AM

Although only 35 people have signed up for Newsday subscriptions since it was put behind a paywall last October, these dismal figures hide the Long Island daily's grander scheme: a paywall that nobody notices because it is bundled with a cable television subscription.

The owners of Newsday also own Optimum Cable, according to Guardian, which supplies cable TV to 75% of Long Island homes, Newsday's backyard. Newsday.com was offered to these subscribers at no additional charge, bundled with cable and high-speed Internet services. Therefore, the number of people who signed up for to the Long Island daily since October was not 35, but 1.5 million, the people that currently have Optimum Cable subscriptions.

Twitter and Facebook to boost news organisations' ad revenue?

Posted by Helena Humphrey on February 1, 2010 at 1:59 PM

The past few years has seen the explosive growth of social networking sites Twitter and Facebook, and a dramatic downturn in advertising revenue that has set about ravaging the newspaper industry. PoynterOnline has now reported new enterprises between the two industries however, which could prove profitable for both.

Few news outlets are without their own Twitter account these days, using the site's micro-blogging capabilities as a means to distribute stories and attract a wider audience. The Austin American-Statesman is using theirs to sell tweets to local business, which can advertise their enterprises on the newspaper's Twitter account.

Whistleblower Wikileaks' temporary closure

Posted by Helena Humphrey on February 1, 2010 at 11:55 AM

Dubbed the "brown paper envelope for the digital age" by the Guardian when it launched in 2007, Wikileaks, "the online clearinghouse for leaked documents", has been forced to temporarily close in order to raise the funds it requires to continue operations.

Committed to remaining ethical and independent, the website refuses to accept government or corporate funding. Having leaked some 1.2 million sensitive documents online, Wikileaks is the force behind the publication of the British National Party's membership list and attracted attention when it hosted the Minton report - a report detailing oil trader Trafigura's activities at a time when the company's legal representation was desperately trying to keep its contents secret from the press.

The Wall Street Journal expands brand with WSJTravel launch

Posted by Maria Conde on January 29, 2010 at 4:52 PM

While The Wall Street Journal struggles with advertising, it continues to diversify its offerings by delving into another realm - travel services. PaidContent reports that the WSJ officially announced Thursday the launch of WSJTravel, a website that will offer 50 travel packages to destinations including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America.

NYT's paywall: of symbolic significance but unlikely to increase revenue?

Posted by Emma Heald on January 29, 2010 at 11:54 AM

Time's James Poniewozik has suggested that the significance of the New York Times's paywall is symbolic, rather than a sign that paid online content is the future for news. "Any pricing scheme that can raise actual money risks chasing away actual readers," and this why the NYT's charging method "probably won't make much difference to the Times's coffers or its readers at first."

As Poniewozik says, there are many people who won't end up paying for an online subscription to the New York Times. Print subscribers will get free access, casual readers won't have to pay, and those directed via other websites won't pay.

Results matching “online newspaper 2 ye”

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Tags :

Editors Weblog Twitter Feed

Twitter Updates

Latest News

Analysis

Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Blog