Pioneers of personalised news in print: Niiu

Posted by Susan Zhou on December 2, 2009 at 10:06 AM

Oliwia Serdeczny, director for international partnerships at Niiu, presented her company's product: an individualized newspaper that readers can personalize using articles from many local, national and international newspapers.

The paper was created by Wanja Oberhof and Hendrik Tiedmann, two German entrepreneurs who met through mutual friends and combined forces to compose this innovative paper. Niiu was launched in Berlin on 13 October of this year and began printing just over a month later.

The process for readers to subscribe is quite simple:

- Get on www.niiu.de
- Create an account
- Choose content.

Niiu offers many article subjects. From politics to sports and everything in between, Niiu is sure to cater to everyone's needs. "We don't touch the content; we just reproduce it." Readers can further personalize (weather, personal pictures) with gadgets, choose their own layouts, and add a greeting.

The paper compiles twenty pages of the reader's chosen sources, which must be selected by 2pm. It is then printed by state-of-the-art printers and delivered to the reader's home the following morning.

Targeting the younger generation, students are offered discounts and pay 1€20 rather than 1€80 for others. "The internet generation gets what they want and nothing else," said Serdeczny. So why shouldn't this concept apply to a newspaper?

For more coverage of the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum please follow us on Twitter (#WANindia09) and on our sister publications www.sfnblog.com and http://www.ifra.net/blogs/wan-congress-2009.