Results matching “newspaper provides online video”

In an attempt to draw young readers to its website, the Register-Mail has created a page on social networking site Facebook, according to editor Tom Martin.

The page is aimed at some of the audience who do not check the paper's website every day, but may check Facebook multiple times per day. 

One of the ten Canwest newspaper websites to be redesigned is the Calgary Herald.  The Herald has geared themselves towards becoming an online multimedia destination.

In addition to a new look, they have added and improved their content.  According to the paper's website, the "changes are deeper than just the look of the calgaryherald.com home page."

According to The National, the first ever Arabic-language business daily newspaper will be launched in January in the United Arab Emirates.  The launch of the paper is part of I-Media, an integrated media project which will "include a financial news online portal in Arabic and English, a mobile news services and the first Arabic economic news radio channel."

Qusai Aljamous, the paper's executive editor in chief said the paper will be a 40-page broadsheet titled, Alroya Altiqtissadiya, which means Economy Vision in Arabic.  The initial circulation will be 20,000, targeting business-savvy readers.  In addition, the paper will be accompanied by a 16-page tabloid supplement focusing on real-estate, banking, the stock market, commodities, tourism and lifestyle. 

Following on from yesterday's article about newspaper integration and aggregation, the Editors Weblog continues its interview with Ian Fernandes, head of the Digital Division at Nation Media Group (NMG). Today, we look at its new social media platform, mobile classifieds and cross-promotion.

Social media and the Daily Nation - Who wants to be famous?

The NMG has been looking at how to get their readers more involved with the company's activities. Fernandes says, "We are taking a lot of knowledge from what we see happening abroad and from being in the entertainment industry with radio and television. From this, we are noticing that the younger generation are spending more time on Facebook or MySpace than watching television. So we are starting our own social website which will be launched before the end of the year." The name of the site has been under wraps, but Fernandes exclusively revealed to the Editors Weblog that it will be called Zuqka, and the style of the site will be a mixture of Facebook and citizen journalism.

NMG receive pictures, video clips, and songs from readers, listeners and viewers from across its various platforms and it is unable to use it all as there is only so much content they can carry. Users of this new site will be able to share this content with other subscribers and who will then be able to vote on how good or bad it is. The best of this content will be used on NMG's mainstream media platforms. Fernandes says, "We are killing two birds with one stone. Firstly, we are using content that we couldn't use before and, secondly, we are giving people the chance to be famous. A lot of Kenyans want to be famous but there is no chance to be. For example, you can send in a song and if the site users vote for it and it gets in the Top Ten of songs on the site, it will then be played on NMG's Easy FM radio station. In the same way, the top ten blogs on the site will be put in the Saturday newspaper. Whatever topics are being discussed on the blogs and pictures being sent in and so forth, will be shown on a TV magazine programme."

NMG are also going to introduce a platform called Events whereby you can see what is happening in terms of concerts and so forth in Kenya. Through this portal your network of friends on the site can see what you are attending and you can send details of the, for example, concert, to your circle of friends and invite them to come along.

NMG are in the final stages of putting the site together, with the design template scheduled to be completed by the end of this month. Once Broadband is introduced to Kenya (scheduled for next year, please see yesterday's article) sites such as this will have a real opportunity to take off. Fernandes reports, "We want to inform people that there is a lot more you can do with the Internet."  The site is set to be launched at the end of November, and a newspaper pullout also will be unveiled at the same time under the same Zuqka brand name. This pullout will be driven by content from the site.

Fernandes say, "We are at an advantage in terms of tapping into social media as we have all the other platforms within the NMG to drive it. Just telling a user that they can send a video or audio and share it with their friends is not good enough. With the NMG site, the user could get in the newspaper or on TV, this will be the selling factor."

Fernandes goes on to say, "Media has changed. The editor used to select what we saw and so forth whereas today it is the subscriber who chooses. By allowing subscribers to contribute to your product you can also test to see what is the big story... Getting your readership involved by sending in content to you is so important."

Mobile news ahead of online site

With Internet connectivity being so slow, mobile usage in Kenya is significantly higher than internet usae, with four out of every five Kenyans having a mobile phone. To explot this usage, the Daily Nation website also has a Wapsite, providing readers with a mobile web version of the newspaper. Customers who are looking for Daily Nation content on their phone are directed to the Mobile version of the news site.

The Daily Nation mobile site sends breaking news alerts, sports alerts, religious phrases, and horoscopes to subscribers. Furthermore, in the coming months, NMG is looking to introduce video news alerts for mobile phones via MMS or video content.

Classifieds through mobile

The company is also looking at the classified platform whereby if, for example, you are looking for a red BMW and you are willing to pay 200,000 shillings you will be able to punch the details into your phone and this data then links to the newspaper classified database. The relevant seller details will then be sent to your mobile phone. Once again, the slow Internet connection has resulted in the online classified section being underused, this should change next year. Fernandes predicts that once broadband hits Kenya, "we will see an explosion in Internet usage and we want to be ready for that."

Who wants to be a millionaire?

A key target of the newly established digital division is the monetisation of the various platforms within NMG, it seeks to pursue this by linking its platforms and cross promoting. Fernandes told the Weblog that every Tuesday on NTV (NMG's TV channel) there is a quiz show and viewers send in their answers by SMS, the winner is the person who sends in the most correct answers fastest. The winner of the show wins 1,000 shillings. This show is being cross-promoted across all of NMG's brands and has proved a hit with Kenyans. Fernandes explains the popularity of the show, "Kenya is probably one of the few countries where the "Who wants to be a millionaire" format did not work, not because people did not find the show interesting but because they were too shy to go on TV and look stupid if they did not know the answer. With this format Kenyans can play along from the comfort of their own home and no one knows if you get an answer right or wrong or what you look like."

Secret of NMG's success

Looking at all the various changes and innovations that the NMG has introduced, and is looking to introduce, it is clearly at the cutting edge of innovation within the newspaper and media industry. The cross-promotion across its platforms and the integration of not just the newsrooms but also the content is particularly notable. The Zuqka site looks set to be a success and the vision behind it is exciting, it should generate a real buzz in Kenya and around the NMG brand. Furthermore, it will also attract the key youth readership and create loyalty. Fernandes says, "Our philosophy is that the world is changing and we need to give our customers what they want when they want it and in the way they want it." This seems to be why NMG is so successful, the company knows and understands its readers, and anticipates what they want before they even want it

See also:

Kenyan Media Part 1: Is newsroom integration possible for media conglomerates

The Daily Nation newspaper is in an advantageous position in the African market in that it is part of the largest media conglomerate in Central and Eastern Africa, the Nation Media Group (NMG). The Nation Media Group not only runs newspapers, but also TV stations, mobile platforms, websites and radio across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Furthermore, the introduction of three undersea fibre optic cables next year will bring broadband to Kenya and significantly change the market. These advances in technology and the large footprint of this media conglomerate brings with it unique opportunities but also unique problems for the Daily Nation.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Ian Fernandes, head of Nation Media Group's Digital Division about aggregation, integration and its plans to become a major African online news service. Before heading the Digital Division, Fernandes worked for thirteen years in broadcasting and five years in newspapers.

"Tremendous growth" for Kenya?

The Daily Nation currently faces challenges with its online division due to the lack of Internet reliability in Kenya. The introduction of broadband is widely expected to result in significant growth in the online and telecommunications market in Kenya. Richard Bell, the chief executive officer of East Africa Capital Partners, a Nairobi-based venture capital group, said when talking about the broadband introduction to Kenya, "We have bet the farm on the fact that East Africa is going to see tremendous growth... We're looking for Africa's next Google."

Unique advantages and disadvantages

The Nation Media Group is preparing itself for  broadband by integrating its news platforms. From one office in Nairobi the NMG runs five print titles, two radio stations, a television station, and the recently created Digital Division, which Fernandes heads up. The goal of integration is to, "take the content from all these brands and to make that content available on converged platforms, meaning the mobile and online platforms. Whereas other newspapers have had to invest in technology for their online editions, for us it was already existing, so all we had to do is, for example, link a Barack Obama story that we have in our print publication to what our broadcast team has done and 'voila' we have a fully multi-media website. We skipped what a lot of newspapers are actually going through today." Fernandes goes on to say, "We are giving our customers the opportunity to chose how he or she wants to view their media." Therefore, if one looks on the Daily Nation website, one can see content from the online team, but also from the broadcasting and print team within NMG as well.

One big basket of content

NMG recently introduced a new content management system called CoreMedia. With this new system, "if we are looking at the content of three of our newspapers and we see that the top story on the TV station is a piece about Barack Obama then we do not have to go and physically place that story on all of the three editions, it automatically picks it up as they are resident in a common database. We have one big basket into which everyone is throwing their content and then the online editors decide to pick what is relevant for their particular portal and it can be done at the click of a button."

Integration across print, TV and radio

In terms of convergence and integration, this is as far as NMG has gone. In terms of newsgathering, each brand still has its own newsroom, and each newsroom goes out and pursues an event individually. However, with the introduction of the new content management system, NMG is now looking at newsroom convergence. Therefore, instead of sending eight different teams to cover one particular event from each angle be it TV or radio, they are looking to pull them all together and have one multi-media team go and cover an event. This would consist of a reporter, cameraman and photographer reporting the story and then placing it in the CoreMedia "basket" of content. The various brands at NMG can then take that content and repackage it so it is suitable to its relevant market.

Problems of size

This is obviously a far more efficient way for NMG to cover a news event, but NMG faces a specific problem with regard the integration of publishing, ie, publishing to multiple platforms from one piece of software. Due to the sheer size of NMG, they have been unable to find suitable software that can carry all their content and efficiently manage it. Fernandes reports that "there is not any software that exists in the world today that can manage the process, because there are very few organisations like us, who need such a service.  The Times of London's video content is from the Times of London, but on the Daily Nation web edition the video content comes from NTV - the NMG's TV station -, which has its own unique brand. That is where the difference is." Fernandes and his team are examining various technologies on the market and reports "newspapers have software that integrates the ability to manage their online content, and with that newspaper companies are looking at getting video as part of that content, which is something they haven't done before. So the technology is still very much at the development stage whereby they are using video content that is suitable for their website and we need to look at video at a higher quality level."  

Aggregation site to challenge international players

The Nation Media Group is also readying itself for this new advancement and has built a news aggregator portal called nationafrica.com. nationafrica.com pulls together all the news from across the Nation Media Group's many platforms. Fernandes reports, "Our vision is to be the media of Africa for Africa. It would be wrong to think we could have newspapers and TV stations all over Africa, but online is the perfect platform." The timing of the launch of this site is significant, if nationafrica.com can establish itself quickly enough in the market, it has the potential to become the dominant force in the aggregator arena in Africa. The players in the market who have their strategies in place for when broadband hits Kenya will be at a marked advantage for establishing their brand in the market.

Fernandes reports that they are expecting the site to grow from just being a portal focusing on the Central and East African region - NMG have three newspapers in Tanzania and a newspaper and TV station in Uganda - to beyond its current reach. NMG have correspondents in 18 African countries providing content on a daily basis, it plans to train and equip these same journalists with "not just note books and pens, but cameras and video cameras" and they will be able to load this content directly onto the NMG system. NMG is in a unique position to challenge the other media conglomerates operating in Africa who have bureaus and correspondents all over Africa, such as the BBC. Fernandes states that this portal is vital to Africa as the international broadcasters like the BBC and CNN tend to focus on the "doom and gloom stories about Africa."

The future
 
NMG has undoubtedly been at an advantage with the expansion of online media due to the fact that it is not just a newspaper company, but the fact that it is not a newspaper company creates challenges for the firm in terms of efficiency for its business model. The challenge of streamlining the publication platforms for an organisation of NMG's size is a significant mountain to climb. Technology is rapidly coming on stream that will aid this process, but could it result in the various NMG brands loosing their identity in the drive for efficiency? This is something that NMG will have to consider as the brand's popularity is in no small part due to its ability to tap into the domestic market.

The future looks bright for this media conglomerate and its move to challenge the international players in the market such as the BBC is a bold and brave move that it needed to take to keep NMG at the heart of the Central and Eastern African market.

Part 2 - In tomorrow's article, social media, the Daily Nation and the search for fame, and why the "Who wants to be a millionaire" format failed in Kenya and how NMG adapted it to the mobile market.

Source: AllAfrica.com
 

Video journalism pioneer Michael Rosenblum gave editors an option at the Society of Editor's conference:  print publications "must have video" on their websites, or go out of business.

"As the web goes to video there's a sort of Gresham's law--more dynamic media drives out less dynamic media," Rosenblum said at the conference in Bristol.

The technology makes the process of creating video "incredibly simple," he said, and news websites that fail to adapt to the changing technology will be at the mercy of their competitors.

"A nine year-old can produce professional material," Rosenblum said.  "And the cost is next to zero."

8, 000 miles away from the White House, a nation is celebrating President-elect Barack Obama's historic election win as a victory for a son of their country. 47-year-old Obama's father was born in Kenya and the celebrations following his win are ongoing from the streets of Nairobi to the village of Kogelo where Obama's grandmother still lives. Reflecting the importance of his victory, President Kibaki has declared a public holiday in Kenya to celebrate. The Kenyan media has reported every twist and turn of this nail-biting campaign, and its newspapers have covered this story on a scale never before seen for a US election.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Ian Fernandes, the head of Nation Media's Digital Division, about how Kenya's leading newspaper, the Daily Nation, followed the campaign, its importance to Kenya and the newspaper's future coverage of the USA.

Fernandes begins by saying that this election has captured the imagination of the entire country: "it has dominated the headlines for the past couple of weeks...the fact that someone who has his roots in Kenya can actually end up becoming the President of the United States." As victory was declared, inhabitants of Kogelo began singing "Jakogelo Yiengo Piny", which translates to "the one from Kogelo shakes the world".

Coverage online

From just a quick glance at the home page of the Daily Nation online edition, it is clear how important this election has been to Kenyans. The front page is dominated by a picture of President elect Barack Obama and his family taking to the stage for his post-victory speech under the headline "Win brings pride to Kenyan diaspora", with a lead article discussing the impact this victory has had on Kenyans across the USA. Feeder articles follow, as do photos of the election night and video footage from the Nation Media Group's NTV channel. Under the toolbar is a link for dedicated coverage, including the campaign, Obama's victory and the reaction in Kenya and the US.

The Daily Nation has an advantage on many news organisations in that it is part of media conglomerate, Nation Media Group, and one of the branches of this modern news organisations is a TV station: footage from the station has been an important edition to the Daily Nation's coverage.

Telling the story from a Kenyan perspective

Fernandes reports that the country and, in particular the village of Kogelo, has been inundated by news teams from across the globe. Expanding on this point, Fernandes says that most of these correspondents are based in London and only arrived in the country after the story had unfolded and thus found it difficult to cover it comprehensively, whereas the Nation's reporters were on the ground from the get go. The Daily Nation felt it was important to tell the story of Obama's campaign and victory from a Kenyan perspective, for example, the video footage section on the web edition not only includes Obama's speeches and footage of American reactions, there is also extensive coverage of the celebrations in Kenya following the result and reactions from Kenyan politicians. The small village of Kogelo in Western Kenya was at the heart of the Daily Nation's coverage and the site features interviews with Obama's grandmother and other members of his family who have had to rapidly get used to the media spotlight.

Increased resources, and now he has won?

During the campaign the Daily Nation had three reporters in the United States. Fernandes explains, "I think in order for us to be relevant - and just like foreign media houses having a presence in Kenya during the election - we decided that we should actually have our journalists in the USA, one following the McCain trail and one following the Obama trail, to know and to tell the story with a Kenyan perspective."

The newly elected US President will continue to be of interest to Kenyan citizens and Fernandes reports that the newspaper is considering maintaining a permanent presence in the US in the form of a full-time reporter or "at least a correspondent". He also confirms that the USA will now garner more attention from the Kenyan media, as citizens will want reports on how the new president is progressing.

Readership spike

Fernandes reports that 50% of the Daily Nations' readership is from the Kenyan diasporas across the USA and Europe.  The Daily Nation average 45,000 - 50,000 visits a day but it picked to about 90,000 visits on 4th November. The Daily Nation's coverage of an election thousands of miles away not only managed to cater to the audience at home, but also generated traffic from Kenyans located across the globe who sought a trusted name for the story of how a son of Kenya won the election to run the most powerful country in the world.

With shrinking newsrooms due to increasingly drastic budget cuts and a biting global economic environment, newspapers have been searching for a solution to the age-old problem of profit margins versus quality of product. A relatively new player is marketing a solution to this problem; Daylife this week is launching Daylife Select, a tool that enables newspapers to enhance and expand their content easily and quickly.

This new product launch is the latest chapter in the Daylife success story; its client list reads like a "Who's Who" of the newspaper world, and yet it is a small New York based operation run by a team of just 25, most of whom are technologists.

Back in 2005, a team of news junkies and techies began work on a technological solution to the news industry's increasingly difficult business climate. The team looked at the web and saw the likes of Amazon and EBay racing ahead in the user experience, while news online hadn't changed that much in terms of navigation and fluidity of the whole site. The team, a bunch of "self-confessed frustrated media fans" started building a system that was launched in January 2007. It was clear to them that the demand for news had not declined, but that the product was heading for rocky waters unless it pushed its boundaries.

The Editors Weblog spoke to the CEO of this team of news junkies, Upendra Shardanand, about the new product, his organisation, the technology behind it, and the future of newspapers.

Solution

Shardanand begins his explanation by saying, "Publishers looked at Google and other aggregators getting all this traffic without doing the original reporting, and we are just saying, well, here is the technology, so you can go and do it under your own brand, around your own original content. I do believe that original content is absolutely critical; that is going to be the draw that brings a user back to your service and establishes your brand and so forth, but that can only scale so far; so, do what you do best and link to the rest. This is a different way to think about publishing."











This new product in the ever-expanding stable of services provided by Daylife is being marketed as a solution to help newspapers through the difficult business climate. Using one platform, it enables editors to access content such as photos, YouTube clips or blog postings on any subject they are looking to cover. One of the issues is that newspapers are frequently cash-strapped in terms of IT, so this product lets anybody with just a web browser and a click on the interface launch a content portal. This portal can cover anything from technology companies to Manchester United, and goes so far as to even allow customisation of the site.


Daylife describe itself as the layer between raw content and the news organisation. The system is an Intelligent Content Service, it being a substantial database with the ability to pull together relevant information for any news organisation on any topic. Simply put, if for example, a journalist is writing an article on Barack Obama's health care policies, the Daylife system will rapidly pull together all relevant stories, pictures, video and so forth from a multitude of sources. This database can therefore provide you with all quotes from Obama on healthcare and all photos of him at, for example, a hospital.

Daylife has various agreements with the major content providers, be it AP or Getty Images, but Shardanand reports that the deal that follows with the client is worked out individually depending on the relationship the client has already with AP, for example, the level of content they are looking for and the size of the client's publication.

The Daylife news website, despite it only being a beta product who's sole purpose is to work as a demonstration to potential clients, achieves 3 million hits a month. When the site first launched many reviewers thought it was a straight news site and questioned the lack of RSS Feeds and so forth.

With shrinking newsrooms due to declining revenues, one of the most significant facts about the Daylife web site is that it is run with zero human input. Shardanand informed the Weblog that the team could go on holiday for a month and it would in no way affect the running of the site.

Shardanand further points out that all the clients they have are, "renewing their contracts."

USA Today experience - 600% increase in page views for a blog

All of this sounds highly impressive, but what impact is this product having on its clients? Shardanand cites the work it has done with USA Today; the newspaper had a blogger writing about cruise ships, making it perfect for advertisers such as P&O and other holiday companies, but one blogger can only achieve so much, and the page was thus too small to attract significant advertisers. USA Today talked over these problems with Daylife, and it thereafter delivered tailored content to the publisher. The resulting page was far more comprehensive and resulted in a 600% increase in page views. It's the same blogger working, but with the help of Daylife's tailored service he is now able to increase content and improve layout.

Advanced algorithms

The software that runs this product is produced in-house, it runs on an open source platform with extra work put in by the "team of rocket scientist" for advanced algorithms. Furthermore, as Daylife hosts the portal, newspapers are able to wash their hands of any technological maintenance or responsibility.

With hindsight?

Considering the great leaps that this small company has made in a relatively short period of time, Shardanand is thoughtful about how they got to this point. The only regret is perhaps a desire to speak to publishers earlier to spread the word and have speeded up the process sooner for inputting the system for clients.

The future for Daylife

Looking ahead Shardanand believes that we will see news coming from a more diverse group; Shardanand informs the Weblog that one of its clients is a pet food company in the UK that wanted to set up a blog containing pet news and stories. He expects more of such diversified providers of news and content in the future as it becomes easier to start publishing.

For Daylife itself, Shardanand is content with the direction the company is going in, but hopes to be able to move the technology into foreign languages "at some point in the future." Daylife also just want to keep on "experimenting and trying new things."

Future of newspapers

Despite the fact that Daylife's success is almost directly as a result of the problems that the industry is facing, Shardanand is positive about the future of the industry: "The outlook is bleak in the short term for newspapers, but I am an optimist and I have to believe that the demand for news will always be there from consumers, and at some point in time, once we are through this whole murky phase, there will be a model for publishing that is probably a lot more efficient. A model where the publisher can extend the newsroom staff because all the other staff can be outsourced. I think even though we are seeing newsrooms being slashed today, I think the right model is where editorial is actually a bigger percentage of the staff than it is today because of outsourcing."

Prominent German newspaper publisher Axel Springer announced that it was expanding its digital initiative by launching www.autobild.com.cn, a Chinese version of its automobile magazine Auto Bild. The company said it will continue to venture into the global Internet market, Publicitas wrote.