Results matching “to launch free p”

Regional publisher Archant is to stop circulation of both its free weekly papers, The Harlow Herald and The East Herts Herald, Press Gazette reports. The announcement comes with a twist, as Archant announced its plans to publish a weekly news magazine called Scene. The new publication will come with its own website and mobile application. The Guardian adds that Scene will also provide something needed in the journalism industry: more job opportunities. 

The South Africa National Editors' Forum has announced the launch of "a coalition to spearhead efforts to promote and entrench freedom of speech across all levels of South African society." The Coalition for Free Speech will aim to challenge the Protection of Information Bill, seen as secrecy legislation, as well the African National Congress's proposed media appeals tribunal.

SANEF members defined their goals at a meeting in Johannesburg on August 30. The new Coalition will "champion a collective drive by media, big business and civil society to amplify the importance of free speech as a pillar of our democracy and not just a matter which concerns media," a SANEF press release said. The organisation's planned campaign will focus on illustrating the principle that "more information is better than less" in issues relevant to all South Africans. 

A year ago, the Ann Arbor News stopped printing and AnnArbor.com took over. Ann Arbor, Michigan was the first American city to lose its only local daily, and at the time it was anticipated that it would be the first of many. A year later this does not seem to have been the case. Senior AnnArbor.com staff, Poynter and the Chicago Tribune took a look at AnnArbor.com's first year.

Going online only in Ann Arbor made sense to parent company Advance Publications because its residents have very high levels of broadband Internet access, as a university town. The site it launched was supposed to look different to other news sites, with a more 'social media' feel.

The BBC Trust, having taken into account impact, finance and duration, has decided that the BBC's smartphone and iPad apps do not call for a Public Value Test.  This comes almost four months after the Trust suspended the Executive's plan to launch these apps in April, on grounds that an assessment was needed "to decide whether a Public Value Test (PVT) should be carried out." The apps were launched outside of the UK. 

The Newspapers Publishers Association, representing UK national newspapers, prompted the  Trust's assessment with an appeal that such apps would be trespassing on their commercial territory. Specifically, the newspapers had an interest in tapping into the same market, but with paid for applications, and competing with free, subsidized BBC apps seemed (and still seem) an unfair advantage to the competition,

Cardiff school of Journalism research fellow Andy Williams has written a highly critical piece on Trinity Mirror, in light of its management of two national Welsh papers, the North Wales' Daily Post and South Wales' Western Mail, which he describes as in "serious (some suggest terminal) decline." He argues that Trinity Mirror is more concerned with generating profits for shareholders than providing high-quality news.

He asserts that both newspapers have lost large amounts of readers, and comments that "Trinity seems to display little concern that readers are abandoning its titles in droves" and that "the effect falling circulations have on the quality of the Welsh democratic debating chamber could not be further from their minds." 

Apollo, a new news app for the iPad, aims to offer "the world's first fully personalized newspaper," loosely based on the music platform Pandora, which suggests to users new music that it thinks they will like, based on their preferences. After its release on Friday by Hawthorne Labs, Apollo quickly jumped to number 11 in the Apple iPad store, according to co-founder Evan Reas. It is priced at $4.99 (or €3.99).

Quoted by TechCrunch and others as saying that the app aimed to "deliver the final blow to the newspaper industry," Reas stressed to the EW that he did not in fact intend to destroy news providers, but simply that he believed that print newspapers were becoming less relevant to younger people, and that digital news was the future. "What I was trying to express is that the traditional newspaper (and system that surrounds print news) is dying," he wrote on his blog.  

In fact, Reas did not want Apollo to be seen as a threat to the news industry. "We believe that we are a friend to traditional news sources, helping them get new views from a new medium," he said, adding that  "we think it is mutually beneficial for us and the content sources."

Apollo aims to help readers discover new content that they will like, based both on their expressed preferences - they can like or dislike specific articles, and favourite sources - and on which articles they read, how much time they spend on each, and what 'similar' users like.

The news is separated into different category groups, which are displayed as boxes along the bottom. Each of these has a choice of several different subcategories, which were chosen following extensive user testing, Reas said. The categories are intended to prompt users to read different types of news, and maybe to discourage them from only reading about the topics with which they are already familiar. One of the arguments against personalized news is that it takes away the element of serendipity, the chance to discover something totally new, but Reas said that the categories and the fact that Apollo is continuously bringing in new sources and articles will retain an element of this.

Apollo selects news from thousands of sources, both established news sources and blogs, using their public RSS feeds to link to content within the app. No content is licensed, and as the RSS feeds are public this should not be a problem. Another iPad news reader however, Pulse, had problems immediately after its launch when the New York Times objected to the use of its content within the app. Pulse essentially offers nicely-presented RSS feeds, allowing readers to choose their sources. One possibly important difference between the two though in terms of copyright is that  Apollo only offers a title and small snippet of an article before the reader clicks through to the page of the news outlet, while Pulse reproduces the whole text of the article that is available via the RSS feed.

For now, Hawthorne Labs' single stream of income is from app purchases: there is no advertising within Apollo. "In the longer term, we are considering other options like offering premium services to readers," Reas said.

He has faith in the iPad's potential as a news reading device: "I think the iPad will be how most people get their news in the future," but hopes to create Apollo apps for the iPhone, Android and a web browser too. "We are thinking about a lot of new ideas, especially around social, recommendations and personalization of content in our goal to be the daily destination for people to discover their content."

Many news publishers have been hoping that the iPad and similar devices will represent a significant revenue stream, at a time when they are determined to make money out of digital news distribution. The hope is that consumers will be prepared to pay to subscribe to specific news apps on the iPad, even if they are not prepared to pay to subscribe online. Much of this expectation seems to have been created by the fact that people are prepared to pay for news apps on the iPhone and other smart phones.

Something to note, however, is that most customers are far more likely to pay a one-off fee to download an app rather than pay regularly for a subscription. And with applications like Apollo or Pulse, which offer news from multiple sources in a relatively readable format for a one-off payment, news outlets are going to have to up their game if they want to persuade a high number of readers that they are worth paying for. Plus, it is significantly easier to read news in a web browser on the iPad compared to a smartphone due to the far larger screen size, reducing the need for an app at all.

Reviews of news apps have been middling so far, as Alan Mutter noted in May and with which present ratings concur, but the potential for innovation in the way news is presented is huge. And subscription-based apps have been selling, with the Times counting 12,500 subscribers, and it was reported in early June that the Wall Street Journal already had 10,000 iPad subscribers. As a comparison, the BBC's free app has been downloaded more than a million times. 

The iPad and other similar devices will remain niche, elite products for at least the immediate future, but those who do buy them are likely to be prepared to spend some money on apps if they are offered something interesting enough. Will consumers prefer the personalised aggregation of news offered by Apollo, or will they choose a premium experience from their favourite newspaper? Or both? 

In a couple of months the New York Times will launch its latest hyperlocal project, The Local: East Village, covering New York's East Village with help from New York University students. The project seems to have prompted resentment from local bloggers, according to Capital, an online publication about the city.

Capital's Eliza Shapiro wrote about the "East Village blog mafia's chilly response" to the upcoming project.  The area is "arguably the neighbourhood-blog capital of New York," she said, with a wide variety of online publications. Much opposition to the arrival of The Local seems to stem from the very involvement of NYU, which is based in the East Village and seen by some local residents as dominating the area. As Shapiro writes, if the Times is to benefit from the free, skilled labour offered by journalism students, "That means entering a town-gown showdown."

Roy Greene, senior assistant metro editor at the Boston Globe, explained in an article on Poynter.org how the paper used crowdsourcing to complement its World Cup coverage.

He described the four steps the Globe took, starting with creating a simple, web-based questionnaire, to identify  Boston.com readers who were travelling to South Africa. The questionnaire asked for information including full name, hometown, email address, job, plans for the tournament and favourite team, and asked whether respondents would be willing to speak to a reporter. The form was posted on the home page and the soccer page just before the launch of the World Cup, and Greene saved the responses that he thought could be valuable: about a dozen, he specified. 

The recently-relaunched Times and Sunday Times websites start charging for content today. There is an introductory offer of £1 for 30 days, after that the sites will be £2 a week or £1 a day for those who do not subscribe to the print edition. There is no access beyond the home page for non-subscribers.

The Guardian quoted News International CEO Rebekah Brooks as saying "We have been very pleased with the response from readers since the launch of the new websites in May. The new sites showcase our award-winning journalism in a very visual way, giving readers exclusive content and interactivity so that they can get even more from the news. We believe the new sites offer real value and we look forward to continuing to invest and innovate for readers."

On Monday, Yahoo! announced the forthcoming release of the first edition of its "Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World".  The 528 paperback tome will cover stylistic suggestions for a variety of digital formats and issues running the gamut from mobile content publishing tips to search engine optimization techniques.  The guide also promises to address the traditional topics of grammar, punctuation and sourcing as applicable to web-based publications.  A sampling of basic articles (e.g. an introduction to HTML code) and resources (e.g. a  word-list for tech jargon) has already been made available on the guide's free companion website.

Foursquare, arguably the hottest, heavily-courted, high-tech startup since Twitter, has just inked (no pun intended) a deal with the most widely-read newspaper in the US, The Wall Street Journal.  A selection of WSJ.com articles (NYC restaurant reviews and other local cultural coverage) now include an "Add to Foursquare" button.  As TechCrunch astutely notes, "one surefire way to know that a service is doing well is when you see their buttons start appearing all over the web. We've seen it with Facebook, we've seen it with Twitter (Tweetmeme buttons), and now we're going to start seeing it with Foursquare".

Bloomberg News is doing things a little differently.  In stark contrast to media heavyweights such as The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London and The New York Times, Bloomberg has launched a fresh version of its business news website supported solely by ads rather than subscription fees.  A free-content approach to news provision would seem to be a departure from the company's traditional revenue model which revolves around selling subscriptions to its Bloomberg Terminals data feeds at the price of $1500/month.

Online news aggregation and content distribution service Publish2 has announced the launch of a product it hopes will replace The Associated Press, or, as the company terms it, "Craigslist it." As in, "kill the AP's main income stream by offering an open, efficient alternative," TechCrunch explained yesterday.

The Publish2 News Exchange product, announced at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, will aim to help publishers reduce content distribution costs associated with The AP for distributing high quality and free content from around the Web, VentureBeat.com reported. Instead of buying AP content, Publish2 would connect online publishers with print publishers, offering brand syndication alternatives to web publishers, while acting as a news aggregator for online journalists and bloggers.

For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

The new Times and Sunday Times websites were launched today, offering a free preview for about a month before going behind a paywall in June. Already, users must register to go beyond the homepage.

As reported last week, the home pages of the new websites look more like their print counterparts and have a stronger multimedia focus. The Sunday Times in particular puts much emphasis on multimedia, leading the homepage with a large photo/video box and accompanying each story with a picture, as well as offering an index of multimedia galleries high up on the page. "We hope we've designed a site that focuses on showcasing that journalism in the cleanest and aesthetically pleasing way possible," said a Times staff member in a live chat. 

By now, it has become increasingly clear that 2010 is in fact, as the British weekly Economist put it, the year of the paywall. The Times of London and the Sunday Times are just weeks away from offering their online content for a fee and recently, the New York Times announced its finalized paywall plans and an official launch date.  

This has prompted Vanity Fair.com's and Newser's, Michael Wolff, to wonder what will happen to the news world when most people no longer get their sources from established sources.

Wolff shies away from the economics of paid online content's viability and delves deep into the transformations that a drop in readership might bring for newspapers behind paywalls.

As the iPad's European debut nears, more publishers are preparing their applications for Apple's much anticipated tablet computing device.

Italian daily La Repubblica announced that it is launching its "very first version" of its iPad application in advance of the device's release in Italy, "for the sake of the many Repubblica readers in the US and elsewhere who already have an iPad." The application is free to download for this first phase. Later versions will contain "many new elements and functions" on an interface which will provide "still more important surprises." The paper already has a subscription-based iPhone app.

Android phones have outsold the iPhone in the US for the first time in the first quarter of the year, the Guardian and others reported, just as the New York Times released its first Android app. According to market research by the NPD Group, mobile phones using Google's Android operating system are now the second most sold smartphone category, behind the BlackBerry, from Research in Motion.

The research concluded that BlackBerry devices made up 36% of the smartphone market, followed by Android with a 28% share and Apple's iPhone with 21%. Several different phone manufacturers, including HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson, have adopted the Android OS. 

Following the recent launch of a new fund management section by London free business daily, City AM, the newspaper launched a weekly vodcast on the homepage of its Web site on April 30, and will publish a one-off election special evening edition called 'City PM' tomorrow.

The launch of a weekly vodcast is the outcome of a recent deal brokered by the newspaper with Pure Media, on behalf of Forex.com. The five-minute "Market Update" weekly vodcast features Allister Heath, editor of the newspaper, discussing finances and the economy, and is sponsored for the next 12 weeks by Forex.com, an online trading service provider, MediaWeek reported. The weekly vodcast aims to provide the newspaper's audience with a chance to hear valuable opinions from the editor, while offering Forex an opportunity to engage with its target audience as well.

For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

While some news media outlets erect paywalls on their websites and others implement Facebook apps, The Nation magazine has entirely revamped theirs in hopes that the new content outside of the paywall will draw users in.

"Our form of journalism requires real financial support," admits The Nation's editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, "but it's our belief that if we continue to produce high-quality journalism while facilitating a vibrant community online, you will continue to support us."

The magazine offers content behind a paywall but does not plan to expand this section, opting instead to add features to the free site.  It's launching an arrangement with GRIT TV, a progressive video hosting platform, to offer each Monday a show with "video commentaries, conversations and field reports about Nation articles." And two new bloggers, Greg Mitchell and Jeremy Scahill, will offer coverage of media and politics and national security issues in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The site has also added new sections specifically geared towards students, educators, and members of its donor group, in hopes to expand their network to a wider range of readers.

News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has supplied observers with much food for thought in recent days. In yesterday's Q3 earnings call which reported better than expected results, the media mogul discussed plans to unveil an innovative subscription model "to deliver digital content to consumers wherever and whenever they want it," paidContent reported. As paidContent points out, this may well coincide with the launch of paid Times and Sunday Times websites.

Murdoch mentioned a press conference in three to four weeks where more details will be revealed, and the subscription mechanism will charge for entertainment as well as news, he said. PaidContent speculated that a Times subscription might be bundled with at BSkyB satellite TV subscription, for example, or even with cinema tickets. When questioned on whether the new payment system would compete with iTunes, Murdoch replied that it would.

In February of this year, Google announced plans to open-source its Living Stories code, offering the program for development for news sources and blogs worldwide.  Though there hasn't since been a large influx of news organizations using the Living Stories software, Google announced last Thursday that it has developed a plugin for WordPress-based blogs and websites, a move that will likely open up the tool for use in a wide array of news sites.

Living Stories allows publishers to gather all their reporting on one topic under a single URL, so that readers can follow a story as it develops. In previous manifestations of the Living Stories project, the top of the screen offers a summary of the history of the topic, the left side offers a toolbar of filters, the right side offers a timeline of events pertaining to the topic, and the center showcases articles pulled from news outlets and blogs across the web.