Results matching “times uses reader pho”

The International Herald Tribune is launching a news reader application in the first half of 2009 according to the New York Times Vice President of R&D, Michael Zimbalist.

The software will be based on the AIR 1.5 which was released on Monday. According to an article on CNET news, "it's pretty clear that the company will release a reader for The New York Times as well." The announcement was made at the Adobe Max Conference in the USA.

There is currently a desktop reader in the marketplace for the NYT. The recently announced IHT platform will take advantage of the newly released AIR application's new technology, such as its fast text-rendering engine that re-flows text as you resize the screen. The new app also uses the video capabilities of Flash 10, which Air 1.5 uses. The demo showed videos in ads, but it could also be used for editorial content.

Source: CNET

Last week the Financial Times relaunched its website with a new homepage, along with five other resdesigned pages and a new Middle East section. This is the first stage of its redesign and more changes will be rolled out over 2009. Reviews about the new design have been mixed; some call it a success, some say it's a failure. The FT has been applauded for finally redesigning and "clearing up the clutter" but the criticisms go further than the redesign, some critics have called their entire business model into question.

The new design aims to make the site look more like the print version through colour and layout. The homepage is now pink, just like the newspaper, and the design of the masthead reflects the print version as well. The website has also been renamed Financial Times, no longer FT.com.

The 'Secret Weapon' of Newspapers in the Digital Age? Paper!
William Powers, Media Columnist, The Nation, USA

Paper is an island of peace in the digital 'chaos' and an 'emerging strength' for media which demands much more examination, William Powers said in his keynote address to the annual Readership Conference.

"The world needs - desperately needs - what newspapers do," said Mr Powers, the media columnist for The Nation magazine in the United States and author of "Hamlet's Blackberry," an essay on the enduring power of paper.

Two years ago the directors of Slovenian free weekly, Zurnal decided to "change the game" with regards to their paper in order to attract more readers.  The paper was suffering from declining readership and poor circulation numbers.  They decided to produce three new products based on a multi-platform model in one newsroom.

First, free daily Zurnal24 was created and distributed on the street on weekdays with a circulation of 110,000.  Zuman24 was designed to target the young, active and mobile reader.  Its main features are short and it is only 32 pages in length.  Second, the weekend edition of Zurnal was created and distributed to households with a circulation of 290,000.  The weekend paper is 64 pages and covers a wide range of topics including local news items and opinions.  Third, zurnal24.si was created and designed for audiences 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Times Online has decided to restructure their editorial team and will no longer have the position of Editor-in-Chief Online. 

The previous editor-in-chief, Anne Spackman, will now be the comments editor. 

Other changes include a streamlining of print and online editorial management structures, according to the Press Gazette.

Times editor, James Harding, had this to say about Spackman's new position, "she has generated real change in her previous role and I am excited about her editorship of the opinion and comment pages of The Times. She will ensure that we continue to have the best team of columnists in the country, as well as bringing in new powerful voices, challenging thinking and hilarious writers to the pages. She will also develop one of the most exciting areas of modern journalism, reader comment."

Sources: Press Gazette

The Oklahoman has followed the path of a swath of newspapers across the western hemisphere and undergone a redesign. The redesign has been headed up by Dr Mario R. Garcia.



















The regional US paper is now narrower and longer, making it easier to carry and following the trend of The Times of London and the European edition of the Wall Street Journal. Garcia believes that the future of newspapers is heading towards a smaller format.

The redesign also features a new navigational system, on page one allowing the reader to survey what's in the paper. The paper is also introducing a new typographic style. Garcia reports that two fonts have been incorporated into the design: Chronicle and Retina, that make the newspaper easier to read (especially for readers 50 and older). The page grid follows a basic six-column format. The width of the page is 60.9 picas, and each column is 9.3 picas.

Source: Garcia Media

A recent special report by Editor & Publisher discussed the declining numbers of ombudsmen working for newspapers.  In an effort to cut costs, many newspapers in the United States have been laying off ombudsmen.  

Newspaper ombudsmen are public editors and reader representatives; they deal with readers' concerns and feedback.  

Around ten newspapers have dropped their ombudsmen in the last twelve months.  Since January the following papers have dropped their ombudsmen: The Sacramento Bee, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, The Sun of Baltimore, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Orlando Sentinel, The Hartford Courant, and The Palm Beach Post.

As the media landscape changes, seven longstanding competitors in the French newspaper market have been working together in an unprecedented way to test whether e-paper is a viable device to take newspapers forward. However, now that the test is over, each seems to have formed a different opinion on how to take this new publishing platform to the next level.

Electronic paper, or e-paper, is a portable display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. It can be refreshed or rewritten countless times, thus negating the need for dead-tree paper. With rapidly rising paper, printing and distribution costs, such a device could be a boon to newspapers everywhere - if readers accept the device.

To gauge public demand for e-paper, the three main national French dailies, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Libération; the sports paper L'Équipe; the tabloid, Le Parisien; the business paper, Les Échos; and the entertainment-magazine Télérama, joined forces with telecommunications company France Telecom to test the Read&Go e-paper device. The survey group consisted of 120 people and took place over the course of the past few months. Having recently ended the test, Le Monde, Les Echos and Le Figaro revealed their findings.

Le Monde's sceptical optimism

According to General Director of LeMonde Interactif, Dao Nguyen, newspapers have felt compelled to design their own e-paper device. At the IFRA International E-Reading Conference in Paris, Nguyen said that the reading experience of newspaper content on the current devices in the market - for example the Kindle and Sony E-Reader - is unsatisfactory, going so far as to say, "There is no newspaper experience on a Kindle. They have shoved a newspaper into a book device." Nguyen feels that the makers of the current e-readers did not consider newspapers at all when designing the devices, commenting, "I don't blame them. Amazon is interested in selling books through Kindle."

However, despite these issues in its conception, Le Monde reported some positive findings from their e-paper trial with Read&Go. For instance, e-reader users read the device in the same fashion as they read a newspaper's print edition, ie, spending 20 to 30 minutes reading the news in one sitting. These numbers are much higher - and better for advertising revenue - than those of reader time spent with online editions, where people scan headlines and hop in and out throughout the day. Furthermore, the trial users were positive about the experience. According to an article in the New York Times, at least one user of the Read&Go device enjoyed the fact that it is both usable in direct sunlight, something difficult with a computer screen, as well as in complete darkness, which is impossible with a printed newspaper.

Following the test, Le Monde said it needs time to crunch the numbers and consider the statistics before fully committing, but that early indications are positive. Nguyen hinted that Le Monde feels confident that the relationship it has with its readers is strong enough that the paper will be able to sell a branded reader, possibly with subscriptions to Le Monde content. However, Nguyen refused to confirm if Le Monde is taking its e-paper experiment forward.

Les Echos: Want newspapers to work together

Contrary to the branded approach voiced by Le Monde, Philipe Jannet, Electronic Publishing Editor of Les Échoes believes that newspapers need to work together if they are to succeed with the new platform. During his presentation at the Ifra conference, he reported that users like to access many different news sources and therefore, a proprietary device will not work. Jannet believes that the newspapers must "own" the news they produce and pool their resources with other newspapers, thus having access to a pool of articles, much in the same way as Google News or Yahoo! News.

Les Échoes, according to Jannet, wants newspapers to group together to "sell articles", for example if a user is interested in the Cannes Film Festival, the news sources can provide the client with all the information they have on it in bulk. He expects a future where newspapers do not necessarily just sell newspapers with the new technology, but sell individual articles.

Le Figaro: E-Papers are the "Third Possibility"

In the same way that Jannet feels that newspapers should bundle content with other providers on e-readers, Clement Courvoisier, Digital Marketing Director of Le Figaro, was happy to have joined forces with the group of seven newspapers in order to test the device. Not only did it allow Le Figaro to share the expense of the experiment, but it also showed Le Figaro that there exists a "third possibility" to print papers and online editions.

Courvoisier does not expect a significant amount of extra work for newsroom staffers if the platform is introduced, as content is uploaded to the e-reader device much like it is to Le Figaro's website. Courvoisier stated that the there had "not yet" been any newsroom reorganisation due to the experiment, but he stated that it is still only in test phase.

During the test, no extra content was produced for this platform, Le Figaro used online articles for Read&Go; once again this could change further down the line if the product is released.

As at Le Monde, the visual style will be closer to that of the print edition. This is interesting as the news will be electronically provided making it conceptually closer to online, but perhaps because of its "hand-held" nature, the newspapers want it to reflect the print edition.

One consumer, multiple reading devices?

Despite the positive trial results, the path ahead remains unclear. A limited release of the product to test the waters seems the most sensible way to go - and a comprehensive advertising campaign - this is the type of product that consumers will either fully embrace or completely reject.

During her speech, Le Monde's Nguyen envisioned a future in which individuals have many devices for reading, but this seems an inconvenient and expensive prospect. What is more likely is that one device that meets all consumers various needs, including newspaper reading, will be the most successful.

Source: IFRA International E-Reading Conference, New York Times

A number of US newspapers have submitted cancellation notices to the Associated Press (AP), announcing that they are dropping their contracts with the news service. Reasons range from the recent changes that the AP has made to its fee structure to its diversion from regional news. The Wenatchee World of Wenatchee, Washington, The Yakima Herald-Republic of Yakima, Washington, The Spokesman Review of in Spokane, Washington and The Post Register of Idaho Falls, Idaho, spoke to the Editors Weblog about their decision to cut back on AP content and future plans that they have.

The AP's new fee structure

The new pricing structure, approved by AP's board last year, includes state, national and international breaking news and allows newspapers to buy individual articles and other services, as opposed to its old structure of one bulk membership fee. The AP claims this will cause fee increases for only 10% of its subscribers,

But the Post Register's editor and publisher Roger Plothow refers to the new fee structure as "too rigid" and "too expensive", pointing out that the AP hasn't adapted too well to the changing newspaper industry.

Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith mentions that he had to lay off 16 of the papers staff in December 2007 and choosing to unsubscribe from the AP ("even considering the cost of replacement services") would save the paper nearly USD$300,000 and permit it to keep 10 to 15 jobs.

"The AP's declining content contribution?" or "Focus on Local News"
 
"They do far less for us than ever before. This year, we would have had to pay extra for basic Olympics coverage once included in the basic rate. And the AP staff in Olympia, the state capitol, told us they were unable to provide statewide coverage of last month's primary election. That is simply not acceptable, not considering how much we pay," says Smith.
 
The Wenatchee World, apart from financial concerns, dropped the AP for similar reasons. It wishes to pay more attention to regional news and the AP's regional reports have "gone by the wayside," says the paper's editor and publisher Rufus Woods.
 
"We've started a free story-sharing service with other papers in our region to enhance our regional report. We do it for free and it works great for everyone," says Woods.
 
"I believe that successful news organizations are gonna be the ones that will have the strongest local content and the challenge for us is that it's more expensive to provide local content than anything else," says Jenkins.
 
Plothow predicts that smaller and medium-sized regional papers will rely less on the AP for content since most of it may be obtained through other sources or be less relevant to readers of papers like the Register. He says that in two years time, the Register will be 80-90% regional and local, with only the most important national and international news articles.

"We will take our savings and invest it into local reporting resources. For newspapers like ours, local is the only future," says Plothow.

Smith reflects a similar idea: that while his paper has international and national coverage, its focus is primarily on local and regional events. For this, the Review cannot rely on the AP, he says. Perhaps it is due to the news outlet's job cuts or the "restructuring and emphasis online and in multi-media." He also mentions that dropping the AP's online service, like audio and broadcast coverage, made no change to the Review's site traffic.

"The big question is what kind of news report resonates with readers. Given changing reader habits, it may be that an all-local paper is in our future. Or perhaps just a slimmed-down national/international report," says Woods.

Newspapers defecting to AP competitors?

The Register is replacing the AP with other services such as Thomson Reuters, the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times-The Washington Post, European Pressphoto Agency, sports providers like PA Sports Ticker and a  "reconfigured coalition of regional newspapers that share content," according to Plothow.

The Review is adapting a similar technique. It may also make use of McClatchy-Tribune's proposed network that would be set up "under their auspices" and would pay the paper for any Review content that it would use.

Tim Brettingen, the AP's chief revenue officer, said that an AP contract is "one of the great bargains in the industry," in an interview with PaidContent.org.

But Spokesman Review's Smith countered that opinion, saying, "Frankly, I think it's highway robbery. And obviously, I am not alone. I have heard from several dozen editors who have dropped or soon will drop the service for most of the same reasons. Most of the major papers in our region are opting out."
 
Jenkins says that submitting a two-year cancellation notice gives the paper time to look at alternatives "that are available now" and those that "are being developed".

"When you look back two years, so many more sources would have become available in that period that it's hard to tell what will be available two years from now," Jenkins adds.

The effects of AP's pricing structure on the US newspaper industry

"The industry's going through dramatic change and we have to be open to radically new ways of doing business to stay in business. AP assumes they are a necessity but more newspapers are viewing it as a luxury and are weary of the "corporate" approach of the organization. If AP wants to partner with members in this evolution, great. If not, so be it," Woods says.
 
Smith, referring to the way in which the American media landscape is evolving, said "If more regional papers begin to share their content between themselves (as has begun in South Florida), the change to our industry will be seismic. AP has been the backbone service for more than 100 years. That could change in the next few years with AP becoming less of a provider and more of a competitor in the race to survive the new information revolution." He continued, " The mere fact that once competing news organizations -- The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Palm Beach Post for one example; a growing Northwest coalition for another -- will now collaborate signals a huge and unprecedented shift in the news landscape. And any sort of mass shift is going to boost the growth of fledgling content providers such as PA/SportsTicker. There will be some entrepreneurs who will make their fortunes with these changes. And new partnerships will grow between unlikely parties such as CNN and MLB.com."
 
The Post Register's Plothow predicted, "The AP will likely become a service for large newspapers. In the U.S. 1,200 of the 1,400 daily newspapers are under 50,000 circulation - these are the papers that will begin leaving the AP en masse over the next year or so." He concluded, "This will likely only improve local journalism, and national and international journalism is rapidly moving onto the Web. Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen."

Circulation:

Wenatchee World: 22,579 daily, 24,414 Sunday
Yakima Herald-Republic: 38,000 daily
Spokesman Review: 89,000 daily, 113,000 Sunday
Post Register: 25,500
(last audit, June 2005)

"You'll see, in the next 12 to 18 months, a wave of electronic-newspaper devices," says Russell Wilcox, chief executive of E Ink, the MIT spinoff whose technology powers the Kindle, Sony's Reader and other competitors.

Roger Fidler, a former newspaper executive who now researches and consults on e-readers at the University of Missouri, believes tthere are three key requirements for the device to catch on: larger screens, colour screens (a must for advertisers) and lower prices.

Colour will not happen for a few years yet, but several companies will soon launch e-readers with screens the size of an 8.5-by-11-inch piece of paper. Furthermore, the next generation will have flexible, plastic screens that do not crack, unlike the current generation of glass-screened devices.

The industry is gaining confidence in the belief that the price of e-readers can be brought down, as print-newspaper subscriptions can be expensive - one can pay over $1,300 a year to get home delivery of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe.

The biggest concern remains whether consumers who currently read newspaper on the Web for free can be persuaded to pay $10 or more a month for an e-newspaper subscription.

Source: Newsweek via IFRA Executive News Service

See also:

Plastic Logic enters the E-Newspaper market

New version of Kindle to be launched next year "at the earliest"

Sony Reader muscles into Kindle territory

A UK electronic paper display technology company, Plastic Logic, is gearing up to launch its version of an electronic newspaper reader.

It has a lightweight plastic screen more than twice the size of an Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader. The new addition to the market is scheduled to be introduced at the Demo conference on Monday, according to the New York Times.

It is the size of a copier paper, and can be continually updated via a wireless link. The new device can store and display hundreds of pages of newspapers, books and documents. It has a black-and-white display developed by the E-Ink. This first display weighs just two ounces more than Kindle, and is about one-third the Kindle's thickness.

Esquire, a magazine owned by Hearst, is unveiling a cover that features E-Ink's technology. A 10-square-inch display on the cover of Esquire's October 2008 anniversary issue flashes the theme 'The 21st Century Begins Now' with a collage of illuminated images, according to AP. On the inside cover, a two-page spread advertising the new Ford Flex Crossover features a second 10-square-inch display with shifting colors to illustrate the car in motion at night. The display has six batteries and two computer chips.

Esquire is printing 100,000 of these innovative copies.

Source: EJC Media and PaidContent.org