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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

Barely a day goes by at the moment without a raft of stories on the financial crisis, the US election and... the Associated Press. The Associated Press's communications team have never been so in demand, and the venerated news agency is moving dangerously close to becoming the story rather than being the one that writes about it.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Tom Brettingen, Chief Revenue Officer and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at the AP, to discuss bad publicity, editorial content, price structure, and editorial cuts at the agency.

EW: Have you been surprised at the reaction to the price structure changes?

TB: "Generally, and for most of the industry, what we were offering was much more content for less money and a broader license to use it. We expected people to be happy, and most people were happy, the people you are seeing in the news were people, as the economic situation got worse, who were expecting larger decreases in their rates."

EW: Why were these changes necessary?

TB: "In the beginning, the goal was not drastic rate cuts, it was more about content. We wanted to help newspapers find the content that was specifically right for them in their markets and keep rates flat in doing that. We did all the work to devise the specifics and as these discussions went on the situation in the market became a lot worse and the global economy got worse. So, now the pricing and packaging that we started off with has run into this buzz of newspaper challenges and general economic challenges and that's why you find today all the stuff in the news about us"

EW: Is the AP having the same financial difficulties as the rest of the industry?

TB: "If our customers, who are generally ad supported, are hurt by the challenges that all newspapers are facing, compounded by the global economy, then of course it affects us as well"

EW: Looking back, would you have done anything differently with regard implementing the price structure changes? Do you think communication was an issue?

TB: "Some of the clients found the new packaging unnecessarily complicated. We created one level that contained all of the Breaking News, and then separate to this we had additional levels, Premium vertical segments, such as Sports, Business, Lifestyle, Entertainment and Analysis. Our thinking was "Breaking News" would satisfy a lot of customers, but some of our clients with more specialized newspapers might want to buy additional sports and business. Breaking News did have a huge amount of sports and business, but some of it was separated into Premium categories, so only those newspapers that wanted it needed to buy it."

"If we had foreseen how much more difficult the economic situation was going to get, we probably would have jumped ahead farther and skipped some of the intermediate steps. Things were not great 2 years ago, but they weren't nearly as bad as they are now.

"I am sure that (sic: communication) was part of it.... We were making this brand new separation from Breaking News, which on its face seems straightforward enough. However, say you are looking at Sports; you get the baseball results and match report, but what about analysis and sidebars? We had that planned, but we didn't have it live in the new web platform, so newspapers hearing from us couldn't go immediately to the website and see what we were talking about."

"If we'd had more time to announce it so that we could have finished the programming so that the distinctions between Breaking News and Premium would be clearer.... yeah, we could have timed that better. We were racing to get the program built and explained so people could make their choices in time for 2009. Newspapers didn't have the ability to see the differences to Breaking and Premium, and that would be something we could have done better.

"There was a huge amount of communication, it just wasn't necessarily what everyone wanted to hear"

EW: What was AP's reaction to the business-wide and economic crisis?

TB: "Last week, as the economic situation worsened and newspapers wanted a further reduction in their pricings from us, we did two things, for the small percentages of newspapers that saw a price increase in 2009, that was called off, and then we decided to abandon the two tier model. We made it part of one package, so premium is available to everyone."

EW: What is in the future for the AP?

TB: "We are undertaking a major review of what we need to do beyond changes in 2009. That will be a wide-ranging review. There are some benefits to membership of the AP, you vote for the board, you have an ownership stake; however, maybe some newspapers would prefer to not support the co-op to that level. Maybe some newspapers would prefer to be a more straightforward customer and buy a small content package for less money. That will be something that we will be examining."

EW: Do you expect to increase prices after 2009 for US newspapers?

TB: "Unless something miraculous happens and turns things around, if newspapers get to where they need to go with much more success on the web, that is theoretically possible. But no, I don't see any rate increases in the foreseeable future."

EW: Why has the AP changed its tone in some AP copy? Some of AP's content is now quite opinionated, are you moving away from neutral ground?

TB: "It's an area that can be debated, but we are certainly not moving from a neutral position. We remain committedly neutral, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can't have a voice, it's a more distinctive voice. It's a different voice to that which we may have had on some of our content in the past, but there is no leaving the neutral middle ground in terms of political leanings. We are providing value to the reader, we don't go to the consumer of course: we're a wholesaler. However, if we don't interest the reader, our customers aren't going to find that much value in our content. It's not a decision to be outrageous, or voicing off... it was an incremental change to be a little more distinctive in the market place."

EW: Does the AP have any new projects or innovations in the pipeline?

TB: "If we're not going to have all the revenue that we've had in the past from US newspapers and, more than likely, a few US broadcasters, we need to replace that revenue. We have several initiatives to help us do that, and they will be in content areas. Any more detail would be premature at this stage."

EW: Do you expect staff cuts at AP? If so, can you confirm that these will not happen in editorial?

TB: "Its clearly a company where the expense is largely people, if you're going to reduce expenses, you've got to look there. We need to be sure that the cuts are done very carefully because damaging the product and damaging the quality of the product starts a spiral that we clearly have no intention of starting.

"There is no decision on not cutting editorial, but depending on the levels of cuts that is required, its unlikely that you could do that entirely without looking at where the majority of our expenses lie, which is news staffing"

EW: What do you see in the future for newspapers? What do you think they need to do to their business models?

TB: "If I had the secret potion I would get very wealthy in a hurry. There are lots of good ideas floating round out there and they almost all revolve around targeting users with information, content and services, not expecting a single product - be it print or web - to be fully satisfying to everybody you want to reach in your market. A lot of customization and niche kinds of products are the things on most peoples minds."

See also:

Exploring the content sharing model: Is this the future of the US newspaper industry?
Opinion: Is the AP threatening its own future?
US: AP suspends rate hike
US: More newspapers to drop AP
US: Tribune Co. to drop AP

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."

Indian media house, NaiDunia Media, has announced that it will roll out the Delhi edition of its newspaper, NaiDunia, which is currently one of the leading players in Central India.

The media company will also launch a weekly newspaper and magazine combo, Sunday NaiDunia, in nine state capitals. The weekly newspaper will target Lucknow, Dehradun, Patna, Ranchi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bhopal, Raipur and Mumbai.

Media outlets have taken the Games as an opportunity to compete for audiences as sites reveal an array of Olympics-focused features. Google announced a series of new tools that were launched for the Beijing Olympic Games this year, such as a virtual 3D tour of the stadiums that uses a combination of Google Maps and Google Earth.

Other features include an Olympics widget that can be downloaded and added to a personalized iGoogle site in order to receive features that provide Olympics coverage, sports headlines, YouTube videos, daily horoscopes, weather forecasts and a Google News feature. Users may also add applications such as a clock or games, similar to those used on social networks like Facebook.
 

The New York Times has a prominent section on the homepage that provides stories, results, schedules, multimedia and an interactive Olympics Tracker that allows you to personalize.

USA Today has a colourful section on the Games, offering everything from stories and results to blogs and Twitter feeds. There is also an "Olympics: Looking back and ahead" section that discusses former games and upcoming games as well as a section with input from fans.

The New Zealand Herald's Olympics coverage entails a section that is easy to navigate, with features like "As our Olympic team a question" and "Weird Olympics" with unusual stories about the events (e.g. stories like "Spanish team defends 'slanted-eye' photo", "China opts for lip-synching in quest for perfect Olympic image").

Numerous newspapers around the globe have launched sites dedicated entirely to the Games, such as Russian gazeta.ru, Irish Independent.ie and Ecuadorian eltelegrafo.com.

Send us examples of your Olympics coverage.

Source: The Telegraph
 

Electronic paper technology, one of the newspaper industry's most exciting innovations, could be available to newspapers as early as 2009. Ryosuke Kuwata, vice president of E Ink Corp's Asia Pacific region, revealed today in an interview that developers are getting close to unveiling the technology.

According to Kuwata, newspaper companies have made "significant moves over the past year" toward investing in the electronic newspaper. The first commercial e-paper, he says, will be tested toward the end of 2008 and launched sometime in the second half of 2009.  

Kuwata says US newspaper companies have been ahead of the game, pursuing electronic newspaper technology before Japanese companies. European papers, he says, have "just began to move."

Click here to read about electronic paper and how it could revolutionize the newspaper industry.

Source: TechOn.com through I Want Media

"Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom"  is a conference organized by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and a coalition of leading press freedom groups, held on April 18-19 in Maison de la Chimie in Paris to raise the consciousness of the journalistic community, especially sports journalists, to the press freedom conditions they should expect to encounter in China.

A Chinese journalist jailed for her reporting told the conference today that press freedom and human rights have worsened in China and that conditions for journalists in the run-up to the Olympics are "considerably more catastrophic" than they were when she was arrested 15
years ago.

"Freedom of the press and human rights constitute the most serious problem currently facing China," said Gao Yu, who was arrested in 1993 and sentenced to six years in prison for sending two articles on current affairs to a Hong Kong review. She was charged with "divulging state secrets", a catch-all charge often used by Chinese authorities to stifle independent reporting and dissent.

Her arrest came weeks after China's failed bid to host the 2000 Olympics. It was her second jail term; she had previously served a 15-month sentence in 1989 for her coverage of the Beijing democracy movement.

She compared her case to that of Hu Jia, a human rights campaigner and citizen journalist who was sentenced to three years in prison earlier this month. "As the Olympic Games approach, this case demonstrates in a terribly emblematic fashion the position of the Communist Party in confrontation with freedom of expression," she said. "It also shows the riposte of the Chinese authorities to the demands of the international community."

Despite promises of reform made ahead of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities have not only failed to respect them, but they have intensified their crackdown on journalists and others who seek to exercise their right to freedom of expression. Foreign journalists now reporting from China in the run up to the Olympics are regularly harassed and even expelled, as was the case during the March 2008 events in Tibet. This violates the Organising Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games pledge that foreign media would have "complete freedom to report when they come to China".

Ms Gao, the 1995 laureate of the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom and the first laureate, in 1997, of UNESCO's World Press Freedom Prize, said:  "At the approach of the Olympic Games, all Chinese who have suffered oppression hope to be able to utilise the occasion to seek justice; the international community hopes that the Chinese government will improve the situation of the press and human rights in line with the promise made in 2001.

"But the Chinese authorities see these internal and external pressures as 'politisation of the Olympic Games. Unhappily, counterattacking against these criticisms by repressing the freedom of the press only underlines this contradiction."

"The experience of China and the Olympics is, in fact, yet one more example of the terrible naivety and short-sightedness of those in leadership of our governments, our sports organisations and our businesses as they deal with repressive regimes like the one in place in Beijing," said Timothy Balding, CEO of WAN, who opened the session featuring Ms Gao.

"History, if nothing else, amply demonstrates that dictators do not voluntarily and spontaneously give up power, do not loosen the chains, do not remove the gags, after sudden illumination and conversion to belief in freedom and other human rights. They do so when they are forced to, generally through a combination of intense internal opposition and dissent," he said.

The full program can be found at here.

For more information on WAN's international campaign, in the run-up to the Olympics, to hold China to the promises it made in its successful Olympic bid to improve the press freedom and human rights conditions in the country, please go here.

Source: WAN

In 2006, when the Manchester Evening News decided to make the paper free in central Manchester, while keeping paid-for distribution in the city’s outskirts, few fellow publishers understood such a decision. Yet at the heart of this commercial move lays a greater will to adapt to the decline of print ad revenues by becoming a converged media group, and the Evening News now boasts the UK’s most integrated regional newsroom.