Results matching “convergence”

Mobile advertising is not yet a source of revenue that publishers can bank on, according to Constantine Kamaras, CEO of the Greek sports portal Sport.gr, speaking at the WAN-IFRA conference 'Using sports news to optimise your revenues'.

His publication Sport.gr has around 500,000 unique users per month, with about 15000 registered users. Advertising makes up 77% of their revenue, and mobile 8%. He says that users are less reluctant to pay for mobile content, but warns that mobile advertising will make up at best 6% of interactive advertising in 2010 globally, and will be only 2% in the US, lagging behind social media and online video.

"It's not news that drives the uptake of smart phones," he warned, pointing to other important trends such as search and online communities.

"Newspapers are screwed" according to an executive in a report from media law firm Olswang, 'Convergence 2009' on paid content. This latest data backs up Forester's and paidContent:UK's own data on how (un)willing people are to pay for online news content.

Here's the bomb: 60% of 1,013 people polled won't pay for any sort of newspaper articles on any digital format. 

Otherwise, Unsure: 12 %; Obtain articles "illegally": 2%; Switch to free alternative: 8%; Seek free alternative but pay up if none available: 5%; Prefer subscription to micropayments: 2%; Would make micropayments but only infrequently: 8%; Would pay micropayments frequently: 4%.

Once again, the evidence stacks against Murdoch's plans. Only 19% responded in favor of micropayments for articles, but rose to 30% for iPhone owners. Probably because they can actually afford it.

Mario Garcia is 62, but he's not too crazy about older people. They make his professional life difficult - older traditional readers who scream and complain when he redesigns their newspaper. And editors who embrace these readers and resist change."If an editor can't be redesigned, he or she must be re-assigned," he said to a roomful of editors. He got a laugh from his audience, but there is seriousness behind the remark.

The Washington Post is restructuring its newsroom to be revolve around a cross media software concept.  The daily is the third US based publication to adopt the Methode system from EidosMedia S.p.A., following the Seattle Times and The Wall Street Journal who made the move last year. 

The adoption of the Methode is a firm indication of the convergence of the online and printed media in news provision.   The choice of software corresponds with the decision of the Post to combine its online and print operations.  The two teams will merge into a remodelled newsroom, in theory before the functioning of the new software begins. The Post is approaching the restructure with vigour: In January it appointed two new managing directors to oversee the developments, Elizabeth Spayd and Raju Narisetti.  The paper's new Executive Editor Marcus L. Brauchli, headed the previous restructure whilst at the WSJ.  The logistics of the move however, highlight the gloomier side of necessary evolution: according to Narisetti, the combined staff will measure the same or just under that of the print staff as it stood eighteen months ago.  The diminishment has been due to attrition and buyouts.

As the controversy over the recent election in Iran and the subsequent media response have made abundantly clear, social media like Twitter are playing an increasing role in the world of journalism. While today's working journalists must learn how these tools will affect their jobs on the fly, j-schools have a great opportunity to instruct the next generation of journalists before they enter the newsroom.

In a column on Mashable, Vadim Lavrusik - himself a journalism student at Columbia University - outlines "10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media." Lavrusik spoke with professors and deans at some of the top j-schools in the US, who told him how their respective schools have integrated lessons about how new technology can assist in reporting and provide a tool for promotion and self-branding on the web. The questions Lavrusik raises regarding ethics and social media are perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the article, and could have real consequences for students.

The CEO of Bloomberg's Multimedia Group has outlined his vision for a 'global spanning news network', which prioritises the development of mobile news diffusion, placing a particular emphasis on the use of original video content.   Andrew Lack, eight months into his position at Bloomberg, confirmed that his reputation for being 'an early digital adaptor' still applies as he spoke at last week's Advertising 2.0 event.  

Lack expressed his belief that the mobile screen would become as significant as that of the PC and the television in the future of news diffusion.  The venture is based on the conviction that readers will pay for and advertisers will be eager to  associate with the news as presented on the mobile screen, more than they have been willing to do so with television and Internet forms.   

The Digital Britain summit is taking place in the UK today, as a result of Lord Carter's interim Digital Report which was published earlier this year, and ahead of his final report which is due in July. Speakers at the summit have included Gordon Brown, and trade secretary Lord Mandelson. Whilst much of the talk has revolved around technology (notably the need for high speed broadband) and inevitable mention of the current economic climate, the summit is throwing up essential points for the newspaper industry and its current difficulties.

 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke of the need for forward thinking in digital terms, and insisted that Digital Britain must not be built in the image of the past. He compared the digital revolution to the industrial revolution, in that only in retrospect will people realise its importance. He acknowledged that although digital brings with it challenges to traditional industries, such as the newspaper industry, it also presents opportunity.

As part of the Financial Times' Newsroom 2009 plan to converge both its print and online operations, the FT has appointed four new "integrator" roles tasked with overseeing this transition.

Further details of the Newsroom 2009 plan were leaked yesterday, with managers outlining a three-stage editorial process consisting of creating, crafting and completing. Each news division will have its own integrator who will be responsible for carrying out the proposed changes.

The Guardian has reported that Financial Times journalists have been notified that they are to start subediting some of their own work.

Journalists were informed about the latest developments yesterday, courtesy of editor Lionel Barber, who ran through the changes which form part of Newsroom 2009 - the FT's strategy to train newsroom staff in areas not traditionally covered by their roles as reporters or editors.

In light of its recent focus on multimedia content, the Associated Press (AP) will be offering access to still images as well as film and video footage through the AP Archive, said a company press release.

"Many of our customers no longer think in terms of just footage or just photos because media convergence has meant that they generally need both," said Alwyn Lindsey, AP Director of International Archives. "This approach is a direct response to the new market needs and it allows us to provide customers with the diversity of materials they require."

Source: AP Press Release

Texas Christian University has revealed its plans to expand its journalism school, in work to be completed by January 2010.  They will add a 'convergence laboratory' to the new Schieffer School of Journalism.  

The apparently contrary move in an industry plagued by redundancies and financial crisis is explained by Bob Schieffer, moderator of Face the Nation for CBS News and John Lumpkin, the new director of the Schieffer School.  They 'said people's need for news will ensure that jobs continue to exist, although business models may change.' For this reason, the new convergence lab will teach students how to report the same stories on screen, online and on paper.

TCU have recognised a growing industry trend for multi-platform reporting, with increasing usage of multimedia being seen across the board.  With the world of print currently in unknown waters, TCU is doing its best to equip its students for all possible outcomes.

Source: Star-Telegram.com

The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging is the new book describing how "the two worlds" of new media and traditional media are joining together and "bringing out the best in each other" by Arianna Huffington.

The two realms are mixing, Huffington said in an interview with Reuters, with traditional journalists blogging, and bloggers gaining "credibility and stature" in traditional media.

The series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Indian financial capital Mumbai have gained worldwide attention, and the speed with which Internet users were able to read first-hand reports within hours of the initial attacks is proof of a revolutionized way that information reaches an audience.

Although mainstream news coverage has dominated headlines thus far, social media has been a major outlet for news at the scene and around the world.  Internet users are sharing news and information for updates and reactions.

The Associated Press has appointed Carole Feldman to lead the convergence of text, broadcast and online formats in its Washington bureau.

Feldman is currently the Assistant Chief of Bureau in Washington, which is the news cooperative's largest bureau.

As part of convergence, Feldman will develop "innovative news gathering, training, and production approaches, plan major news events, and oversee the budgets for both departments," according to Editor and Publisher.  She will be reporting to Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier and Acting Head of Domestic Broadcast News Kevin Roach.

Source:  Editor and Publisher

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
 

On Friday, October 3, Singapore Press Holdings announced that it will launch an English weekly paper for the Indian population in Singapore.  The paper will be titled tabla! and will be distributed for free beginning October 10.

The paper will focus on news in India but will also provide information on developments in Singapore that affect the Indian community.  According to Rajendran Jawharilal, editor of tabla!, the paper will "cater to the diverse interests of the Indian disapora - ranging from current affairs to entertainment news, from personal finance to sports."

Although the paper will be distributed free, it will be available for home delivery for $28 Singapore dollars a year.

Sources: NDTV

Newspapers around the world are facing a challenging time, not only because of the current difficult economic climate and declining advertising revenues, but also because of the ever more rapid push to multi-platform publishing and the changes to the operation that this has involved. Is it time the whole operating model underwent a shake-up? Neil Benson, Editorial Director - Regionals, at Trinity Mirror believes that newspapers need to radically overhaul the entire structure and that, being from a "conservative industry", they have been "overly-cautious" for far too long.

Benson, and the three Editors of the Birmingham titles affected, have rewritten the rulebook on workflow and newsroom management at the Birmingham Post (Editor Marc Reeves - business orientated newspaper), Sunday Mercury (Editor David Brookes - tabloid) and Birmingham Mail (Editor Steve Dyson - a popular evening paper); and the new system is scheduled to go live in mid-October. Benson says that in previous recessions for the media industry, the standard way newspapers have responded is to cut the pagination of the paper and axe staff, but Trinity felt that this was simply "inadequate". Benson says, "The financial pressure is nothing new, but the additional factor is the internet and convergence and the effect that this is having on the industry, so we felt that rather than do the straightforward cost-cutting, we needed to do something much more imaginative." The Editors Weblog spoke to Benson to get all the details.

Rethinking workflow

Trinity Mirror has been using the same tried and tested newsroom workflow as most other newspapers, ie, (1) journalist writes the article, (2) submits it to the news desk, (3) designer fits the story into the page, (4) sub-editing desk scrutinizes, and (5) final revision and publication. This whole system has been completely turned on its head, with Benson stating, "We are truly a multi-media business now, so lets structure for that." The old five-step system has now been honed down to just three steps: create, place and complete. Benson says that not only did they have to look at the overall operating costs in the current difficult economic climate, but they also wanted to fully integrate multi-media working practises into the operation. With the advent of new publishing platforms, such as mobile and the Internet, newsrooms have had to adapt rapidly and have thus frequently "bolted-on" on new practises to the traditional model. Benson wanted to revamp the whole process so that multimedia is fully integrated into the operation.

The new workflow system is as follows:

1) Reporters - who will now be known as multimedia journalists*, - create the content.
2) Send to the "Multimedia" desk where a newly trained multi-skilled team will not only check the copy but also place it into heavily templated pages. This is the key step in the reinvention; here Trinity have merged the news editing and production function into one.
3) Page finishing, revising and tidying up.

Benson says he cannot remember such substantial changes being made to a newsroom in 35 years. Not only will this system help to cut costs and integrate multimedia publishing, but it will also cut down on the time between a reporter finding a story and it appearing in print or online. Furthermore, the three titles at Trinity Mirror Midlands will all be sharing a newsroom; so if a big story breaks the merged newsroom can push more resources towards the story and cover it more thoroughly than was ever possible before.

Integrated newsroom - open space and collaboration

One of the key areas where the changes can be seen is in the newsroom team itself; the individual Head of Content or Head of Sport for each title will be merged and will now work across all titles and channels. Furthermore, the whole team, including advertising and sales, will all be on one floor working together.

In the centre of the new newsroom (the whole team is moving to a new purpose-designed site in Birmingham in about a month's time) there will be a structure that Benson describes as being "like a broken doughnut" (ie, a round structure, open at two points for exit and entry) which is the multimedia desk: everything will be directed from this central hub. It will also contain the conference table where all of the news meeting will take place, making it open to the entire staff rather than in the Editors office behind a closed door as in the past. This structure also enables the multi-media desk staff to always be at their workstations even during the news meetings.

Furthermore, over the summer, a new publishing system was introduced called "Content Watch" (produced by a MediaSpectrum) which is completely web-based making it possible to file copy and sub copy from anywhere.

Training journalists: the "nuts and bolts" of integration

The training programme undertaken to make this radical change in structure possible has been comprehensive. Benson describes the training as "nuts and bolts" and philosophical, ie, enabling the team to "think" multi-media when they are working.  Staffers are all being equipped with laptops for filing on the move and Smartphones (Nokia 95 Smartphones for shooting video, streaming video, and take digital pictures), so there have been practical training sessions for the new kit, being led by the Head of Multimedia and the editorial training manager.

The team have brought in Paul Bradshaw from Birmingham City University, who has an online journalism blog, for the philosophical side; the sessions involve talks on multimedia and issues surrounding it for senior staffer, who will then "percolate this knowledge down". The staff have also been attending a series of multimedia awareness sessions led by Andrew Dickinson from the University of Central Lancashire, who also has a journalism blog.

Benson is very clear on the importance of this training programme, "We are asking people to do something very new, and unless you invest in the training it is not going to work."

Managing the team through unfamiliar waters

Another key consideration for Trinity Mirror in this reinvigoration of its newsroom has been its staff. The process resulted in 65 voluntary redundancies at the newspapers and this understandably caused concern for staffers at the group's Birmingham titles. Furthermore, with the whole workflow system being turned on its head, staffers were required to apply for roles within the new structure. This, reports Benson, was a difficult decision and one "not taken lightly". However, the changes in structure are so radical that they felt it was necessary to take this step to underline the enormous change the Birmingham titles were undertaking, and for the staff to truly consider if they wanted to be involved in it. Benson reports, "We had our eyes open, we expected a big reaction."

Bearing this in mind, management moved ahead quickly and launched a consultation period where staffers had one-to-one sessions to discuss concerns and ask questions. Rapidly after, the job application process started.  

The UK's National Union of Journalists took a role in the process, telling management that they would fight any forced redundancies; thankfully, the voluntary process proved successful and a strike was averted. Benson reports that communication was open with the union throughout the process.

With hindsight?

Trinity Mirror Midlands is nearing the finishing line in this whole process, but with the benefit of hindsight, would they have done anything differently? Benson says that he does not feel that there is a "fundamental" in the process that they got wrong. He does believe that the communication process with staff is vital and needs to be as open and detailed as possible. For Trinity, communication has been, "pretty good, but more would have been better."

Furthermore, with the office move planned well in advance and with Trinity's desire to undertake the changes before the office move so teething problems could be ironed out, lack of time was an issue. Benson says, "Ideally, a bit more time, but then again I have been involved in projects in the past where you can give yourself too much time. Being journalists, we all like a deadline."

* The multimedia journalists role now involves shooting video, taking picture, and so forth, as well as being equipped to file from anywhere with the new web-based publishing platform.

Preston, UK: 13-17 October 2008

Reinventing the Newsroom master class participants will gain insight into key issues facing newspaper executives who operate in competitive, technologically-advanced environments.

Experts from leading media companies and the Journalism Leaders Programme Team will offer participants tips to set up a genuine multimedia newsroom and to ensure that your organization's change initiative gets widespread support.

Discussions will be lead by distingushed editors-in-cheif, senior news executives, scholars and master teachers who bring special expertise to every session.

Discussion Leaders include:
George Brock, Saturday Editor of the Times in London
John Burke, Deputy Director of the World Editors Forum
Andy Dickinson, digital media trainer and author of a highly-rated digital journalism blog
François Nel, award-winning journalist and digital media specialist
Jane Singer, international-recognized expert on media convergence

Please visit The World Editors Forum for more information

http://www.wan-press.org/wef/masterclasses.php

Don Dodge from the Microsoft Startup Zone has said that blogs are replacing newspapers with regard breaking news and analysis and fast becoming more professional.

There are 25% less traditional journalists in the United States than 10 years ago, and this fact has been put at the door of Web 2.0.

The public's perception of blogs is also evolving, the general public are starting to view them as reliable news sources.

"Convergence in digital technologies the blending of computing, telephony and screen-based media devices is something we can't ignore," says Martin Hirst is the Curriculum Leader and Associate Professor of Journalism at the Auckland University of Technology.

Source: nzherald.com

Guardian News and Media is merging operations of its online and print outlets, The Guardian, Guardian.co.uk, and The Observer. The move replaces the traditional "funnel" structure of the newsroom - all stories going through one editor - with a new layout, dubbed "pods in a matrix" by Guardian Editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger.

"The jargon is now, I'm told, we're a 'matrix' organisation. That means you will have to get used to the fact that you are working for two people [a section head and a head of news, sport and business]," Rusbridger says.

The new system will preserve some of the traditional positions in a newspaper, such as an overarching editor, but not all reporters will have to pass their stories through the funnel. Journalists working in "pods," or groups covering a common subject, will publish directly online.

"I've always thought that news editor on a newspaper is an impossible job - all your correspondents are trying to get the attention of this person. And in the end all their copy has to come through this tiny, narrow funnel.

"That's what I mean about releasing the creativity, so these people don't go home pissed off because they didn't get their story in the paper," Rusbridger says.

The Guardian's efforts offer a glance into the future newspaper's infrastructure, a system of micromanagement designed to facilitate media convergence, connect readers with the information they seek, and make the news as timely as possible.

"Everywhere you look in the world a similar thing is happening," Rusbridger says, "It's not seven-day publishing, it's going over to something much more ambitious."

Source: Press Gazette through IFRA Executive News Service

Australia's Seven Network has become the first to broker a deal with the International Olympic Committee, allowing for the first time internet sites in Australia to show short video clips of Olympic events in Beijing.

Under the terms of the new deal, sites that are non-rights holders will be allowed to show three minutes of Olympic events' footage a day. The deal is not without strict conditions: the video stream must be broken up into three segments, each of no more 60 seconds long, the content must be removed with 24 hours, and sites must 'geoblock' content from users outside Australia.

The new rules for internet sites are similar to the rules for television stations with broadcast rights to the Olympics. 

"It is a fairly significant development," said Kevan Gosper, Australia's senior International Olympic Committee member. "The IOC has, for a long time, been at the forefront of supporting both the rights of the official rights holders and fair access to news about the Olympics for media around the world."

The question now will be if this deal with extend to mobile devices with internet capabilities. Moreover, the terms of the deal only mention 'Olympic material,' leaving news organizations with questions over the IOC stance towards technical and newsroom convergence around audio-visual newsgathering.

Sources: News Media Coalition's Andrew Moger, The Australian through News Media Coalition  

In April 2007, French regional newspaper Le Télégramme launched an original online offer: a miniature, daily, television-type news report.

At the time, the experiment was hailed as most innovative in the French regional paper landscape. Has that particular format borne its fruits though?

Télégramme and JT Web

The paper built a studio within its newsroom at a relatively low cost, about €70,000 including two professional cameras, an editing console and lighting. The paper hired a professional broadcast journalist to produce daily video footage with professional standards (about one original report daily, sometimes two). The actual news show, dubbed 'JT Web', lasts about five minutes. It is staffed by four of the paper's journalists, who come from diverse backgrounds and desks, on a rotating basis. It is published every weekday at 5pm.

Each journalist compiles video content shot by the videojournalist, gets a share of his or her own footage or carries out short interviews with the paper's journalists, and serves as an anchor for the news report. Each underwent a 4-week training program. They attend the morning news meeting and pick out the stories that will have most visual relevance.

The JT Web has helped to expand Le Télégramme's multimedia coverage. However, the televised format of the JT Web has borne disappointing results traffic-wise. Of the roughly 40,000-50,000 daily unique visitors to the website, there are only between 1,000-3,500 video downloads, depending on the news event.

In these baby steps of online video though, editors shouldn't be excessively concerned by eyeballs, as the JT Web served more important purposes, helping to modernize the newsroom's culture.

Video fueled newsroom convergence

The 'JT Web' was launched with two main purposes. One was to "surf on the growing enthusiasm for video news coverage" that was emerging on all the major international news sites, said Olivier Clech, Digital editor at Le Télégramme. Secondly - and as importantly in Clech's view - the JT Web was a good way to engage in cultural change within the newsroom (which isn't integrated but Clech would like it to be), by creating curiosity amongst journalists.

"Video was a lever to trigger evolution," he said. It was both used to fulfill the audience's needs and made journalists " realize that multimedia was inevitable." This doesn't mean that all of the paper's 200 journalists will regularly produce multimedia coverage, but the JT Web was a good way to make them more Web-friendly.

For the last municipal elections in March 2008, the Télégramme organized diverse video coverage to complement its print and online stories. Video interviews were shot with editors of the paper's local editions ("100% print people") to discuss the details of the elections. On election day, the Télégramme gathered spontaneous reactions from voters and politicians, and provided video analysis from its main offices.



Newspaper video: towards on-demand, news YouTubes

According to Clech, the JT Web's televised news format was a good way for the paper to tackle video, since it required a rigorous and structured approach. But it doesn't fall in line with the expectations of the online audience, "which is a more of a consumer of short video sequences." Most Web users seek short and diversified on-demand clips. The JT Web may have also suffered from insufficient visibility on the homepage, lack of broadband penetration and a relatively slow server.

In the future, the JT Web could be scrapped, or perhaps the Télégramme will save this format for talk shows, profiles or select news items. The TV news report format simply doesn't bring enough people. And there seems to be a disconnect between waiting on videos of 'hot' breaking news until the 5pm news report, instead of publishing them immediately.

Clech couldn't give too many details, but the paper is working on its next set of video offerings, which could include a larger selection of on-demand video clips, which users could freely browse. Content would be more systematically indexed to make it easy for readers to find and share. Sounds familiar? Perhaps there could even be some participatory features...

Last but not least, Clech reminded: "Let's not focus on the platform, and instead keep doing our jobs." That's the secret.


Stay tuned for Part 2, with an interview with Ian Vaile, Director of Digital Productions at Fairfax Media in Australia.

Source: Olivier Clech, Digital Editor-in-Chief at Le Télégramme

Ifra launched a search engine to search for news about the newspaper industry last week.

The site returns results in three categories, including 'Ifra and partner sites', results from a select list of news sources, and results from the whole Web.

Searches can be done in English and German.

"We search stories about the news publishing industry, so people working in newspapers, irrespective of the platform they work on, can find information there," said Reiner Mittelbach, CEO of Ifra.

"The beauty of it is you can search the worldwide web, but only [relevant] pages that we have selected, because if you want to search for convergence you want to find news about convergence in newspapers, not biology or mathematics."

The site also brings forward membership pages published by Ifra and its partners that aren't usually crawled by search engine spiders.

Source: Editor & Publisher - European Journalism Centre - journalism.co.uk

New York Times Co. has launched ShifD in beta, an application that enables users to seamlessly shift content between their computers and mobile devices.

According to the NYT, thanks to ShifD, users no longer need to separately save information on both their computer and mobile device. Users can update information on their online SifD account which then automatically updates it on all devices.

Users can do the update from any Web browser, by text message, through a mobile Web browser, or by using Adobe AIR.

“ShifD is an experiment in giving users the power to bring their content with them by easily shifting it among all of their Web-enabled devices,” said Michael Zimbalist, vice president, research and development operations.

For the beta launch, users can save three types of content including notes, links and places.

“We see a future for device-independent media, with convergence around the user experience and not any particular delivery platform. Developing services that allow users to access content wherever they are and on whichever device they choose is an important part of our strategy.”

Source: Fox Business - RTT News through I Want Media

Starting today Feb. 21, newspapers publishers in the UK can report their print circulation and website unique users in a single monthly report.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation will start publishing its first combined readership reports, which will combine data that was previously divided according to the platform.

According to journalism.co.uk, the new reports will cover the January circulations and unique user figures of Daily Mail and Sunday Mail, the Guardian and Observer, The Sun and News of the World, the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and the Times and Sunday Times.

The new reports will help newspapers sell their overall reach to advertisers.

Source: Journalism.co.uk