September 2010 Archives

The Competition Authority of France announced that it sees no fault with the acquisition of the daily newspaper Le Monde by businessmen Pierre Bergé, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse and gave the project "the green light," Le Nouvel Observateur wrote today. Last week Le Monde wrote that the trio would have a 51 percent stake in the company.

According to Agence France-Presse, the organisation explained that the buyers had "limited interests" within print magazines (gay and lesbian title Têtu for Bergé and rock music outlet Les Inrockuptibles for Pigasse) and websites, meaning that the deal had no underlying competition issues. Editorial independence was guaranteed for all the titles involved in the deal, AFP added.

Spain's Arab community will have access by the end of October to Andalus Press, the first Arab-language weekly in the country, La Verdad reported Tuesday.

The newspaper will be published by Andalus Media, a news agency specialized in the Spanish-Arab coverage, "to satisfy the information needs" of the Arab-speaking residents, said publisher Said Ida Hassan. 

The Boston Globe announced that it would start a new paid Web site in the later half of 2011. The web site, called BostonGlobe.com, will be in addition to the existing, Boston.com, which the company calls a "two-brand" strategy, New York Times reported in a blog.

The new site will include all news and feature stories published in the print edition, while Boston.com will remain free and offer local news and classified advertising, but access to full stories, commentary, features and other content will be limited, The Associated Press reported.

The Washington Post and Yahoo News have collaborated to launch "The Fast Fix," a daily video feature starring Chris Cillizza, managing editor of PostPolitics.com and author of the Post's blog The Fix, according to the UpshotBlog on Yahoo News. The video feature will offer analysis on the day's political news in 60 seconds.

While bringing together reader submissions, social media, and Cillizza's own intellectual curiosity to provide better analysis and insights on politics, the co-produced and co-branded video feature will offer nonpartisan political commentary covering the "so what?" and the "now what?" through fast, visually active analysis of both over-reported issues and important but under-reported political topics, according to the press release posted on MarketWatch.com.

Image: MediaBistro.com

In an effort to tap the mobile platform for revenue, Australian media group Fairfax has unveiled iPhone apps based on the subscription model for its newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Today and WAToday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday.

While most newspaper publishers have opted for a one-off fee payment system, the Fairfax group is the first publisher to have launched an iPhone app based on the subscription model, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Readers can download the apps from the Apple iTunes store at a monthly charge of $2.49 and those who opt for subscriptions over a six-month period are entitled to a 15 percent discount, and therefore will pay only $12.99.

Image: AdNews Australia

U.S. media giant AOL announced yesterday that it has bought popular technology blog TechCrunch for nearly US$25 million, said two sources familiar with the venture, Bloomberg reported. However, the San Jose Mercury News speculated that the figure might be anywhere between $25 to $45 million.

"It was either time for us to start investing a lot more money in things like technology and marketing - which probably meant raising a venture round - or to sell and simply partner with somebody who could do that," said TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. "AOL has a very robust, large blog network that shows they have the software side nailed. So it solves a real problem for us from the technology side."

Purchasers of mobile telephones can look, but not buy, their mobile devices soon. According to mocoNews.net, Google has recently launched a new Android store for "window-shopping only." 

The store will be a "database that tracks all of the Android handsets in the market place allowing customers to conduct comparisons across handset makers and carriers," according to the online article. Google also launched the Google Phone Gallery, which will be like a phone showcase without actually selling anything. Google learned its lesson when it underestimated "how hard it would be to sell unlocked devices at full price directly to consumers," states Moco News.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

The International Herald Tribune will launch a news weekly supplement in association with Reuters tomorrow MediaGuardian reported yesterday. The weekly supplement, called Middle East with Reuters, can be found every Thursday in the IHT's Middle East print editions.

The inaugural four-page issue of the weekly supplement will feature dedicated regional news, business, opinion and culture coverage from IHT, The New York Times and Reuters correspondents, while focusing on emerging trends and themes throughout the region, according to the press release posted on AFXNews.com today. This weekly issue is meant to complement the current coverage of the Middle East with analysis of the daily newspaper and authoritative world reporting.

Image: Guardian.co.uk

U.S. publishers Gannett Company Inc., The New York Times Co. and The Washington Post Co. have invested US$12 million in a start-up company called Ongo, which is developing a news aggregation website that will draw content from major publishers, The Wall Street Journal revealed today.

"We are building Ongo to reflect the many ways consumers prefer to read, organize and share digital news," Ongo's founder and chief executive officer Alex Kazim stated in a press release.  The service is expected to go online by the end of the year.

Having recently restructured and deviated focus to digital media operations, U.S. national daily USA Today unveiled its first standalone glossy women's health publication, Fresh: Women's Health Guide, from its YourLife stable, Editor &Publisher reported yesterday.

The magazine will cover everything about health, "From advice on how to get a good night's sleep to how to live healthy and spend less," according to the press release. The magazine is available at newsstands nationally for US$7.99 and can also be purchased online.

Image Source: USAToday.com

Facebook drives 13 times more traffic to French news sites than Twitter, which only accounts for one click per 100 visits, according to a study conducted by AT Internet Institute, paidContent reported today.

Among the top 12 leading news sites in the country, Facebook is responsible for 1.3 percent of visits and Twitter for 0.1 percent. By way of comparison, researchers also looked at the traffic driven by Google and found that the search engine' share is 40.6 percent or 30 times greater than Facebook, AT Internet explained in a press release.

Graphic source: AT Internet Institute

The Russian version of prominent magazine Newsweek may soon be published by the ONEXIM Group, an investment fund that also owns shares in the country's media firm RBK (which has a business daily paper and TV channel), Lenta.Ru reported today. An unofficial ONEXIM source told journalists that the representatives from Axel Springer, current publisher of Newsweek Russia, have already talked the issue over with ONEXIM heads. However, ONEXIM owner Mikhail Prohorov did not participate in the discussions.

As early as next month, Newsweek Russia may cease publication, Axel Springer Russia General Director Regina von Flemming announced, according to KM.ru. A possible reason is that it is not generating sufficient revenues, the article stated. However, official Axel Springer sources called the possible venture a mere rumour and refused to comment on the matter. Von Flemming also did not offer a comment. Newsweek Russia's Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Fishman said the title is functioning normally, RIA Novosti reported.

UK daily The Times has lost an additional 120,000 online readers following the installment of a paywall, the latest comScore data shows, Media Tel reported Monday. According to Thinq, the News International-owned daily also saw a 1.67 drop in print readership, reaching 494,205 - the first time since April 1994 that the figure has been under 500,000.

The title had 1.459 million unique visitors in August, a 7.6 drop from 1.579 million in July, when the paywall was launched, according to WallBlog.co.uk. The total minutes users spent on the site dropped by 16 percent from six million in July to five million in August, Beehive reported. Further, total page views dropped by 22 percent, from nine million to seven million, month-to-month.

Australian lawmakers have proposed a new law that would allow journalists to conceal the identity of their sources, The Associated Press reported. Currently, journalists risk being jailed for contempt of court if they attempt to protect their sources' identity.

The first time Parliament convened since last month's elections, Andrew Wilkie introduced the bill, and Attorney General Robert McClelland said that his center-left government will support the bill, the AP specified. It would allow journalists to refuse to identify their sources in court, and McClelland told reporters at Parliament House that "we will start from the premise that the court will presume that the confidentiality of the journalist's source is protected," the AP said.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

Kicking off an online revolution in traditional display advertising at Advertising Week in New York, AOL unveiled its display advertising initiative called Project Devil, which aims to transform online advertising by improvising on aesthetics, impact and interactivity of ads, NewsandTech.com reported yesterday.
 
Through this initiative, the company is aiming for a "fundamental redesign of the Web," which is incredibly "bold and ambitious," Jeff Levick, AOL's president of global advertising and strategy told MediaWeek.com. The company's two ad platforms namely- the company's mega ad network, Advertising.com and its popular ad-serving platform, AdTech will support growth of the Project Devil initiative.

Image Source: RealTimeAdvertisingWeek.com

The Huffington Post's most touted citizen journalist, Mayhill Fowler, has quit the Huffington Post, according to a blog posted on Washington Post. She is known for scooping the pros twice during the 2008 presidential campaign, recording Bill Clinton's tirade against Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum and quoting Barack Obama saying working class voters "cling to guns or religion."

Fowler took to her own blog to explain why she quit: "I want to be paid for my time and effort - or at a minimum, to get a little remuneration in return for the money I spend myself in order to do original reportage. I would not expect to be paid for punditry. The Huffington Post business model is to provide a platform for 6,000 opinionators to hold forth. Point of view is cheap. I would never expect to be paid there when the other 5,999 are not. However, the journalism pieces I have done in the past year seem to me as good as anything HuffPost's paid reporters Sam Stein and Ryan Grim produce. Why do they get money, and I do not? I don't recall either of them writing the story about Barack Obama waxing large on "clinging to guns and religion," which seems more and more as time goes by to be the one big story out of the last presidential election to live on. Or at least it is the one that journalists and pundits are quoting regularly now."

Photo of Mayhill Fowler via Gawker

Having re-launched 16 of its news websites after overhaul operations recently, The Sun-Times Media group plans to deliver the United States' largest sports monthly magazine, called Athlon Sports, for its readers beginning October 21, Editor & Publisher reported yesterday. Seven million copies of the monthly magazine will be circulated nationwide by the media group's 47 newspapers.
 
The magazine will appear each month in the Thursday editions of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Southtown Star, the Post-Tribune, the Courier News of Elgin, the Beacon-News of Aurora and the Herald-News of Joliet, the Naperville Sun, the Lake County News-Sun, the Pioneer Press and The Doings Newspapers, NewsandTech.com reported yesterday.

A survey conducted by the Association of Online Publishers found that UK-based publishers are more focused on mobile platforms and tablet devices to help next year's digital ventures, pointing out that innovative technology is "at the heart of their business development plans over the next 12 months" and will promote "dynamic growth," a press release stated.

Ninety-one percent of the participants said they are hoping to improve revenues from mobile devices whereas 86 percent are enthusiastic about the launch of tablet computers, The Independent reported yesterday. Other opportunities publishers saw include high speed broadband connection, social networks, paid content, e-Commerce and behavioral targeting. Sixty percent considered it to be necessary to offer online content that is local, BCS mentioned.

Image: MediaGuardian

Taiwan News, an English-language newspaper that has been published in Taiwan since 1949, will be available online-only starting Friday, the Central News Agency reported yesterday.

"The unthinkable is finally upon us," said Taiwan News' President Jack Wong during a press conference explaining the daily had taken the lead in the country by being the first digital-only newspaper.

Photo source: Central News Agency

Trinity Mirror is planning to cut four editor positions in its Celtic weekly titles and replace them with a single editor-in-chief, Press Gazette reported.

Media Wales, the unit which publishes the papers, informed its employees of this restructure plan among its Celtic titles and the decision to put the editorial teams under the immediate control of one editor, BBC News reported. 

Rupert Murdoch's UK-based publishing group News International embarked on a multi-million pound advertising campaign beginning yesterday for its national Sunday tabloid paper News of The World (NOTW), MediaGuardian reported. The initiative, which touts the title's reputation for exclusive content, is being launched across outdoor and television platforms before a digital paywall is raised next month.

The TV ad, made by WCRS agency, includes the slogan "The Big Stories Start Here" and will strive to convince users that NOTW produces quality material. According to Brand Republic, the three-week long campaign will include some of the tabloid's biggest scoops, such as football team Chelsea's player John Terry's affair and Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson paying for access to her ex-husband Prince Andrew.

UK supermarket chain Asda and News International, the British arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., have announced a new deal that features the return of NI-owned The Sunday Times to 260 Asda stores, following a week-long disappearance, MediaWeek reported today.

NI recently increased the cover price of the weekend title by £0.20 to £2.20. Last week, the publisher decided that it would have £0.183 of the price increase while retailers just a little over 1 pence or £ 0.017, which constitutes 23.5 percent. Asda responded by claiming that it should have £0.5, or 25 percent of the cover price, as it previously did.

Gérard Proust, head of the National Union of Press Distributors (UNDP) in France, has called on the government to provide €4,000 in transitional aid to newspaper sales merchants, he mentioned in an interview with Le Figaro last week. The same figure was provided last year, but as the number of newsstands plunges, newspaper sales outlets may be losing hope in the industry.

 "Transitional aid is not enough. I am officially calling on the State to continue its effort. I am aware of the financial obligations of the state," Proust said. "But I think that today it is necessary to send a strong signal to our sector by renewing the aid this year." Even though other markets, such as books, may show positive figures, copy sales of the press sector continue to dwindle. However, the jump in distribution and audience numbers indicate that there is a public need towards information and that consumers are still interested in paid print content, Proust explains.

Photo: Grazia.fr

As consumer reading preferences increasingly shift to mobile devices such as the iPad and smartphones, The Associated Press is looking for a means to harness the mobile medium's potentials by bringing circulars and coupon inserts to newspaper apps, AdAge.com reported today.

Tentatively called "iCircular," the app is currently being developed in collaboration with Verve Wireless and will work in conjunction with the AP's white-label app platform. Jane Seagrave, senior vice president and chief revenue officer at the AP confirmed its development, but declined to provide any further information saying, "the development process wasn't far enough along," according to AdAge. Member publishers can also publish apps under their own brand with the help of this application.

La Gazzetta dello Sport remains the most popular daily in Italy, with an average of 4,132,000 readers per day, according to the latest report published by the newspaper circulation auditor Audipress, Il Sole 24 Ore revealed last week.

But the sports daily, which saw its readership increase by 3.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010, was not the only newspaper to gain readers. For instance, La Repubblica maintained the second position with 3,269,000 million readers and an increase of 1.9 percent.

Tindle Newspapers Group, which owns more than 200 local titles in the UK, launched on Friday three weeklies despite the economic downturn that continues to affect the industry, Press Gazette reported.

The Barnet & Potters Bar Press, the Hendon & Finchley Press and the Edgware and Mill Hill Press will be distributed door to door to 90,000 homes in the North London, the company announced in a press release. The weeklies have ultra local news of areas already broadly covered by The Press, one of Tindle's publications.

Sir Ray Tindle, founder of the Tindle Newspapers Group, during the launch of a press facility. Photo source: NEWBURY Weekly News Printers Ltd

The Financial Times has recently relaunched its weekend magazine with a new look and new content, it was reported today. While, according to the Guardian, Saturday editions have been growing and exceeding weekday circulation at most publications, the FT's weekend sales are thought to be weaker than those Monday to Friday.

The paper does not actually reveal precise figures for its weekend paper, which is published on Saturdays but remains in shops the following day, said the article.  But only 35 percent of readers who buy the Financial Times during the week buy the Saturday edition, said Caroline Daniel, the newly appointed editor of the Financial Time's weekend edition.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

The Guardian Media Group will launch in the next few months a home delivery service in central London for its two flagship newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer, Media Week reported today.

The strategy is aimed at securing long-term readers in order to offset falling circulation. Although specific details have not been officially released, Media Week revealed that some of the subscription packages that will be offered include "free delivery of weekday and weekend alternatives within the M25 region."

Photo: EPA via The Daily Telegraph 

The parent company of Chicago Sun-Times, The Sun-Times Media group, has re-launched 16 of its news websites, including five dailies and 11 weeklies in the west region of Chicago suburbs after overhaul, Editor & Publisher reported yesterday.

This re-launch of news sites is a part of the conversion of its papers to the Sun-Times Media Desk platform, for which the company started laying the foundation earlier this year, according to NewsandTech.com. To enable better coordination of operations among its five newsroom divisions and promote content sharing, the media group has deployed ContentPublisher editorial app hosted by Digital Technology International to merge its editorial operations and facilitate multichannel publishing.

French free dailies Metro and 20 Minutes will be expanding their distribution coverage in France, with new editions to be published beginning Monday, Newspaper Innovation reported yesterday.

Metro will be launching new editions in Metz, Nancy and Toulon, thereby expanding its reach in the country from nine to 12 editions, while 20 Minutes will launch an edition for Montpellier. Metro's new editions make it the country's only free daily available in these cities, with a distribution of more than 20,000 copies each day, according to a statement by the newspaper, Agence France Presse reported. The launch of Toulon edition is expected to further strengthen the newspaper's position in the south, after the successful launch of its Marseille edition in 2002.

Image of Metro: TarifMedia.com

Google announced on Wednesday the launch of its vocal search tool in Russian for mobile phones, Novie Izvestiya reported. From yesterday onwards, users of Android-run platforms, iPhones, iOS devices as well as Nokia S60 have been able to install Google Voice Search. 

The Boston Globe might be on the verge of becoming one of a growing number of papers that ask readers to pay for online media.  According to the Boston Business Journal, The Boston Globe may announce a plan by the end of the year to charge readers of online content in order to increase revenue. 

"The Globe has paid apps out there. In regard to big picture, you're going to be seeing introduction of apps going in this quarter, in fact, in regard to Boston.com. But from a standpoint of evaluating what we plan on doing in regard to paid models, they are, that is under evaluation right now, in fact," said NYT Co. CEO Janet Robinson at a conference on Wednesday.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

A group the Philadelphia Inquirer's debt holders won today the bankruptcy court auction for the Philadelphia Media Holdings, the company that owns the Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, Reuters informed.

The lenders, which include hedge fund Angelo, Gordon & Co and the Credit Suisse, submitted on Wednesday the winning offer of US$105 million, outbidding the $85 million proposed by philanthropist Raymond Perelman, Bloomberg revealed. The judge's confirmation hearing is schedule for next Thursday.

Photo source: Philadelphia Independent Media Center

The New York Times Co. said yesterday that its revenue is expected to decline by two or three percent due to loss of advertising in its print publications, MediaGuardian revealed.

Although the company forecast a growth in digital ad sales, these gains will not be enough to offset the print advertising losses. Furthermore, it expecting a revenue decline of 5 percent in subscription and newsstand sales, The Associated Press explained.

Photo source: Topnews.net.nz

News weekly Bloomberg Businessweek plans to publish a series of country specific reports to provide global business leaders and advertisers with deep and unique insights on the  leading industrial countries in the global economy, according to a press release posted on BusinessWire. The inaugural edition of the country-specific report series will focus on Germany, and will be featured in the Oct. 4-10 issue.

The launch is set to coincide with the 20th anniversary celebrations of German reunification and will be available on newsstands from Oct. 1. This move by the news weekly is aimed at capturing the interest of readers and attracting readership from its rivals, Fortune and The Economist, according to MediaWeek.co.uk.

Image Source: MediaWeek.co.uk

Following reports that Apple is stepping up its efforts to get publishers on board for a proposed newspaper and magazine subscription portal run through Apple for publications on the iPad and iPhone, Agence France-Presse has reported on concerns on surrendering control over subscriptions to the tech giant.

An 'iTunes for news' seems a logical step for Apple, which as well as its groundbreaking music store, also sells TV shows, films and more recently, books. And iTunes has been credited with helping to curb the trend of illegal downloading songs which threatened to seriously damage the music industry. The simplicity and convenience of iTunes has persuaded millions of people to purchase music online, and many have wondered if it could do the same for news.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will give Journalism Online's Press + e-commerce online platform to 10 non-profit journalism sites in order "to encourage you to seek permanent sources of financial support," the foundation told grantees, Editor & Publisher reported today.

The first 10 sites given grants from the foundation that install Press + will receive a year-long waiver of of the revenue Journalism Online collects for the platform, as well as payment and advisory services. Journalism Online was formed in 2009 by Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery.

Image: Superchou's Flickr photostream

Two Indian national dailies, The Hindu and The Times of India, have published "talking advertisements." The ads for a Volkswagen campaign uses a light sensitive speaker that has been placed on the newspapers, which broadcasts audio as light falls on the device, Journalism.co.uk reported yesterday.

The audio broadcasts play in an endless loop until the reader closes the newspaper, Reuters pointed out. While taking ads and moving ads have been tried before, "this must be the first time daily newspapers of the size and reach of ToI and Hindu have done it at a time when American newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post are just about coming to terms with the reality of advertisements on the front page," Sans Serif pointed out.

An article by David Cohn on PBS.org, analysed six new "journalism startups".  The startups were Kommons.com, Storyful, the Local:East Village, Emphas.is, Ebyline and ThankThis.com.

Kommons was started by Cody Brown, who, with a co-founder, taught himself how to code and "iterated like mad," states Cohn.  He compares Kommons to 10questions.com or Yoosk.com and to be part of the site, the person using it has to be asked a question.  Brown is also trying to steer the main idea of the site away from "journalism," Cohn said.  "Brown is avoiding 'journalism' baggage while still providing a community with tools that can serve its news and information needs.  As I've said before, we may not call it 'journalism' in the future, but if it still meets the news and information needs of a community, more power to it," Cohn adds.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

Turkmenistan's Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs presented on Friday the launching issue of Rysgal, the first privately owned newspaper in the country, Turkmenistan.ru revealed.

The first issue of the eight-page paper, which is published in Turkmen and Russian, featured on its front page an article written by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov "congratulating Turkmen businessmen for publishing their own newspaper and promising his full support to private entrepreneurs," Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Image: Central Asia newswire

Rupert Murdoch's The Sunday Times last weekend increased its cover price by 10 percent to £2.20, becoming the most expensive national Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom, MediaWeek reported Friday.

This is the first increase in the past four years, when the cover price rose to £2.00, the Press Gazette reminded. However, News International said the price hike "is less than the rise in the retail prices index over that period," MediaGuardian quoted.

The Telegraph Media Group is launching its first free iPad app in association with Audi as the launch sponsor, Mediaweek.co.uk reported today.
 
The app will make editorial content from the UK media group's newspapers, Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, available for free throughout the week, according to the newspaper.

Image Source: Telegraph.co.uk

The Financial Times is calling on UK Business Secretary Vince Cable to open an investigation of the possible takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB by News Corporation, saying it is "unlikely to encounter insuperable obstacles as the deal may well not fall foul of European competition law."

News Corp already owns a 39.1 percent minority stake in BSkyB, the Pearson Group-owned FT points out, and adds that Cable should investigate to "ensure the existence of a range of media voices," as together, News Corp and BSkyB "would be a truly formidable beast," with 37 percent of UK national newspaper circulation coming from a News Corp-owned publication, while Sky has 35 percent of the TV market, based on revenue.

Canada's national daily, The Globe and Mail, will unveil a "dramatically redesigned" print edition on Oct. 1, featuring the most significant changes in the newspaper's history,  the Globe and Mail announced today.

The first redesigned issue will also be the launch of an eight-week series titled "Canada: Our Time to Lead," which will discuss Canadians and their country. The series will be supported by integrated multi-channel marketing efforts, with creative's developed by Naked Creative of Toronto. Ongoing reader discussions and debates will be held online, to go alongside the newspaper's coverage.

Media group Thomas Crosbie Holdings Limited told the Irish Examiner and the Evening Echo newspapers' staff that they would have to accept a 10 percent pay cut due to the increasing financial problems of the company, The Irish Times reported Saturday.

During a meeting held on Saturday, the management also revealed a €20 million deficit in the company's defined-benefit pension fund derived from poor investment performance, according to RTÉ News. As a result, the dailies' staff might face pension cuts of at least 50 percent, the Irish Independent reported.

Hoy Fin de Semana, a Spanish-language free newspaper delivered on weekends in Los Angeles, will increase its circulation from 500,000 to 700,000 early next month, the Los Angeles Times reported last week.

"Hoy Fin de Semana delivers the engaging content our readers crave and provides advertisers with the largest and most complete reach in the number one Hispanic market in the country," Hoy Los Angeles Publisher and General Manager Roaldo Moran said in a statement, Business Wire quoted.

Brain Dunn, chief executive of the electronics store Best Buy, notes that people are becoming more interested in staying connecting regardless of their location. "People are willing to disproportionately spend for these devices because they are becoming so important to their lives," he states. The numbers speak for themselves; Dunn estimates that the introduction of the iPad has chewed into sales of laptop PCs by roughly 50%. Television sales have also dropped off, as people are interesting in buying mobile devices they haven't previously owned rather than upgrade their current entertainment systems.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

In an effort to find out how social media and multitasking are affecting students, Harrisburg University in Pennsylvania has blocked social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter on its central wireless system for the past week, MediaGuardian reported today.

Eric Darr, provost at the U.S. university, came up with the idea after watching his teenage daughter multitask with social networking, text messaging, music and more. "It struck me how overpowering all this was, not in a negative way, and it made me wonder what would happen if all that wasn't there," he told MediaGuardian.

Image: maebmij's flickr photostream

To explore the potentials of mobile marketing for advertisers, ad agencies and retailers, Irish free commuter daily Metro Herald has partnered with a mobile Internet service company to provide users with quicker means to respond to advertisements on print by scanning QR codes, SiliconRepublic.com reported Tuesday.

As a part of the deal, the newspaper will work in tandem with the Digital Reach Group to use Quick Response (QR) codes on print advertisements. The Irish Independent explained how QR codes work: "QR codes are barcodes embedded in advertisements that can be scanned by a reader using their smartphone to access extra information on their phones." While enabling users access to additional content on mobile devices, a simple point and scan will allow them to download mobile apps, enter competitions, receive a special offer or voucher, call or text.

Three months after the Fijian regime issued a decree ordering media outlets to be 90 percent owned by local citizens, News Limited agreed on Tuesday to sell The Fiji Times to Motibhai & Co, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"We are reluctant sellers of the Fiji Times, but I am delighted that we have been able to find a buyer who will take over the business as a going concern," News Ltd. Chairman John Hartigan said, Agence France-Presse quoted.

TNA Media-owned daily The New Age postpones launch of its print edition until October 20, according to an announcement on its website on Tuesday.

This decision of postponement follows "an exhaustive review of readiness" exemplified by the newspaper to launch this month, TimesLive.co.za reported yesterday.

With declining print circulation and advertising revenues, newspapers have been eyeing tablet devices - especially the iPad - as an important new revenue stream for the future. The San Jose Mercury News reported today that Apple is working on a new subscription plan for newspapers on the iPad, and will announce the plan "soon."

While the company did not respond to request for comment, Roger Fidler, head of digital publishing at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute in Columbia, Missouri, told The Mercury News that "Apple probably will take a 30 percent cut of all subscriptions sold through the company's online App Store, and as much as 40 percent of the advertising revenue from publications' apps."

Image: DigitalTrends.com

Canada's National Post offered voluntary buyouts to its entire staff as part of its Postmedia Network Inc. restructuring plan. The employees have until Friday to accept the proposal, which includes three weeks of pay for each year on the job up to a maximum of C$125,000, The Globe and Mail informed yesterday.

"It's a decision at the local level, so National Post management developed a voluntary buyout program for their operation," Postmedia's director of communications Phyllise Gelfand said to Reuters. 

El Sol de Santa Cruz was launched on Monday in Bolivia, becoming the first free newspaper in the country, Newspaper Innovation reported yesterday.

The 32-page daily will be distributed from Monday to Saturday through 500 points in the city of Santa Cruz. According to El Espectador, the paper has a daily circulation of 45,000 copies and its target readers have ages between 20 and 40 years.

Agence France-Presse has announced that it is to launch the world's first high definition news video service today. AFP is the world's third largest newswire, behind Reuters and the Associated Press, with 2,900 journalists worldwide.

The agency's video wire AFPTV has around 80 news gathering units around the world and distributes 1,000 new videos per month. Today's move to high definition will cover English and French videos, and over the coming weeks it will be expanded to cover those in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, German and Polish.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

The Hollywood Reporter, a paper that specialises in entertainment news and currently published five days a week, will become in October "a glossy, large-format weekly magazine," The New York Times reported Sunday.

Subscribers to the daily printed version will now receive a daily digital edition in a PDF file. The Hollywood Reporter's website will also be redesigned with a focus on breaking news that will allow the publication to compete with entertainment blogs that have eroded its readership, The Daily News revealed.

The Chicago Tribune's business section unveiled a "refreshed and redesigned" look today, Editor & Publisher reported today. The redesigned business section emphasizes the coverage of consumer issues and personal finances.

Recently, the Tribune company formed a special committee with four independent board members to oversee its Chapter 11 plan as lenders withdrew from supporting a restructuring plan.

The Washington Post will run a two-inch strip across the bottom of its front-page on Sunday, the UpshotNewsBlog on Yahoo reported yesterday.

For the very first time, the newspaper ran a cover-wrap ad campaign for Capital One on its Sept. 5 print edition, which gave information about the conversion of Chevy Chase Bank to Capital One, Edito & Publisher reported today.

Image: UpshotBlog on Yahoo! News

Total advertising in the United States jumped by 5.7 percent to US$63.6 billion in the first half of 2010, compared to the same time last year, according to media research company Kantar Media, AdWeek reported yesterday. However, the newspaper industry as a whole saw a 3 percent drop to $8.6 billion.

National newspapers saw a 7.1 percent growth in ad expenditure, reaching $1.2 billion, while Spanish-language titles experienced a 4.8 percent hike to $127 million. Market Watch pointed out that nationals saw increases as a result of gains at The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, ad spend at local papers decreased by 4.6 percent to US$ 7.3 billion. 

The New York Times yesterday launched The Local East Village, a hyper-local news blog written in collaboration with the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, Editor & Publisher reported.

The site will cover New York City's East Village neighborhood, which has 70,000 residents and extends from 14th Street to Houston Street and between Broadway and the East River, NYULocal.com explained.

New online video content service The Video News Agency was launched on Monday, Journalism.co.uk reported. The service will grant journalists, broadcasters and web editors free access "to the rapidly growing wealth of high quality news and feature footage that is increasingly being self-produced by businesses, NGOs and government," according to Operations Director Daniel Kennedy.

VNA hosts videos such as corporate news, documentaries and interview to be used by media companies. In addition, there is extra material such as Electronic Press Kits for broadcasters. The video files are indexed and tagged according to sector and location. E-mail notifications are available for new content is uploaded that corresponds to sector and geographical specifications. 

Spending on Internet advertising is rapidly growing, according to the latest report from eMarketer and Starcom MediaVest, out today. Global ad spend online is forecast to hit US$96.8 billion by 2014, up from $55.2 billion in 2009, the Global Media Intelligence Report states, paidContent reported.

"Companies worldwide will spend nearly half a trillion dollars on advertising this year. But spending that money wisely is more of a challenge now than ever before because of the changes brought about by the growing importance of digital media," the report's summary states. "To meet that challenge, marketers need dependable data about evolving economic conditions, consumer spending patterns, media consumption habits and competitor spending levels. And multinational corporations and their agencies need to compare and contrast these trends across regions and countries.

Image: paidContent

Scotland's online magazine for the Polish community, Scotsbarszcz, debuted its first bilingual print edition today, AllMediaScotland.com reported. The magazine, published in English only until recently, will now carry side-by-side translations of stories in English and Polish.

"The magazine was launched with the intention of encouraging integration of recent Polish immigrants into the Scottish communities where they have chosen to live. It aims to introduce Scottish culture to the Poles and Polish culture to the Scots," Gerry Cassidy, editor of the magazine, told AllMediaScotland.com.

China-based e-commerce company Alibaba Group has announced that it will launch a newssite aimed at covering e-commerce related events, Lenta.ru reported last week. The move is a response to the shut down of print publications covering the subject, a consequence of the global economic recession, the privately held company explained. The site, Alizila.com, will provide news and information about Alibaba Group products and services.

"Our intent is to provide coverage of developments at Alibaba that otherwise might go uncovered, and to do so with traditional journalistic rigor and skepticism," Alizila editor Jim Erickson stated in a press release. "Our hope is that our target audience - customers, industry analysts, and other journalists - will come to see us as a credible, useful news source." 

The launch of the "first comprehensive guide for all live and scheduled events" on the Internet was announced in a press release today. Live Matrix will be available for publishers, event organisers and individuals as a service that covers live audio and video webcasts, product launches, site launches as well as other Web-based announcements.

Live Matrix organises video content according to genre (i.e. entertainment, news or sports). CNet explained that each event has a box that measures how many users have saved it to their listings so that the event gets a popularity rating of sorts. Users may also schedule reminders or share the event across their social networks. The online TV-guide does not host any of the content, but offers links to outside sites. The outlet sells advertising space and embarks on sponsorship ventures with event providers, according to Venture Beat. 

Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed on Wednesday a decree that regulates the distribution of newspapers and magazines and recognises newsstands clerks as the only workers allow to sell them, El Clarin reported.

The new regulation stipulates the creation of a national registry of newsstands in order to combat unauthorised sale channels such as supermarkets and gas stations, Terra.com.ar explained.

Photo source: El Diario 24

National newspaper circulations in the United Kingdom continued to decline across the board in August year-over-year, while Sunday quality papers increase over the previous month, according to latest figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), Journalism.co.uk reported.

Sunday quality titles, including the Independent on Sunday, the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times, recorded a monthly daily circulation increase of 0.36 percent, compared to a drop of 1.83 percent in July.

The New York Times is developing a social news service in collaboration with Betaworks, the technology company that created bit.ly and TweetDeck, paidContent.org reported today.

The personalised service, called News.me, will be initially launched only for iPad and it is expected to be available later this year. According to Betaworks' chief executive officer John Borthwick, the company has been developing the app for six months, The New York Times revealed.

U.S. News Media Group, which publishes the monthly U.S. News and World Report, is launching a series of real-time news feeds in collaboration with content aggregator Loud3r, paidContent.org reported today.

Using Loud3r's online search technology, the news group aims to complement its original reporting with relevant content on a myriad issues from around the Web for its readers, according to the press release published on ITNewsOnline.com. This new content channel will give editors the tools to discover and curate fresh, relevant content

News aggregation has been around about as long as the Internet itself, but the problem of what is legal and what is not legal is still being hotly debated and litigated in the courts. Still, the notion that aggregators are hurting the news publishing industry is supported by many, such as News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and Associated Press Dean Singleton, a white paper, by Kimberley Isbell, of the Citizen Media Law Project, explains. And the argument isn't likely to be solved soon.

The Nieman Journalism Lab has reproduced the report, which explains the legality of various types of news aggregation. Although the paper is based on copyright laws in the United States, it is "likely to be a useful point of reference for anyone dealing in online content," Journalism.co.uk noted.

Image via NYC Comets' Flickr photostream

Aiming to attract more advertisers from around the world, The New York Times has unveiled a new trade brand identity for its global sales team, called The New York Times Global, MarketingWeek.co.uk reported today.

Through this rebranding initiative, The Times' global sales team aims to target advertisers from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa with multi-platform media solutions from the International Herald Tribune and the newspaper group.

Seventeen years after closing down publication in the Middle East, The Moscow News will once again publish an Arabic edition, called Anbaa Mosku, in the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf News reported today.

About 40,000 copies of the newspaper are expected to be distributed bi-monthly in the UAE beginning October 3. Before its UAE launch, Anbaa Mosku was relaunched in 15 Arab countries and in Israel as a monthly publication in November 2009, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, which publishes the newspaper. In the Arab world outside the UAE, it has a circulation of 150,000.

Rupert Murdoch's The Wall Street Journal will launch a book review section, which will be included as a pullout in The Weekend Journal, The New York Observer revealed today.

The section is expected to start in the next few weeks and it will be edited by Robert Messenger, one founders of The New York Sun and former editor of The Atlantic.

As entrepreneurship-related activities are at their highest in the United States in the past 14 years, Bloomberg is making most of the current boom by launching a dedicated section for business executives and entrepreneurs on its news site, according to MediaBistro.com. The section will focus on "how top global entrepreneurs run their companies."

The new section will feature weekly profiles of innovative companies, insights on weekly Q&A's with renowned entrepreneurs, news features from Bloomberg News and Businessweek, and programming from other Bloomberg properties that include Bloomberg TV's weekly show "Venture with Cris Valerio," featuring interviews with leading entrepreneurs, according to a press release posted on EONBusinesswire.com.

New Jersey's largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, will cut salaries and offer voluntary buyouts to employees in a move aimed to reduce costs, The Associated Press reported yesterday.

The Newark daily, which is owned by Advance Publications, is expected to lose US$10 million this year as advertising revenues continue to decrease, publisher Richard Vezza said in memo sent to the staff (reproduced by Poynter Online). In 2009, the company's losses reached $9 million.

The number of mainstream journalism jobs in the United Kingdom has been cut by between 27 percent and 33 percent over the past decade, settling at about 40,000, according to a report called "Laid Off," by the University of Central Lancashire and Journalism.co.uk.

At the same time, the number of journalism university graduates is on the rise and has never been higher, paidContent.co.uk points out. "The reality is that only a fraction of the many thousands of graduates from UK journalism courses will find a place in the mainstream industry," said François Nel, director of the Journalism Leaders Programme at UCLAN and primary author of the report. (Note: Nel is also an SFN research partner).

The daily PP El Verdadero hit the streets of Ecuador yesterday.

The tabloid, which has 16 pages and costs $0.40, is the latest newspaper to be launched by the government "to counteract the powers disguised as media," President Rafael Correa claimed, according to Agence France Press. The daily is aimed at the working class and will compete with popular titles like Últimas Noticias and Extra, the Public and News Agency of Ecuador and South America (ANDES) revealed. It will have weekly raffles in which readers can win cash and credit for prepaid mobile phones, El Telegrafo reported.

Photo: AFP

Bulgarian daily newspaper Klassa will be shutting down its print edition from October 1 due to economic difficulties, Novinite.com reported today.

As a part of company restructuring operations implemented by many newspapers recently to reduce costs, the Bulgarian daily will continue to publish online, while terminating its print edition.

Image: Novinite.com

The Pearson-owned Financial Times will launch a subscription based news and analysis website covering the pension sector for trustees and pension managers in the United Kingdom, called schemeXpert.com, paidContent.co.uk reported yesterday.

The content on schemeXpert.com will be produced by a dedicated in-house editorial team with insights from leading consultants, lawyers, investment houses and research bodies, according to MNILive.com. Aggregated news and analysis will also be provided to subscribers.

Emphas.is is a new platform for photojournalism that hopes to find a business model to sustain the profession, by creating "a unique bond between photojournalists and their audience." Due to launch in early 2011, its website went live at the end of August.

It would work via crowd funding, "with a difference," the website says. The incentive to contribute would be "exclusive access to top photojournalists." This will work, says the site, because there are many photojournalism enthusiasts out there who would be interested in providing support, many amateur photographers who would be eager for contact with professionals, as well as many people who care about the different issues that photojournalists can address.

For more on this story, visit our sister publication, editorsweblog.org.

As part of its digital initiative, newspaper supplement company Publishing Group of America has replaced former CEO Dick Porter with John Cobb III, MediaWeek reported Wednesday. Cobb, who was previously consulting PGA, has experience in digital and experience publishing and has emphasised that he would work on expanding the Internet content that the publisher offers to its partner papers.

"Each one of them really fills a niche," Cobb said, when asked about the PGA supplements, "We want to grow the brands and support their partners. It'll also give us an opportunity to provide information to their local sites."

Postmedia Network Inc, which bought Canwest's newspaper division in July, has started to cut employees at some of its dailies as part of the company's restructuring process, The Globe and Mail reported Friday.

"Everyone is busy preparing budgets and they're reviewing their needs and their staffing components based upon the digital-first philosophy and any restructuring they have to do with respect to it," Postmedia chief executive officer Paul Godfrey told Canadian Business. 

Considering the growing demand for sports news in Russia and globally, Russian news agency RIA Novosti plans to launch its sports arm in October, Journalism.co.uk reported Friday.

The agency will offer multimedia sports content, and will be headed by Dmitry Tugarin, former adviser to the chief of the Russian federal agency for sport and physical education.

Microsoft announced that its Windows Phone 7 was ready and began shipping the software to handset manufacturers as well as networks, Telegraph.co.uk wrote on Friday. Until now, the device existed in "technical preview" mode and had undergone lengthy testing.

Techtree said that now that the Operating System has reached the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) stage, the official releases may be ready in a month's time. Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering Terry Myerson confirmed that the device will be on the market "later this year."

Seven out of 10 Scots continue to read newspapers, either on print or digital, at least three to four times a week, a telephone survey conducted by Ipsos MORI Scotland, also called the Scottish Public Opinion Monitor, has revealed, AllMediaScotland.com reported yesterday.
 
While the affluence of area in which people live does not affect newspaper readership, the supposed disinterest of young readers towards newspaper content has been overstated, according to AllMediaScotland.com. Despite lower income households being more likely to have less or no Internet access, 70 percent of low income residents reported reading newspaper content regularly. This is almost equal to the 73 percent in the country's most affluent areas.

UK publishing group Archant has stopped publishing two of its free titles, The Harlow Herald and East Herts Herald, and replaced them with a weekly "newszine" called Scene, MediaGuardian reported today.

The new publication will have four local editions for Harlow, Broxbourne, Hertford, Ware and Stortford, according to Press Gazette. The 55,000 copies will be mainly distributed door-to-door although paid-for-sales, free pick-up and hand distribution will also be available, HoldTheFrontPage.co.uk revealed.

Sport24.com, the French-language sports news site, is launching a free iPhone application that will stream live footage in an "innovative" format, Le Figaro reported Thursday.

The app will feature content in horizontal format, something which is not that common, according to Le Figaro. The format is reportedly popular following the launch of the iPad.

The latest addition to the list of potential buyers of French daily Le Parisien includes Serge Dassault, the owner of right-leaning Le Figaro, Le Monde reported yesterday. Other interested parties include prominent German publisher Axel Springer and UK-based Mecom.

Bolloré, the French publisher of free dailies Direct Matin and Direct Soir, said that it was looking at all the options on the table. President Vincent Bolloré (left) said on Wednesday that the possible acquisition was "interesting" but that it poses "a certain number of problems" for a firm like his, AFP said. He added that the daily had quality content, an important logistics base and views that did not contradict those of his dailies, according to Les Echos.

To celebrate the browser's second birthday, Google has released the sixth version of Chrome, The Inquirer reported today. The "new stable" Chrome 6 is "faster and more streamlined," Product Manager Brian Rakowski wrote in the company's blog.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the new version is able to process Javascript three times faster. Google further boosted the minimalist user interface of its browser so it is more simple to use, as the two menus are combined into one, the buttons' location has been shifted, and the URL treatment has improved, as has the Omnibox address box and colour palette.

Full-size image via Google

Popular microblogging service Twitter announced the launch of a free iPad application late Wednesday night, The New York Times reported. Twitter for iPad will let users tap away messages on the 9.7 inch touchscreen while any related content (such as pictures, websites or videos) will be available in a separate window, according to MSNBC.

In a company blog post Leland Rechis, Twitter's user interface designer, stressed that Twitter for iPad makes use of the tablet's "fluid touch interface" so that users can move around information "smoothly and quickly" without the need for opening multiple windows or clicking buttons.

It is still unclear whether News International's paywall for The Times' and Sunday Times' is "working," as the paywall is just two months old, and the websites have not yet made statistics public.

In the Independent today, the tagline for Ian Burrell's article on Rupert Murdoch's much discussed paywall states: "advertisers don't like it. Analysts are unconvinced. The paywall at News International may not be winning many fans, but the man behind it is determined to keep it standing." But François Nel, director of the Journalism Leaders Programme at the University of Central Lancashire's School of Journalism, Media and Communication in the United Kingdom, and also an SFN research partner, crunched the numbers, and the result is that the paywalls may be doing better than most people think. A lot better.

UK free commuter daily Metro has entered into a video content deal with ITN to expand its online offerings, Journalism.co.uk reported yesterday.

Beginning today, Metro.co.uk is now offering its online readers with "up-to-the-minute" videos from ITN, spanning multiple genres that include UK news, world news, sports, showbiz, music, fashion and video gaming, DigitalSpy.co.uk reported