Shaping the Future of the Newspaper Blog

Google to challenge Facebook with 'social' Gmail

2010-02-08T23:53:51Z

Google is preparing to announce new Gmail features that would extend its reach into the social networking realm, the Financial Times reported today, dubbing the plans a "Facebook assault." This following last week's news that Facebook is planning to launch an e-mail service.

The search giant is looking to give Gmail users a way to aggregate contacts' updates, which can currently be viewed in Google's Chat service, within Gmail's inbox. This would create a "stream of notifications that would echo the similar real-time streams from Facebook and Twitter." ]]> Wall Street Journal reported.

The status update widget is a further push to turn Gmail into a "comprehensive communications hub" that Google hopes would keep users within Gmail, not Facebook, according to Wired.

The Wall Street Journal article stated that:

Google has been trying to fashion Gmail into more than an email service for years. It currently lets users set an "away message"--which can be a link to a Web site--that their friends see when they message them.

The new stream will eventually include content that a user's connections share through Google's YouTube video site and Picasa photo service, according to one person familiar with the matter. But whether those features will be announced in the coming days remains unclear.

Yahoo Mail, meanwhile, added a Twitter-like widget recently, but it has been mostly ignored, the Los Angeles Times Blogs pointed out.

News International ads showcase power of print

2010-02-08T22:58:07Z

News International Commercial has launched outdoor and print advertisements that aim to show the power of newspapers and magazines, MediaWeek.co.uk reported today.

The ads are based on research from Microsoft Advertising, which in December stated that for large retailers, print advertising is more effective than online ads, and more than twice as effective as television ads. Each £1 spent on print ads garner £5 in revenue, while TV and Internet ads bring in £2.15 and £3.44, respectively.

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The campaign will run across all News International titles for two weeks, beginning yesterday in The Sunday Times, according to a press release.

Participants of the Microsoft survey of 26 large UK retailers were anonymous, but included fashion retailers, department stores, large grocery retailers and big clothing stores. Twenty-four of the participants were "in the top 100 UK companies" when it comes to media expenditure.

News International is the main UK subsidiary of News Corporation. It publishes The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and News of the World.

SFN report: Most publishers enthusiastic for change

2010-02-08T22:22:17Z

The first annual World Newspaper Future & Change Study is a global research study about newspaper publishers' business strategies moving forward for the next five years, with the key objective to inspire newspaper executives to invest and innovate their business units and business practices, according to the latest SFN's report, Charting the Course for Newspapers.

The purpose of the study is to pinpoint the business and strategic challenges of the world's newspapers, and then to identify the publishers' strategies moving forward to turn the challenges into opportunities.]]>

It has been said that the only reason we change the way we do things is because we change the way we look at things. And it's clear from an analysis of responses to the open-ended question, "What is the single most important change that has to be implemented in your newspaper over the next year?" that the majority of news organisations are taking a fresh look at the way things have been done and planning to make significant changes in the year ahead.

- Enthusiasm for Change

One of the key challenges in changing strategies from a "business as usual" newspaper company to a dynamic company that is developing new revenue-making strategies for now and the future, is managing the changes in the organisation and amongst the employees.

When asked to what extent they agree with the statement, "There is an urgency felt throughout the organisation that our business needs to change," about a third of respondents (32 percent) agreed "strongly," while almost 40 percent "somewhat agreed" that this was the case.

On the other hand, 28.4 percent of the respondents were "neutral" (13.1 percent) or disagreed "somewhat" (9.0 percent) or "strongly" (6.3 percent) that such a consensus existed in their organisations.

- Changing Revenue Models

The search for new revenue sources is not only necessary, it's already well under way.

More than three-quarters (77.5 percent) of respondents agreed "strongly" (49.4 percent) or "somewhat" (28.1 percent) that their organisations were already "constantly looking for income streams beyond in the habit of looking out for new ways to make money beyond historical sources of revenue like circulation, display advertising and classified advertising."

- Changing Cultures

Organisational cultures that routinely encourage such innovative thinking were the exception, not yet the norm.

All respondents said they were less confident that their people were routinely encouraged to look beyond the boundaries of their traditional revenue streams.

The report, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, details the results of the Future & Change Study, completed in partnership with the Norwegian School of Management and the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom, which shows a majority of the 653 respondents around the world are looking to businesses outside the printed newspaper in order to grow revenues and revamp structures along the value chain that are no longer functioning at full throttle.

Globe and Mail to publish special Sunday editions for Olympics

2010-02-08T21:27:02Z

The Globe and Mail will publish three special Sunday editions for the British Columbia market to provide more coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, making it the only seven-day newspaper in the region, MarketingMag reported Friday.

The special editions will be published Feb. 14, 21 and 28. They will be delivered to subscribers, sold at more than 1,000 retail outlets in Vancouver, Whistler and Victoria, and be available to the rest of Canada as an online e-edition. ]]> Canada NewsWire Group. "Canadians will be living and breathing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games and The Globe and Mail will be the best source for news and analysis of every event and celebration, every day of the week."

Being an 'Official National Newspaper Supplier' of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and "National Print Partner" of Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, The Globe and Mail plans to include a dedicated daily Olympic Winter Games section in all editions across the country, in addition to breaking news coverage, commentary, images and discussion throughout the games.

"Readers will be able to follow the story of the Games seamlessly from the opening ceremonies to the closing ceremonies," Jim Jennings, the Globe's associate publisher for British Columbia, told The Canadian Press. "It also allows an opportunity for our advertisers to provide a continuous message to their clients."

Jennings said he expects an increase in readership "from an influx of international readers" and also hopes "to capture the interest of local readers."

"During the Games, I think a lot of people in B.C. will be running from point to point so the advantage of print over online is heightened," Jennings told MarketingMag. With more than 50 journalists covering the games, he said, "It will be the best news coverage available in Canada, that Globe readers are used to."

The Globe and Mail will print 60,000 copies of each edition and charge C$1.50 per copy, according to the CP. The newspaper has also been hiring more staff at its B.C. bureau the duration of the games.

MediaNews Group to put up paywalls

2010-02-08T21:16:34Z

MediaNews Group will begin charging for online content in May, adopting a metered paywall system similar to the one The New York Times announced it will put up, Bloomberg reported Friday. The U.S. newspaper publisher will use Journalism Online LLC to handle processing of payments for its Web sites.

The test will begin at the company's Enterprise-Record in Chico, California, and Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania. If it's successful, the paywall may be instituted at more than 50 dailies owned by MediaNews, including The Denver Post and San Jose Mercurcy News, the Denver Business Journal reported Saturday.

Image: Superchou's Flickr photostream
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The holding company for MediaNews Group filed for bankruptcy at the end of January. Affiliated Media Inc., the privately held parent company for the publisher, expects to emerge from bankruptcy in one or two months. It has said that it has a deal with creditors to reduce its $930 million debt to $165 million.

The metered paywall at MediaNews will likely go up faster than that of The Times, which is set to launch next year, because The Times is building its own, custom service, paidContent reported. "The FT and the NYT are working on building their websites into distinct businesses apart from the primary print business. While [Chairman and CEO Dean] Singleton waits for the paywalls and online advertising to cease being ancillary to the traditional print side, the immediate goal of this plan is to drive more subscribers to the physical newspaper."

Journalism Online, was launched in April 2009 by Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindrey, hopes regular visitors will pay for complete access, while one-time or infrequent visitors won't be barred.

"We are refusing to launch pay walls where you say to first-time visitors 'pay or go away,'" and will instead give visitors access to 10 to 15 articles for free before asking for payment.

Jobs to go at Swedish daily

2010-02-08T18:26:33Z

Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter has announced that it will cut between 100 and 120 jobs after sustaining multi-million euro losses, The Local reports. This amounts to almost one sixth of the newspaper's workforce.

The company employs 580 people, with half of these in the newsroom. Most of the cuts are expected to affect editorial staff, with more than a third of these set to go. The newspaper reported losses of 97 million kronor, or around €10 million, last year. Despite this, union official Hans Arbman said that the cuts were unexpected.

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

Will Facebook e-mail bring down Gmail, Yahoo Mail, others?

2010-02-05T22:28:13Z

Facebook is working on an e-mail product, and may have Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and others in its cross hairs.

The social networking site is planning to launch a completely new e-mail product in the place of its current message product, internally known as Project Titan, TechCrunch reported today. "Tacking a real webmail product on top of those vanity URLs and Facebook connect is something even Google may shudder at," Michael Arrington wrote, adding that he doesn't think the new service will be a "Gmail killer."

Image: castortroy520's flickr photostream
]]> Valleywag's Henry Blodget pointed out. The main reasons people visit Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, on the other hand, don't really have anything to do with communicating. Rather, they're about search and content aggregation.

"E-mail is all about identity. And Facebook is ahead of everyone else in the identity game via Facebook Connect. Facebook says more than 60 million people log in to 80,000 third party Web sites each month via Facebook Connect," Arrington wrote.

PC World's Jared Newman wrote that Facebook could go a step beyond current e-mail providers by providing multiple inboxes (friends, family, colleagues, etc.), convenient access (an app or Web address to go straight to mail), optional threading and pulling in Facebook information, and the ability to manage everything from e-mail.

But not everyone is interested in having Facebook e-mail. The Next Web's Alex Wilhelm writes: "Having email tied to Facebook would merely turn an already over-featured, bloated, and slow social networking Frankenstein of an experience into one that I actually depend on to get work done. God forbid."

Axel Springer launches paywalls on two German paper sites

2010-02-05T21:13:36Z

Axel Springer has decided to add online paywalls on two of its German papers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt, right after French newspaper Le Figaro and NYTimes.com, paidContent reported.

Monthly access to all content on morgenpost.de now costs €4.95 (£4.32/$6.79), while a premium monthly subscription to abendblatt.de is €7.95 (£6.93/$10.90).

]]> It is free to acess national news on Abendblatt.de, but it costs extra for content specific to the Hamburg region. Subscriptions for both are renewed every month.

In December 2009, Axel Springer launched its paid-for iPhone apps for two of its other German titles, the tabloid BILD and DIE WELT. Christoph Keese, head of public affairs, also announced Axel Springer's intention to work with Google and other search engines to develop a direct payment system, which will charge for individual articles when people click on Google's search results.

Rival magazine publishers join forces to promote medium

2010-02-05T13:59:27Z

Five magazine publishers will put competition aside to create a marketing campaign promoting their medium, MediaWeek reported Thursday. Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, Time Inc. and Wenner Media will fund the promotional campaign, to be launched in April. More details will be announced in March.

Young & Rubicam will create the campaign, which will be published in magazine ads in titles owned by the companies. The campaign may have digital offerings as well. ]]>
Apart from the campaign for their medium, Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith and Time Inc., along with News Corp, are supporting a newly created digital publishing consortium, Next Issue Media. It aims to establish digital publishing standards and create a digital storefront to sell magazine editions for e-readers.

Metro Intl announces profits for Q4

2010-02-04T23:05:22Z

Metro International, the largest free newspaper group in the world, reported a profit in the fourth quarter of last year following minimised operations and a growing share in "most of its markets," said Reuters today.

Total operating profit amounted to €5.9 (US$8.1) million for the period, compared to a loss of €9.8 (US$13.5) million the same time in 2008, wrote the Sydney Morning Herald. However, for the duration of 2009, Metro saw a loss of €21.7 (US$ 29.8) million after a €4.1 (US$ 5.6) million profit in 2008.

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PaidContent reported that online income rose by 78 percent but that is wasn't significant enough (only €500,000 or US$686, 000). Online expenditure outgrew sales, with Metro experiencing €357,000 (US$490,000) loss on website costs and €444,000 (US$610,000) on team costs. The group's online losses fell by 14 percent but it still lost €4.67 (US$6.41) million online in 2009.

Metro has 17 million daily readers from across the globe and is expanding in Brazil and Russia, according to PaidContent.org. The group sold its editions in the United States, Portugal and Italy and shut down the Spanish one. It also transferred its headquarters from London to Stockholm.

Monster's HotJobs buy may move 200 newspapers out of Yahoo's consortium

2010-02-04T22:57:55Z

MonsterWorldwide has made a deal to acquire Yahoo's HotJobs, a competing recruiting site, which could mean up to 200 of the 800 newspapers Yahoo works with will be cut out of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium, Editor & Publisher reported today. Yahoo is receiving US$225 million in cash for the purchase.

When members join the consortium, they can choose one of two contracts - one for the display side, which includes search and display advertising, content distribution and its APT ad platform, or the other, which includes recruitment ads through HotJobs, according to paidContent. Six-hundred of the 800 consortium members have the HotJobs contract, while about 200 smaller newspapers rely on the group's recruitment services for job ads revenue. ]]>
"Right now, the HotJobs members get recruitment ad distribution on their own site and on Yahoo's site--and that's it," Lloyd told paidContent. "Under the new arrangement, they would still get to be on their own sites and on Yahoo, but their job ads would also appear on Monster's site as well."

Yahoo bought HotJobs in 2001 for $436 million, outbidding TMP Worldwide Inc., which was the parent company of Monster.com at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times.

SFN report: Netherlands and Sweden led in broadband revenue per capita in '07

2010-02-04T22:17:50Z

According to IDATE and Ofcom, in 2002, Sweden and Canada led in broadband revenue per capita, with £27 and £26, respectively. The Netherlands and the United States came next with £19 and £14, respectively, SFN's World Digital Media Trends 2009 reported.

In 2007, Netherlands rose to the first place with £75 in revenue per capita, beating Sweden's £65, Canada's £61, and the United States'53 percent.

]]> In terms of five-year CAGR, Ireland leads with 137 percent and Poland comes next with 74 percent. The United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Spain, Germany and France also marked a more than 40 percent five-year CAGR, according to the report, World Digital Media Trends 2009, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.

Pearson buys macroeconomic intelligence firm Medley Global Advisors

2010-02-04T21:59:00Z

UK publisher Pearson PLC announced Wednesday it has bought Medley Global Advisors, which advises hedge funds, investment banks and asset managers, as it aims to focus on subscriptions over advertising, Reuters reported.

Pearson, which publishes the Financial Times, is looking to diversify its business model. In 2008, it bought an online news and discussion service aimed at fund managers called Money-Media, for example. It has also bought several data providers, such as MergerMarket, to cut down on reliance on print and advertising for revenues, according to the Daily Mail. ]]> statement in the Financial Times, the group said MGA specialises in macroeconomic policy commentary, particularly focusing on interest rates, money supply movements and government policy. It is believed to have "a blue-chip client base made up of major investors and policymakers."

"This acquisition delivers another premium service to an important FT audience and reinforces our strategy of building strong subscriber and digital businesses in core sectors," said John Riding, chief executive of the FT, according to a press release. "MGA holds a unique position at the crossroads of the policy world and financial markets, combining primary research with direct access to policymakers to deliver breaking news and deep insights."

Adding MGA to the FT's list of offerings gives MGA a way to expand into Europe and Asia, while MGA's U.S. presence can also help the FT, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Pearson also publishes FTfm, a weekly review of the fund-management industry, and owns a 50 percent stake in The Economist.

Free Russian papers partner on advertising venture

2010-02-04T21:03:58Z

Free Russian-language newspapers Moi Rayion, distributed in Moscow and St. Petersburg on weekends, as well as Moscow's daily Metro, announced a joint advertising venture titled "Seven Days a Week," Slon.ru reported today. The publications claim that fusing two separate distribution systems (the subway for Metro and large supermarket chains for Moi Rayion) would provide advertisers with maximum access to a desired audience on any day of the week.

According to Lenta.ru, the combined audience of the two outlets amounts to 1.2 million. Moi Rayion has 557,000 readers in Moscow while Metro has 775, 300. The average cost per thousand (CPT) adds up to RUB 595 (US$ 19.7). Metro has a CPT of RUB 603 (US$20.0) while Moi Rayion of RUB 480 ($15.9).

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Lenta.ru reported that Metro Moscow has been published under Metro International since March 2009. Figures from Mediaguide show that Metro has a circulation of 450,000 copies while Moi Rayion has a total circulation of 800,000 copies in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Kindle acquires touchscreen technology maker Touchco

2010-02-04T14:31:42Z

InformationWeek divulged Thursday that Amazon may have acquired Touchco, a touchscreen technology manufacturer. According to a New York Times (NYT) article from Wednesday "a person briefed on the deal" revealed that Amazon would be combining the manufacturer's technology and staff members into its California-based hardware division Lab126.

The acquisition was reportedly a step to boost Kindle's touch screen mechanism in light of the launch of Apple's new device iPad, said the Wall Street Journal. The iPad is thought to be better than Kindle because it has a more colourful screen and is easier to navigate.

]]> Touchco uses "interpolating force-sensitive resistance" technology that is placed into display screens, pointed out NYT. The technology could be entirely transparent and could cost as little as US$10 per square foot. Capacitive touchscreens used in the iPad and iPhone are relatively more pricey and cannot detect a limitless amount of simultaneous touch points.