Recently by Clara Martínez Turco

Indian daily NaiDunia last week launched an eight-page newspaper for children between ages 11 and 17 called NaiDunia Disha, afaqs! news site reported.

The Berliner-format paper is published six days a week and is distributed in 20 schools of Indore city, where is expected to reach 15,000 students. According to Exchange4media.com, the publication includes current news and puzzles, jokes, riddles and a science section.

Twitter plans to launch an Arabic version of its website as well as promoted tweets for the Middle East by 2011, said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, The National reported last Wednesday.

"People use [Twitter] differently around the world but people also use it similarly," said Stone in an interview. "The key takeaway there is that we've only translated the service into [six languages] ... but we're very keen on opening that up and getting it translated into more regions in the world sooner rather than later."

Less than 1 percent of overall online newspaper views are made on an iPad, according to an infographic published on Monday by The Wall Street Journal, Editor & Publisher reported.

Ninety-seven percent of news readings are done through computers while only 2 percent come from mobiles, The Wall Street Journal revealed. Based on comScore data, the graph shows that iPads are mostly used early in the mornings or at night, which signals "that people use tablets during leisure times," Poynter.org's Damon Kiesow wrote.

Infographic source: The Wall Street Journal

The United Kingdom's third largest newspaper recently launched its own iPhone and iPad application site, which offers 17 apps, Newspaper Innovation reported Wednesday.

The website, called Metro Apps, "specifically targets Metro's demographic of 18-to 45-year-old urban professionals" and its a joint venture between the newspaper and Associated & Northcliffe Mobile & TV, the new division that Daily Mail and General Trust created after closing AND last April, paidContent.org explained.

Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspapers will start charging for online content next year, News Corp. News Digital Media CEO Richard Freudenstein announced today, The Guardian revealed.

In an interview with ABC News radio, Freudenstein said The Australian, Daily Telegraph and the Herald-Sun were unlikely to follow The Times of London paywall model. "I think we're quite attracted to the Wall Street Journal model where you get the benefit of still getting a lot of your advertising revenue combining it with the ability to market yourself to a whole range of people and then upselling them into the paid part of the site," he said.

Apple will launch its iAd mobile advertising network in the United Kingdom and France in December, and in Germany in January, MediaGuardian reported today.

The service, which launched in the United States on July 1, displays targeted ads in iPhones and iPod Touches, letting users stay within their current app. According to Brand Republic, the European version includes advertising from Nespresso, Perrier, Turkish Airlines, L'Oreal and Absolute Radio, among others.

The Financial Times will give its editorial staff a three percent wage increase in 2011 as well as a performance-related bonus estimated at £1,000, Journalism.co.uk reported today. The company will also distribute vouchers so all employees can buy an iPad or another tablet.

FT Managing editor Lisa MacLeod explained in an internal memo that both the pay increase and the bonus "were the result the strength of the financial performance of the business and the excellent contribution of the editorial department," the Press Gazette explained.

The Washington Independent announced today that it will be closing down by December 1 due to a lack of funding, the Columbia Journalism Review revealed.

In a post published on its website, Washington Independent editor Aaron Wiener wrote that the website "was not just a journalistic experiment; it was also a financial one, and ultimately, the successes of the former couldn't sustain the strains of the latter."

Postmedia Network Inc, which bought Canwest's newspaper division in July for US$1.1 billion, reported a 23 percent increase in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year that ended up on August 31, the Calgary Herald revealed Monday. Revenue totalled C$241.3 million, 1.5 percent higher than the C$237.7 million reported by Canwest in 2009.

The growth was led by a 7 percent increase in digital revenue and a 2 percent in print advertising, the company explained in a press release. However, it reported losses of C$44.6 millions.

Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey said the company will remain privately owned until the half of 2011. Photo: the National Post

Twitter's local trends, which is the list of the most popular topics, is now available for 18 countries and 24 cities around the world, Mashable.com reported on Monday.

"Trending Topics is in high demand from folks in cities that aren't yet on the list, so today, we're expanding local trends to include 13 new countries and 6 new cities," the micro-blogging site stated in a blog post.

Image: Colorlines.com

Yahoo! India will expand its website to other six regional languages by 2011 and its looking for local partners to generate content, Reuters reported yesterday.

Besides English, the site also provides information in Hindi as part of a partnership with daily newspaper Dainik Jagran. "We see huge opportunity in regional language content. Our Hindi news traffic had taken over the traffic we see for news in English," said Yahoo! India Managing Director Arun Tadank, the Hindustan Times quoted.

The Daily Mail has announced that it will launch a paid-for iPad app in the next few months and that its iPhone app, which has a 60-day free trial, has already been downloaded by 70,000 users, Press Gazette revealed today.

"I'm very excited by the various micro payment systems that are in the pipeline that will give us the flexibility to offer new kinds of content that we can charge for on a pay-per-view or piecemeal basis," said Mail Online's publisher Martin Clarke.

Board members of Chilean newspaper La Nacion approved on Friday the closure of the daily's print edition due to circulation decline. The 93-year-old newspaper will be only available online, Milenio reported.

According to media reports, the last print version will circulate on November 28, Efe revealed. However, neither the publishing company nor the government, which owns 69 percent of the newspaper's shares, could confirm the date. "The newspaper will not close," said government spokeswoman Ena Von Baer to Efe. "The government's desire is to keep the newspaper. It has asked the directory that this diary is maintained in a sustainable manner that suits the new time."

Rupert Murdoch's News Limited will launch next Friday iPad applications for two of its Australian tabloids, The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun, The Age reported today. Two other apps for The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser will follow in December.

News Ltd Chief Executive Officer John Hartigan remembered that 15 years ago newspaper websites led "to an explosion in readership," The Australian quoted. "Now a new generation of readers is eagerly consuming digital journalism on tablet devices - expanding our reach even further - and is prepared to pay for high-quality content," he said, explaining that developing iPad apps was the next logical step.

Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, will shut down 11 Sun weekly newspapers by the end of the year to cut costs, the Chicago Tribune revealed yesterday.

Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Halbreich said the company might close some of its offices, but savings will come from "not printing and distributing the papers," ChicagoBusines.com reported. He said other Sun-Times publications would reabsorb the weeklies' staff.