German newspaper among first to integrate Google Wave

Posted by Lisette García on November 4, 2009 at 11:19 AM

Welt Kompakt, a spinoff of the German daily Die Welt, is among the first newspapers around the world to integrate Google Wave into its coverage, Revolution Magazine reported yesterday. The addition comes even as the lifestyle daily also invites readers to follow its editors - and contribute to content - via the free tabloid's Twitter account, Welt Kompakt yesterday announced.

Calling Welt Kompakt "Germany's most successful newspaper start-up in recent years," WELT Group publishing director Jan Bayer promised in an article published by Welt Online on October 23 that the launch of technological advances such as this would continue responding and appealing "to the needs and aspirations of young, educated and high-income readers" in urban areas well into the future, reaching potential subscribers well beyond national borders.

But, for all the hype surrounding this new medium for reader interaction, some media analysts have criticised Google Wave as too complicated for new users, Financial Times yesterday observed. In the same article, Financial Times quoted an unnamed source as responding that the developers of the ground-breaking product "weren't trying to hit something that you could learn in an afternoon."

The Los Angeles Times in September announced it was experimenting with different applications of the product but does not appear to have gone live with it yet. Google Wave itself is limited to 100,000 users, by invitation only, making it less than ideal for a newspaper larger than Welt Kompakt, which was reported by the TopLevel 2008 study conducted by Allensbach as boasting 290,000 readers.