Category Archives: MSN

CNN Press Room: CNN names Peter Bale vice president, general manager of CNN International Digital

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"Peter Bale has joined CNN in the newly created role of vice president and general manager of CNN International Digital, reporting directly to KC Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN Digital. ... Bale will be responsible for the global growth of CNN International Digital, including setting the strategic vision, product development and execution. "

Editor & Publisher: More Readers Skimming Google Headlines Than Going Directly to Newspaper Web Sites?

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"The 'News Users 2009' study conducted by Outsell Research affiliate analyst Ken Doctor found that 19% of people accessed Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL News for news in 2009, up from 10% in 2006. For newspapers, 19% of those polled went there first, a drop from 23% in 2006. ... Fully 44% of those polled said they scan headlines on Google 'without accessing the newspaper sites,' the report said."

AP: AP eyeing better deals with Internet heavyweights

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"Besides hammering out new Internet licensing contracts, the AP also plans to review more effective ways to capture revenue from advertising tied to its stories, photography, audio and video, [Chief Executive Tom Curley] said. One way could be through a new system that will bundle some of the AP's top stories with those of newspapers and broadcasters on certain topics. The system, which is still under development, would rely on so-called "landing pages" that could compete with the news sections run by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN."

@AOP: Meet the aggregators

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There were some sparks in the first panel discussion of the day about aggregators and portals. AOP president and GMG digital Simon Waldman challenged each participant to excplain “Why should we publishers like you?” Google News business product manager Joshua Cohen reiterated the usual lines from Google’s relationship with publishers. It’s a tech company, not a [...]

BBC iPlayer launch date set

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The BBC’s much-delayed on-demand broadband service is to launch on 27 July, the Corporation announced this morning. The iPlayer software, which is currently being beta-tested by 15,000 people, will be available for download from the BBC site, and will allow UK-based viewers to download a programme. Once downloadeed, they will be available to watch for up [...]

A whole new Focus in Germany

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Several German news web sites will be relaunching in early 2007 with a host of “web 2.0” features in a bid to catch up with the dominant Spiegel Online.

The cover story of November’s issue of the German journalists’ trade magazine Medium has a lengthy set of stories about the relaunch of Focus Online, which is expected to happen this month.

Since his appointment last January, the Focus Online’s editor, Jochen Wegner, has been tasked with helping the companion site for newsweekly Focus catch up with its rival Der Spiegel.

The site will end its partnership with MSN that has seen focus.de redirect to focus.msn.de, and implement a clutter-free redesign.

Interactivity and personalisation are central to the “community” elements that Wegner describes as one of “three pillars” to his stategy.

The first pillar is use of  “classical journalism” — virtually the entire print newsroom is now filing for Focus Online and there is growing cooperation with Focus TV for new multimedia offerings. Focus Online has hired eight additional editoral staffers of its own.

Wegner’s second pillar is usability — the new site will include more better use of its archives and aims to make everything on the site accessible within three clicks. Tagging will play a major role in this.

Finally, the community elements of the new site will include two major features. One is Focus Online LIVE. A trial version of this Flickr-like photo- and video-sharing site went live during the World Cup this summer.

The second is “Mein Focus”, which will allow users to create personalised start pages, including RSS feeds from other publications — even Spiegel Online will be included, Wegner insists.

The next step, he says, is to let users add tags to stories within their personal space on the site.

Wegner told Medium that “Web 2.0″ is a buzzword which will barely have registered with most of his readers. Only a tiny proportion of his audience will know what a tag cloud is or how tagging works. But this doesn’t stop him from using them, he says.

Wegner will have to peer over his shoulder a bit, because Welt Online has a 30-strong staff under Christoph Keese which also plans a relauch from the Welt group’s new integrated newsroom within the first quarter of this year.
Spiegel Online leads the German online news market with 314 million page impressions in October 2006, according to Medium. FAZ.net and Sueddeutsche.de had 60m each, with Welt Online trailing at 30m.