Last week Journalism.co.uk attended the INMA and Online Publishers Association (OPA) Europe’s annual conference Outlook 2010 – the event focused on innovation, transformation and making money for media businesses. Follow our coverage at this link.

Two years since its launch user-generated site LePost.fr – launched by Le Monde – attracts 2.5 million unique users a month (not a lot less than Le Monde’s online efforts at 3.5 million).

A team of six specialised journalists, two editors, one videojournalist and one investigative journalist are responsible for producing around 10 per cent of the site’s content – the rest is down to the users, who produce around 500 posts a day. It’s an integration of professional and amateur news – with teams of amateurs ‘coached’ by professionals, says the team.

More from LePost on how the site operates in the audio below:

“Our idea was to put a newsroom at the most dynamic part of the web (…) social media,” the site’s editor-in-chief, Benoit Raphael, says.

“We believe that people are no longer satisfied with vertical news. Traditional journalists choose and produce stories and deliver them to readers. In a networked media like LePost we let people co-choose and co-produce stories.”

Raphael says LePost produces ‘horizontal news’ – news to be shared, commented upon and added to.

Related reading: LePost.fr: How amateurs produce valuable journalism

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France has extended the age range of its free newspaper subscription scheme. The country’s government will now offer a free newspaper once a week for a year to 18-24-year-olds, under the 600 million euro scheme.

Full story at this link (via Le Figaro)…

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Yes, Monday was two days ago but Frédéric Filloux’s take on Sarkosy’s media prescription is a good read and clearly set out. “Tons of cash for publishers, little in return,” Filloux starts.

“That’s the Sarkozy prescription to ’save’ the press. For €600m ($767m) to be spent over three years, the French president is buying if not influence, the French media barons’ ear and goodwill. This is not a stimulus package. This is a band-aid to an ailing industry that has a shown a tremendous resistance to change, at every level.”

Full story…

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The headline quote comes from a round-up up by Eric Scherer of a meeting involving French newspaper and magazine publishers and Google. The meeting suggests some heavy anti-Google feeling on the publishers’ part.

According to one executive at the event, magazine and newspaper publisher Lagadère is on the brink of reporting Google to the EU Commission for ‘predatory practices’.

Watch the video below (courtesy of Adrian Vanachter Damien Van Achter of Scherer’s tweeted coverage of the meeting and make your own mind up as to which party you agree with.

One quote that grabbed my attention, however, was newspapers reported remark: “You are accepting the end of news as we know it.”

Google, secrecy about its algorithms and dominance of the online ad market aside, is looking forward; newspapers are trying to protect and control what they perceive as news and the news business. The problems they are facing, some related to Google and others not, should show them that this self-interested attitude can’t be maintained and their perception of ‘news as we know it’ is out-dated.

Jeff Jarvis sums this up in a blog post reacting to Scherer’s report:

“This anti-Google attitude comes from an apparent sense of entitlement that we see clearly in France but also elsewhere: Google owes us (…) They – like other publishers and journalists – think a market should be built around what they need and that there is a fair share that belongs to them even though they did not innovate and change so those who did should rescue them. But as Scott Karp has said, no one guarantees them a business model.”

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The editor of Archant-owned France Magazine, Carolyn Boyd, has been commissioned to write a monthly article for the Times Online travel section.

Hoping to attract interest in her own magazine, the article links to the magazine’s website and its subscriptions page.

“I’d written for them before I joined France Magazine, so it’s a great way of carrying on the relationship and promoting the magazine at the same time,” she said.

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An e-paper reader, similar to Amazon’s Kindle, is being trialled by seven French newspapers.

The technology has been developed in partnership with France Telecom, which will deliver the paper’s content through its wireless network.

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Le Figaro is predicting that 20% of its revenue will be generated by its online operations by 2010.

But the French newspaper has plans to beat this, Pierre Conte, deputy managing director for new media and advertising for Le Figaro Group, told delegates at the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) conference today.

After rising from 2 million unique users to its websites to 8 million in two years, the group’s web traffic now accounts for 1 French internet user out of every four.

Last year its online revenues accounted for 13% of its total income – so how will the publisher build on this?

Gradual integration
Online success will only be achieved if all the group’s editorial teams want to take part, Francis Morel, managing director, said.

As such Le Figaro adopted an ‘invite not assign’ policy, giving journalists the opportunity to do work for the websites if they wished (though initially for no extra pay).

According to Morel merging editorial teams for print and online was seen as essential, despite concerns raised by the unions.

Journalists became increasingly enthusiastic about working for the websites and now both editorial teams are on the same floor under the same editorial head, though Morel insists this has been about building bridges and not enforced integration.

Advertising
The group has sought to recoup floundering revenues from print classifieds by making a concerted push with this advertising online, setting up a team to find advertisers for online-only.

Contextual and behavioural advertising is also being experimented with.

E-commerce and diversification
Building around the flagship portal of Le Figaro, the publisher has launched specialist sport, finance and lifestyle websites, in addition to acquiring several e-commerce sites.

Content has also been syndicated to other websites, though this is not a long-term business model, Conte says.

“This business [selling content to other websites] will continue to be weak and limited. We need to work on ad revenue. We are not reinventing anything by saying that, but we need to integrate our sales house.”

Content
News remains a priority online for all the group’s content-based websites. On the Le Figaro site a commenting function has been added to articles and submissions from users are welcomed.

Le Figaro has also set up its own TV studio to produce video clips for online and mobile.

As a word of warning, Morel stresses that the digital developments in these areas have not been at the expense of the print product.

“It is indispensable to continue to invest and focus on print, because while the internet is a key territory, it will not replace print.

“We need to be extremely cautious and prudent. The internet is a very volatile market. We need to be very flexible at any time to change our course because we do not know what tomorrow holds.”

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Motorsport boss Max Mosley has launched a libel claim in the French courts against the News of the World over allegations he engaged in a Nazi-themed orgy.

The UK Sunday newspaper alleged that Mosley had been involved in a London orgy with five prostitutes and posted video of the affair on its website.

Moseley failed with a legal attempt in the English courts to get the video taken down and has now decided to pursue the matter in the French courts.

The action has been made possible because the print edition of News of the World is available in France and the online version was also accessible.

Moseley is also about to embark on a separate breach of privacy case in the UK. This issue has been scheduled for court in July.

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