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.
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.
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.”
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.
Norwegian media giant Schibsted this morning announced that it’s paying £30m to take a 35 per cent stake in the Swedish edition of Metro International’s free newspaper.
In what is a key freesheet market the former rivals have forged a partnership to collaborate on advertising sales with the new company offering advertisers the chance to reach 4.2 million readers across the Metro and Schibsted paid-for dailies Aftonbladet and Dagbladet.
In February, Metro International CEO, Per Mikael Jensen, discussed his company’s strategic goals with Journalism.co.uk saying that consolidation and online innovation would be key for the development of his newspapers, in what he called the ‘freesheet 2.0 phase.’
“We are entering a freesheet 2.0 phase where we are consolidating our core business and looking at more ways to attract readers,” said Jensen, who succeeded Pelle Törnberg as head of Metro in 2007.
In Sweden, this consolidation will mean Schibsted will stop publication of its free paper Punkt SE with immediate effect so that the new joint venture can focus print advertising around a single free title.
The deal has similarities with the one Metro struck at the end of 2007, when it sold 60 per cent of its Czech operation to its competitor Mafra.
The freesheet giant is currently undergoing a strategic review, and when Journalism.co.uk spoke to him, Jensen said we could expect more deals of this nature.
Today, Jensen refused to rule out further consolidations when questioned by Danish media and said he expected dramatic changes in the Danish newspaper market in the coming months (but refused to go into details).
“We do not just sit there and wait for the strategic review to be completed, but implement strategy from day to day. Strategy is something we evaluate each month. Those who believe the strategic review we now are in the middle of will become some sort of bible, will be disappointed,” said Jensen in the interview with Journalism.co.uk.
In addition, Metro is looking to attract more readers online. It’s launching new versions of its websites in all its markets – it recently launched online for the first time in France – and will consolidate some of its editorial activities by creating an internal news agency in London which will serve all its editions.
Jensen is behind Metro’s new developments and alliances but he remains as pessimistic as ever about the future of paid-for printed newspapers.
“I would be very surprised if more than 25 per cent of today’s paid-for newspapers exist in ten years. Of the newspapers that will survive, many of them will be published online only, or make its paper edition free,” Jensen said.
The two newspaper giants may have forged a partnership in Sweden but they remain embroiled in a head-to-head competition over their market leading freesheets in France and Spain.
However, Metro International still has a lot of work to do to convince investors that its business model – the company is still loss-making even though it narrowed its first quarter net loss to £5.1 m – has a profitable future.
Nicolas Kayser-Bril, contributor to the Online Journalism Blog and Observatoire des Media, has created an index of the interactive tools used by European news websites.
The index compares and contrasts which media organisations make use of tools such as Twitter, mobile alerts and social networks, as well as noting their policy on user registration for interactive services.
News sites from the UK and France, to Macedonia and Hungary are featured – entries for additional organisations should be submitted to nicolas@observatoiredesmedias.com.
Below is the index’s comparison of interactive features used by Sky’s site vs Guardian.co.uk:
The project is an extension of the work by Birmingham Post reporter and blogger Joanna Geary, who looked at the use of interactive tools by business news sites.
Last week a French court found a website guilty of breach the privacy of actor Olivier Martinez because it linked to a story about him (hat tip Cybersoc).
The site, Fuzz.fr, had linked to a gossip website which was carrying a story about the actor’s relationship with Australian singer Kylie Minogue.
In landmark ruling for the French online world, the court decided that Fuzz.fr has taken ‘an editorial decision’ to link to the other site and was therefore responsible for the content.
The site, which allows users to post their own links, was taken offline shortly after the ruling.
“It’s a black day for French participatory websites, because it opens the door to all kinds of (court) procedures,” Fuzz’s creator Eric Dupin told AFP.
According to a report on Yahoo News, Dupin was ordered to pay 2,500 euros in damages and legal costs.
Les Echos has launched a mobile site – http://www.m.lesechos.fr – the Editors’ Weblog reports.
The site will feature a mobile version of the daily and can be accessed by non-subscribers to Les Echos, though some content may be restricted to subscribers only.
Elsewhere, also reported by the Editors’ Weblog, Jérôme Bouvier, president of the Journalism and Citizenship Association, has launced a site to match up professional journalists with citizen reporters.
On the Vu des quartiers [‘seen from the neighbourhood’] site, the citizen journalists will decide on issues to report on and act as writers overseen by the professionals. The aim is to build stronger links with areas, which may feel out-of-touch with the media.
According to the report, which was originally in Le Monde, around 60 pros have already signed up to the project, which will run until the second round of the country’s forthcoming municipal elections on March 16.
The 2008 Municipal Videotour will see three mobile studios providing coverage from about 50 cities.
Yesterday was a day of thirds for me. Two thirds good, one third not so good. In the first two thirds, I attended a roundtable discussion on RSS hosted by MediaFed, a provider of RSS feed tools and services.
It would have been topped off with an excellent three-course meal had I not had to leave for another meeting after the starter (so only one third of a lunch for me, and those that know me well will appreciate how I grieved for the loss of that sticky ginger pudding).
Ahem, but I digress. The purpose of the first discussion was to get some representatives from the UK publishing industry around a table to discuss their current implementation of RSS feeds and how they expect the platform to develop in the future. Before I summarise the points of the discussion, I think it would be useful to summarise what I think are the key RSS requirements from both readers and publishers.
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