Thanks to the special foil with lenses, the readers of this special edition of “Polityka” can see the picture of either Bronislaw Komorowski or Jaroslaw Kaczynski with their election motto. The main headline says: first election round, two candidates, three dimensions.  The special edition is now available. The publisher – Spoldzielnia Pracy Polityka – decided to publish only half of the circulation (100.000 copies) with 3-D cover. The special edition will be a little bit more expensive than the regular one.

According to the publisher, costs of production of the special cover exceeded 200.000 PLN (about 50.000 Euro). “Polityka” wanted to show the possibilities of press just before the election, when the readership is high. Such innovative cover gives publisher new advertising possibilities, just as in this case – a 3D advertisement was published on the back of the cover.  The innovative move is supported by advertising campaign in radio and TV.

The 3-D cover sollution will be reserved by the pubisher for special editions of the paper, and will not be introduced as a regular, weekly strategy. The circulation of “Polityka” in Poland is 135.000 copies per week.

Below you can see the video of how this cover really looks like:

Giorgio Riva

Two publishers, RCS and L’Espresso decided to join theit forces and create a Premium Publisher Network, a consortium for all Italian publishers to join and to enhance the advertising revenue. In the publishing arena RCS and L’Espresso are strong competitors, as online publishers they want to enhance their identity and the values of their branded content.

Premium Publisher Networks offers advertising text links. This is the same type of advertisements RCS offered through Google Ad Works and L’espresso via Yahoo Content Match.

What PPN offers about its ads is:

• performance text links,
• transparency,
• control,
• premium price,
• quality.

Sales and technological platforms are managed by an independent 3rd party sales partner. Advertisers cannot choose one site or another for the advertisments, but the entire network of sites.

The offer for publisher is: the control over performance, additional revenues, and full knowledge of audiences behavior. On the other side, the advertisers get high quality audience and no blink network.

There are more than 50 editorial websites in the network already, and over 600 million page views monthly. The goal is to reach 1 billion page views in the upcoming months. They are covering national news, local news, magazines and radios.

The key numbers for the Italian market are:

• 22 million internet population,
• Premium Publisher Network has 55% of all italian users
• Premium Publisher Network CPC (cost per click) equals 0.33 euro (which is double of the average value of the italian market)
• 70% advertisers renewed the campaign

• what people want in 21 st century?
• how can the news publishers get there?
• where is the money?

Juan Senor wanted to change the understanding of the words being commonly used. Instead of media companies, they should think of them as information engines. Instead of readers, they should start thinking about audiences.

In Juan Senor’s opinion, news publishers have actually 4 choices:

• to exit
• to be sold or be taken over
• to cut the costs until the cash cow bleeds to death
• to re-invent the business by focusing on profit audiences

The best way is of course the last one.

Paper will stay forever – this was a strong thesis of the speaker. No medium has ever replaced the other medium. What will change are business models and content propositions.

The speaker is not worried about the future but about the present. He is also not worried about the future of newspapers but about the future of journalism.

News publishers should rediscover the soul of newspapers. What has made them great in the past will make them great in the future. And under “SOUL”, Juan Senor understands four features of newspapers. They should be Sensous, Omnipresent, Unique, and Light.

Newspapers must change, their content proposition must be totally different. Transformation must begin with editors. The journalists should become journANALYSTS. Context plus analysis marks the only situation when people will be paying for newspapers. At the same time, publishers should care about dynamics of their newspapers. Journalists write more these days because it’s harder to write less. Newspapers should transform to newsZINES. They should carry less yesterday information, and more today and tomorrow news and forecats.

What makes Juan Senor really trustworthy are the successes behind the work of the company he works for. The relaunched French “Liberation” is up 12% in circulation month over month. Another newspaper, “Correio” is up 27% in circulation year over year.

The speaker suggests 5 revolutions. Every single news publisher should:

• reinvent content
• redesign formats
• reorganise newsroom
• rediscover online revenue streams
• rethink advertising and distribution models

Online has to become the heart of news operation. But it does not mean abandoning print. Whatever model news publishers adapt, it should be hybrid. Kind of like one digital kitchen serving several restaurants.

And where is the money? The question is not to charge or not to charge, but how to charge. You cannot open the doors that are open. Paywalls no. New rooms, and niches – yes.

Louise Abildgaard Groen

In that project , the students aged 12-18 are the journalists, the teachers are the gatekeepers. In this internet-based learning platform, more than 500.000 Danish students are being targetted.

The complete information on the project can be found in the video below:

Next to “The Newsdesk” (Redaktionen), an online dilemma game “The Front Page” was launched. A Gallup poll conducted in October 2008 tells:

• Among students who have either played “The Front Page” or worked with “The Newsdesk”, the readership of Ekstra Bladet has increased by 20%;
• The number of students using ekstrabladet.dk has doubled since “The Front Page” and “The Newsdesk” was introduced;
• 25,860 students have played “The Front Page”. The game has been used in 43,1% of all schools in Denmark.
• 100% of the teachers are satisfied or very satisfied with the educational level of the products.
• 80% of the teachers find “The Newsdesk” and “The Front Page” much better than any other educational newspaper production tools.

The circulation of “The Newsdesk” reached 400.000 printed copies in two years.