Association of Online Publishers interviewed Tomasz Jozefacki, the President of OPA Europe and Head of Internet at Agora. Tomasz Jozefacki will officialy open the INMA/OPA European Conference 2010 that starts on September 29th and will last for three days.

In the interview for the AOP, Tomasz Jozefacki stated that any publisher “who is not yet considering mobile to be a priority, is probably already late to the party“.

In the times of economic downturn and the worldwide crisis, everyone is looking for the new possibilities to generate revenues. Almost all OPA Europe members, according to Tom Jozefacki, already are offering revenue-generating services like iPad and mobile subscriptions, as the subsidary to the online ad revenues. None of them however waited for the crisis – the experiments began much earlier.

Mobile devices began to be a top priority for many companies and iPad just fastened this rush. There are countries though, where mobile usage has been high for many years now (Spain, for instance). In such states, mobile revenues are nothing new.

There are still many problems to be solved, such as revenue share with Apple for instance (30 percent of subscription revenue sold through its App Store and 40 percent of the ad revenue). Still it’s hard to find a market player who is not at least yet planning the content on the new devices. These new devices such as tablets, and ereaders are the genuine opportunity for all publishers.

The next much awaited change in mobile is HTML5 as an alternative to Flash video. This will make it possible to transfer video from web to apps on devices that do not support Flash (such as iPad).

Tomasz Jozefacki was also interviewed on another trending topic which are paywalls. There are some successful projects in Europe, such as Les Echos in France. Those specialize in producing specific niche content, which will always be searched for by professionals. They are also the ones willing to pay for that content. Also, a popular partial-paywall model in Europe is one, where most content is free, and the premium content is what must be paid for.

Read this interesting interview on the Association of Online Publishers website.

In a personal message to the European Conference of INMA and OPA Europe starting this week in Krakow (29 September to 1 October 2010), the President sends his best wishes for a successful debates.

“Under the heading Transformation, inspiration, innovation, you will analyze your industry’s transition from single medium to multi-media and the implications of this for your marketing, circulation, revenues, and means of gathering, writing and editing”, writes Herman Van Rompuy.

He adds: “It is also fitting that this conference takes place in the historic city of Krakow, one of the greatest centres of European history and culture, just before next year’s Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union. This will be the first time since Poland acceded to the European Union that it will chair the Council, and it will do so just when, at the same time, the former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek chairs the European Parliament. It can be said that Poland is taking an ever more prominent place in our institutions!”

The President of the European Council is delighted that the importance of your conference has warranted strong support from the Polish authorities, including the Mayor of Krakow Jacek Majchrowski and the Marshal of the Malopolska Region Marek Nawara.

More info on the conference

More than 310 editors and managers of leading news media from Europe and the world will arrive this week to Krakow to discuss the future of print, internet and mobile media as well as share their experience in how social, technological and market developments affect consumers and advertisers, and how to meet their expectations. The conference is already sold out, but you still can follow it online at forum4editors.com and at Twitter.

Since September 29 to October 1 they will discuss the future of print, internet and mobile media as well as share their experience in how social, technological and market developments affect consumers and advertisers, and how to meet their expectations.

Among keynote speakers will be CEO of the publishing group Mecom David Montgomery (UK), publisher of the most-read newspaper in the world Dainik Jagran - Shailesh Gupta (India), vice-president of Gannett Digital Media Josh Resnik (USA), vice-president of Google for Southern & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa Carlo d’Asaro Biondo (USA), international content director of Microsoft Peter Bale (UK). Editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Adam Michnik will give opening remarks.

During this three-day meeting speeches will be given also by: representatives of The New York Times of the US, El Pais of Spain, Corriere della Sera of Italy, Segodnya of Ukraine, Aftonbladet of Sweden, L’Equipe of France, Independent of the South Africa, Montreal Gazette of Canada and news agency RIA Novosti of Russia.

Polish and Krakow media executives and reporters will attend as well. In addition to Adam Michnik their experience will share the editor of “Dziennik Polski” Piotr Legutko, vice-president of Polskapresse – publisher of “Polska Gazeta Krakowska” Grzegorz Haftarczyk, directors Artur Karda and Tomasz Krawczyk from Media Regionalne (the owner of mmkrakow.pl local news portal) and Jakub Krzych of Krakow, founder of an innovative internet ad network AdTaily.com, which is storming the UK market.

In total conference participants will present more than 100 different newspapers, websites, information services and media companies. They come from almost every country of Europe, as well as from Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, India and even Nepal.

Participating in the event will provide an opportunity to get to know Krakow, Malopolska region and Poland. Many of media executives will spend the weekend here after the conference.

Mayor of Krakow Jacek Majchrowski will host the welcome party at the Wielopolski Palace. Then participants will be able to visit the newest Krakow museum – built under the city’s mediaeval Market Square listed by UNESCO as the World Heritage Place.

Marek Nawara, Marshal of Malopolska region, will host the gala dinner in the Salt Mine of Wieliczka, the second oldest mine in the world and the second of the eight sites in Malopolska listed in the UNESCO registry.

Town Hall, the Marshal’s Office and Krakow media editors from „Dziennik Polski”, „Gazeta Krakowska”, „Gazeta Wyborcza Kraków”, Interia.pl and RMF FM jointly encouraged international media to arrive to Cracow and Malopolska. As a result INMA and OPA Europe for the first time organized its annual conference not in the West, but in the new European Union member state.

The cooperation with INMA brought international association as a partner of the recent museum’s conference in Cracow.

In order to create positive perception around the world during the conference breaks addtional information about the city and the region will be available at Town Hall and the Marshal’s Office’s stand at Park Inn Hotel. Companies like DTI, MatchWork, PaperView, Planeta Marketing will also present their technologies and merchandise.

Industry organizations – Polish Audit Bureau of Circulations (Zwi?zek Kontroli Dystrybucji Prasy) and Polish Readership Survey (Polskie Badania Czytelnictwa) – will present the Polish press. Along with Atex they are partners of the competition for innovative advertising campaigns in press. Winners will be announced during the conference.

Partner of the local media seminar – Media Regionalne – will establish multimedia newsroom, where journalists will cover the conference live in blogs, tweets and interviews on video.

U.S. Embassy in Warsaw also supports the conference.

Information about the organizers:

Newsmedia Marketing Association International – INMA was founded in 1930. This non-profit association promotes good practices and ideas among the news media publishers. World organization brings together over 5,000 members from over 80 countries. INMA headquarters located in Dallas (USA). The Association also has offices in Antwerp (Belgium) and New Delhi (India).

Online Publishers Association – OPA Europe was founded in 2003 and represents the interests of the leading web publishers across Europe. OPA’s headquarters is in Paris (France).