Update #4: Friday, Sept. 16, Goteborg, Sweden, 15:31
TAKEAWAY: Reporting from Sweden today, as my so called Scandinavian Tour continues. It is a new photo-driven iPad app for the Goteborgs Posten PLUS: Special links for weekend readings AND: A new Apple store for Hamburg
Extra, Extra: the big headlines are here
I am always fascinated by those giant, somewhat old fashioned, headline posters that one sees in many countries around the world, particularly in Latin America, Asia and, of course, the Scandinavian countries.
They are usually yellow, with big, bold 400 point clunky letters that scream headlines at those passing by the outside of a store where newspapers are sold, as you see this one in Goteborg, this second largest Swedish city on the west coast.
These posters MUST promote loudly to seduce people going by, so each day is apocalyptic, no matter what happened in the news, although I have to say that the newspapers doing this tend to be down market, and their usual fare is celebrity gossip, political scandals, and, yes, anything having to do with royalty.
It does not require a sort of “9-11” experience for the daily posters to shout.
Indeed, I do see people catching a glimpse of the headlines, although I have no idea how effective these posters are to lure people inside the store to get an actual copy of the newspaper.
In my career, I have had to deal with “designing” the street poster in several occasions, not that it was difficult: simply take the boldest, thickest headline available and splash it there. Any attempts to make these posters look slightly better, quieter or more refined, are usually turned down.
Viva the newspaper posters, another reminder that not only have we survived, but we thrive loudly and with robust type specimens in the streets of the world.
A new app for the Goteborgs Posten
The mobile market has been explosive for the Goteborgs Posten in the past few months, especially during the summer, reports Martin Holmberg
For the Goteborgs Posten: digital expansion means Android and iPhone apps and now a new photo-driven tablet edition premiering next week
The GP iPhone app includes the Tip of the Day, one of the most popular features, which users pay for
The first GP app is primarily a photo app: here is the opening screen
Click on photo and see if full screen
Pop up navigator leads to other photos in the package
Click to read copy related to photo
Just about to premiere: the new Goteborgs Posten iPad app. The new app will be introduced in Goteborg next week to coincide with the opening of the city’s annual Book Fair.
I spent part of the day Friday with Martin Holmberg, director of digital division at the Goteborgs Posten. Martin tells me that this summer has been particularly interesting for the GP and its digital efforts.
“We saw traffic rise in a sort of explosive way for our iPhone app, especially in July when news broke out of the massacre in Norway, we reached an all time high, but we are seeing that it is continuing,” Martin said.
Of course, as Martin reminds me, the GP has made efforts to not just use the mobile phone app for feeding news from its website. In addition, and one of the most popular features, includes a Tip of the Day on the iPhone app, for which users actually pay. Writer Eva Wieselgren guides the readers on how to use the phone and all its possibilities in a better way.
“It is incredible what this feature has done. It is extremely popular, and one of our writers writes her tip of the day, and users pay 15 Swedish kroner for a 3 month subscription (equivalent of about $2).
Over 700 people come to read the tip daily.
What next for the digital development of the GP?
As Martin Holmberg puts it, “the next few months are going to be special for us as we develop more paid content for the iPhone app.”
In addition, plans are almost there to get a new e-paper native app for the iPad, allowing readers to flip through the pages of the printed edition, something that is very important.
IN my view, a modern news app includes: the curated material, the “lean forward” news updates, and the e-paper, offering various modes of gathering information for readers who may prefer all three, or just one or the other.
And our discussion today took us into what Martin sees as a reality for 2012, a curated evening edition of the Goteborgs Posten for the iPad, further development of content, and even Internet TV.
One important point about the GP iPad app: Its first tablet edition has sold all advertising space for the first month!
Of special interest today
– Flipboard’s Mike McCue: Web Soon to Look More Like Magazines
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2011/09/12/flipboards-mike-mccue-web-soon-to-look-more-like-magazines/
– The Unexpected iPad Effect: Android Tablets As A Marketing Commodity
http://www.fastcompany.com/1779855/the-unexpected-ipad-effect-android-tablets-as-a-marketing-commodity
– USA: Hearst To Convert All Sites to HTML5
http://www.foliomag.com/2011/hearst-convert-all-sites-html5
– Video: WSJ’s Alan Murray: The iPad Has Driven the Paper’s Video Programming Expansion
http://www.beet.tv/2011/09/wsjvideo.html
– The British are coming: Guardian hits U.S.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110914/FREE/110919945
– New oxygen for the news industry: re-thinking value and skill sets
http://www.inma.org/blogs/earl/post.cfm/new-oxygen-for-the-news-industry-re-thinking-value-and-skill-sets
– New tools to help publishers maximize their revenue
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-tools-to-help-publishers-maximize.html
– USA: Inside the Globe Lab: Building the tools to make the Boston Globe’s two-site strategy work
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/09/inside-the-globe-lab-building-the-tools-to-make-the-boston-globes-two-site-strategy-work/
– USA: Facebook sends news sites more traffic than Twitter, revised study shows
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/145446/facebook-sends-news-sites-more-traffic-than-twitter-revised-study-shows/
-USA: @ pcAds: Hearst Wants Tablet Magazines To Adopt Movie, TV Pricing
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-pcads-hearst-wants-tablet-magazines-to-adopt-movie-tv-pricing/
– 5 things journalists need to know about new Facebook subscription feature
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/145991/5-things-journalists-need-to-know-about-new-facebook-subscription-feature/
– The work of data journalism: Find, clean, analyze, create … repeat
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/09/data-journalism-process-guardian.html
– Will Machines Replace Journalists?
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102686/Will-Machines-Replace-Journalists.aspx
New Apple store opens in Hamburg
Frank Deville tells us that a new Apple store has just opened in Hamburg, Germany—-making this two Apple stores now in the northern German city.
The first 3000 customers will get a special T-shirt, and Bild, the popular newspaper, also has promotions attached to the opening of the store.
This new store becomes Apple’s 8th in Germany. And Hamburg has the honor of being the only German city with TWO Apple stores.
Ten Tips to get into a Thriving Mode Soon
TAKEAWAY: Don’t know about you, but all the talk about survival is making me weary. I propose that we abandon the survival mode and concentrate on doing great things now that we have “survived”. Get into a thriving mode.
Thriving mode is the new black
Massimo Gentile, design director of Italy’s Il Secolo XIX, has illustrated our ten tips here, and says he had a lot of fun doing it. Thanks!
Twice this week I have found myself doing presentations to roomfuls of journalists, with the word “survival” cropping up every few sentences. Either I say it, or someone in the audience says it.
Enough of the survival mode, I say.
We have been on survival mode since late 2007, and most of us are still here, and so are our newspapers. That is a long run for a state of anxiety, waiting to see what happens from day to day.
If you wonder what I am talking about, yes, it is about the death of print. That was, as my pre-teen grandchildren would say “so 15 minutes ago”.
So, I don’t know about you, but, as for me, I will erase Survival from the title of my presentations, and work hard at NOT using the word.
Instead, I want to emphasize, as I did today in Goteborg, Sweden, the things we should do to print (and the rest) happily.
1. Get the best stories you can get your hands on, the rest falls into place easily.
2. Come to work as if you are in the storytelling (news) business NOT in the newspaper business.
3. Think local, and pretend that the larger world out there does not exist: think like your readers.
4. Connect where your readers connect. Think Facebook, Twitter, etc.
5. Design in a way that brings a sense of order, peace and relief to readers in a chaotic world.
6. Let your passion for the craft turn the daily miracle that is producing what we do daily very special—-better yet, make it magic.
7. Be curious about what those who read you are going to be talking about today—-and tomorrow.
8. Use all four of the platforms that you populate with information daily yourself. You can’t be a good storyteller on the tablet, or the mobile phone, if you don’t use those tools.
9. Don’t let those who spread gloom and doom in the newsroom influence you. Tell them you are busy chasing that good story, and NOT to comeback later.
10. Now that you survived, pretend your product has gotten a splendid second chance, and it is up to you to make it better than it ever was before.
Think creatively—think BIG—and you can stop surviving and start thriving