Turn three into one
Online Tamedia wants to oust Blick and NZZ from the top of the news offerings on the Internet. Together with Espace Media and Basler Zeitung, the Zurich-based company is planning the largest news portal in German-speaking Switzerland.
Online Tamedia wants to oust Blick and NZZ from the top of the news offerings on the Internet. Together with Espace Media and Basler Zeitung, the Zurich-based company is planning the largest news portal in German-speaking Switzerland.
When nothing else was clear, one thing seemed to be a done deal: the merger of the Tages-Anzeiger and Berner Zeitung Internet portals. This was announced by Tamedia CEO Martin Kall when it was announced at the end of May that the Zurich media house was taking over the Bern-based Espace Media Groupe. In the meantime, the online plans have taken on more concrete contours. Under the name Online News Network, a working group headed by Res Strehle, deputy editor-in-chief of the Tages-Anzeiger, is currently driving forward the project for a new news platform on the Internet. In addition to Tamedia, partners in the network include the Bern-based Espace Media Groupe and the Basler Zeitung, the three media companies that want to jointly launch a new commuter newspaper this year. The legal form in which the network will be organized is still open, according to Tamedia.regions in focusIn addition to the three daily newspapers from Bern, Basel and Zurich, the new online offering will also accompany the new free newspaper online. Exactly how and when this will take place, whether the platform will be launched under a uniform brand, how the individual newspaper titles will be represented - all of this is still unclear. "There are simply still too many decisions to be made by us and our partners," explains Tamedia spokesperson Christoph Zimmer. "What is clear, however, is that reporting from the regions will play a major role." The regional anchoring is so important because the news platform will serve as a joint advertising tool for Tages-Anzeiger, Berner Zeitung and Basler Zeitung. Together with the announced commuter newspaper, the news portal is intended to "attract young, educated readers to the three daily newspapers", according to the Tages-Anzeiger a week ago.
Without 20 MinutenIf one assumes that the planned news platform is able to attract at least as many users as tagi.ch, baz.ch and espace.ch combined today, then the new service would become number 1 in one fell swoop. According to the latest figures from Net Metrix, the three had a total of 1.38 million visitors in July. The current industry leaders NZZ online and blick.ch had 1.2 million and 1.17 million respectively. They are followed by another Tamedia website, 20min.ch. According to company spokesman Christoph Zimmer, however, the online offshoot of 20 Minuten is not to be integrated into the online news network. A collaboration is conceivable at best in the technological area.
The cooperation between Tamedia, Espace Media and Basler Zeitung in the Internet sector is nothing new. The three media companies have already been working together on the marketing of their websites for two years. Tamedia hopes that the planned editorial cooperation will provide a boost for the "Metropool online". "This offering for the advertising market can certainly be strengthened and expanded," says Tamedia spokesperson Zimmer. And the online advertising market is on the upswing. Although in absolute figures (52 million francs last year) it remains a wallflower next to print (2.1 billion francs), media managers are impressed by the rapid growth. Last year, spending on online advertising in Switzerland increased by 44%.
The magazine as a model? "We need to be much more daring here in future, we need to invest here."
By "here", Tamedia CEO Martin Kall meant the Internet. When he said this with a view to the future of the news portals of Tages-Anzeiger and the recently acquired Berner Zeitung, Tamedia had already taken some risks. And also invested. In mid-May, Das Magazin
The Tages-Anzeiger has relaunched its website with a new look and completely revamped architecture. The central feature: all texts, including archived ones, are freely accessible and do not disappear into a paid archive after a certain period of time. For "information architect" Oliver Reichenstein
who developed and implemented the new concept, this openness is a must for news sites on the Internet. "Every link to an article helps to improve the website's ranking in search engines," explains Reichenstein. With closed archives, the pages remain "invisible" to Google & Co. If even Rupert Murdoch is now considering
Reichenstein believes that making the Wall Street Journal's articles freely accessible on the Internet is a clear sign of things to come. Notably, the Journal is one of the few newspapers in the world to have made large profits with its online subscription. Murdoch now wants to earn even more money with advertising, which he wants to place on the freely accessible and linkable websites. Advertising spaces, initially one prominent one per article, are now also available on dasmagazin.ch. And they are being noticed. The number of page views
(visits) has more than quintupled since the relaunch. While the magazine's old website was clicked on around 9,000 times a month, the new one now receives 50,000. It is uncertain whether Tamedia will use Das Magazin with its open structure as a model for its online plans. Tamedia spokesman Christoph Zimmer says only this much:
"Other web projects can certainly benefit from the know-how that was acquired at the magazine. "Nick Lüthi
When nothing else was clear, one thing seemed to be a done deal: the merger of the Tages-Anzeiger and Berner Zeitung Internet portals. This was announced by Tamedia CEO Martin Kall when it was announced at the end of May that the Zurich media house was taking over the Bern-based Espace Media Groupe. In the meantime, the online plans have taken on more concrete contours. Under the name Online News Network, a working group headed by Res Strehle, deputy editor-in-chief of the Tages-Anzeiger, is currently driving forward the project for a new news platform on the Internet. In addition to Tamedia, partners in the network include the Bern-based Espace Media Groupe and the Basler Zeitung, the three media companies that want to jointly launch a new commuter newspaper this year. The legal form in which the network will be organized is still open, according to Tamedia.regions in focusIn addition to the three daily newspapers from Bern, Basel and Zurich, the new online offering will also accompany the new free newspaper online. Exactly how and when this will take place, whether the platform will be launched under a uniform brand, how the individual newspaper titles will be represented - all of this is still unclear. "There are simply still too many decisions to be made by us and our partners," explains Tamedia spokesperson Christoph Zimmer. "What is clear, however, is that reporting from the regions will play a major role." The regional anchoring is so important because the news platform will serve as a joint advertising tool for Tages-Anzeiger, Berner Zeitung and Basler Zeitung. Together with the announced commuter newspaper, the news portal is intended to "attract young, educated readers to the three daily newspapers", according to the Tages-Anzeiger a week ago.
Without 20 MinutenIf one assumes that the planned news platform is able to attract at least as many users as tagi.ch, baz.ch and espace.ch combined today, then the new service would become number 1 in one fell swoop. According to the latest figures from Net Metrix, the three had a total of 1.38 million visitors in July. The current industry leaders NZZ online and blick.ch had 1.2 million and 1.17 million respectively. They are followed by another Tamedia website, 20min.ch. According to company spokesman Christoph Zimmer, however, the online offshoot of 20 Minuten is not to be integrated into the online news network. A collaboration is conceivable at best in the technological area.
The cooperation between Tamedia, Espace Media and Basler Zeitung in the Internet sector is nothing new. The three media companies have already been working together on the marketing of their websites for two years. Tamedia hopes that the planned editorial cooperation will provide a boost for the "Metropool online". "This offering for the advertising market can certainly be strengthened and expanded," says Tamedia spokesperson Zimmer. And the online advertising market is on the upswing. Although in absolute figures (52 million francs last year) it remains a wallflower next to print (2.1 billion francs), media managers are impressed by the rapid growth. Last year, spending on online advertising in Switzerland increased by 44%.
The magazine as a model? "We need to be much more daring here in future, we need to invest here."
By "here", Tamedia CEO Martin Kall meant the Internet. When he said this with a view to the future of the news portals of Tages-Anzeiger and the recently acquired Berner Zeitung, Tamedia had already taken some risks. And also invested. In mid-May, Das Magazin
The Tages-Anzeiger has relaunched its website with a new look and completely revamped architecture. The central feature: all texts, including archived ones, are freely accessible and do not disappear into a paid archive after a certain period of time. For "information architect" Oliver Reichenstein
who developed and implemented the new concept, this openness is a must for news sites on the Internet. "Every link to an article helps to improve the website's ranking in search engines," explains Reichenstein. With closed archives, the pages remain "invisible" to Google & Co. If even Rupert Murdoch is now considering
Reichenstein believes that making the Wall Street Journal's articles freely accessible on the Internet is a clear sign of things to come. Notably, the Journal is one of the few newspapers in the world to have made large profits with its online subscription. Murdoch now wants to earn even more money with advertising, which he wants to place on the freely accessible and linkable websites. Advertising spaces, initially one prominent one per article, are now also available on dasmagazin.ch. And they are being noticed. The number of page views
(visits) has more than quintupled since the relaunch. While the magazine's old website was clicked on around 9,000 times a month, the new one now receives 50,000. It is uncertain whether Tamedia will use Das Magazin with its open structure as a model for its online plans. Tamedia spokesman Christoph Zimmer says only this much:
"Other web projects can certainly benefit from the know-how that was acquired at the magazine. "Nick Lüthi
