Inspiration from outside
In their search for new digital business models, media companies are experimenting with various approaches. Tamedia gathered fresh ideas at a Hack Day.
Technology companies such as Facebook and Google have been using them for a long time. But newspapers such as The New York Times, The Guardian and Zeit online have also held them. We are talking about so-called hack days or hackathons, events at which programmers, designers and web specialists work on new applications for companies. At some hackathons, internal employees juggle with company data, while others tap into creative minds from outside the company. Zeit online, for example, launched a beta version of its content API with several hundred thousand articles in November (Developer.zeit.de) and invited interested parties to explore its 66-year-old archive. In the first month, 23 applications were created. For example, a tool that can be used to find out how often a certain word has been used in the weekly newspaper since 1946 (Webevangelisten.de/zeitapi). Or a world map on which the Zeit articles are visualized (Newstral.com/maps).
Tamedia was also inspired by the idea of Hack Days and last weekend organized a two-day competition called Open Development Projects, in which students, freelancers, web designers, developers and programmers tried their hand at various Tamedia products. For two projects, the task was clear: an interactive 3D globe was to be developed for the SonntagsZeitung, on which all travel reports are anchored. The fashion portal Fashionfriends wanted to use gamification to make its platform more attractive. 20 Minuten online, the appointment calendar Doodle and Search.ch, on the other hand, made their data available for free development. Data from the electronic telephone directory and the interactive map from Search.ch, Wemf measurement data such as visits, page views from web, mobile and tablet from 20 Minuten online.
Tamedia was prepared for 50 participants. In the end, 17 participants found their way to the Open Development Projects on March 9 and 10. Students from the Chur University of Applied Sciences (HTW), a team from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), some young entrepreneurs and freelancers as well as the Bern-based web agency Cubetech, four of whom had traveled to the event. They came to make contact with Tamedia and its digital specialists, to take a look behind the scenes of the media group and to network with like-minded people.
Copying ideas
The fact that fewer participants than expected took part in the Hack Day is probably due to the fact that many in the web community were skeptical about the project. There were reports of ideas being stolen on Twitter and Blogs the talk. The community was particularly annoyed by Tamedia's demand that participants would have to cede the rights of use to their contributions free of charge in the event of the project being realized. This was originally stipulated in the guidelines. Following criticism from the community, Tamedia adjusted the provisions, but there were also doubts of a different kind. It was also said that the project was a cheap ploy to get ideas. The fact that Tamedia did not develop successful web platforms such as Doodle and Search.ch itself in the past, but rather bought them in, further confirmed the skeptics. The media company would have been better off commissioning freelancers or companies. Tamedia firmly rejects this accusation: "We award many contracts to agencies and freelancers. The Open Development Projects are about giving people outside the scene a chance. We wanted to reach those who would otherwise not get a chance," Christoph Brand, Head of Digital at Tamedia, told Werbewoche.
In any case, those who came worked hard. Scattered around various rooms in the Tamedia building, the participants set up their laptops and began brainstorming and implementing ideas. The HTW team developed the travel reporter 2.0 for the SonntagsZeitung, a reporter equipped with a GPS transmitter who records his route and provides information on various locations. An excursion manager was designed for Doodle, a kind of modern round telephone for information on upcoming events (Excursion.smilebox.ch). At 20 Minuten, there was a discussion about how the reading time of articles could be measured or how the popularity of a post on social media channels could be measured.
Catering was provided, and in the evenings people met up for pizza and beer. And for some participants, it wasn't even over after the after-work beer. They continued coding on Werdstrasse until late into the night. Mike Herter, Project Assistant Online Development, and Sven Ruoss, Project Manager Corporate Development, were amazed by the amount of intrinsic motivation. The exchange was extremely fruitful, they both said. Head of IT Aurel Stevens, who accompanied the brainstorming session at 20 Minuten, also found the discussion with the "lateral thinkers" very interesting. It was exciting when external people asked questions and questioned certain things, he said.
Two projects honored
On Monday evening, the projects were finally presented to the four-member jury headed by Christoph Brand, Peter Schüpbach (CEO of Fashionfriends), Roland Wittmann (Head of Corporate Development at Tamedia) and Simon Bärtschi (Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Sonntags- Zeitung). Two groups were declared the winners: firstly, the Bern-based web agency Cubetech, which had planned a redesign for Search.ch and had already programmed a prototype. Secondly, the ZHAW team, which realized the "gamification" brief for Fashionfriends with the idea of a fashion board on which users can create their own styles and share them with others. As a thank you, all participants received a gift bag containing subscriptions to the SonntagsZeitung newspaper and vouchers from Fashionfriends. On top of that, there was an invitation to dinner together and a small expense allowance. Brand also presented the two winning teams with flight tickets to Berlin and promised to open a door or two for them there.
However, it is not yet clear whether the winning projects will be realized. "If they are realized, we will have a commercial discussion with the authors," explains Brand. Cubetech will be able to present its concept to the Search.ch management in April. "However, this is not a guarantee," clarifies the Head of Digital. The Fashionfriends team is also currently clarifying whether and, if so, in what form the project should be implemented. In this sense, the open development projects are not yet complete. The winning teams are eagerly awaiting the outcome. The attractiveness of future Hack Days will depend not least on how they proceed.
Isabel Imper
Christoph Brand, Head of Digital at Tamedia, talks in more detail about the Open Development Projects and Tamedia's digital business: "Tamedia must extend innovation beyond the boundaries of the company".
