Internet The Web 2.0 project Youme.net was launched a year ago. And it continues. Only differently.  
The Swiss Web 2.0 flagship Youme.net will not have the money tap turned off. At the end of February, the local blogosphere was still discussing the imminent bursting of the first Swiss "Web 2.0 bubble". The reason: the so-called Youme Cube, a mobile wood and glass construction, is currently for sale on eBay for 48,000 francs. "But there's no need to panic," said Youme boss Marcel Meier, reassuring the bloggers reporting the news. The mobile office was a temporary project from the outset. Youme.net is a so-called social network, its own interpretation of the well-known US role models MySpace and YouTube (see WW April 19, 2007: "Ringier tests join-in web"). The Swiss publishing house Ringier is supporting the project with a six-figure sum and hopes to learn more about the online usage behavior of the younger generation through its involvement.
Although the project is celebrating its second year this spring, not everything has turned out as the creators had hoped. Youme boss Marcel Meier is by no means only positive. "We made our mistakes," he admits. The participatory portal, which was sometimes heavily criticized by the community and bloggers, had more trouble than expected with the 2.0 technology. Meier does not share the widespread opinion that the technology behind such a project is not a decisive factor in retaining users on the site. "The mechanisms behind such a system are very complex," he says. In addition, the rapid development of technology is all too often underestimated. No sooner has a video solution been licensed than a new one is on the market. Meier: "This makes development extremely difficult, especially for a multimedia project like Youme.net."
In addition to the programming, the "digital village square" also had problems with the graphic design. "We started out with the wrong design agency, which wanted to push through its ideas at all costs," says Meier. In the end, they had to hire graphic designers and develop their own layout, which delayed the launch of the platform by months. Independence is very important if you want to hold your own in a small market like Switzerland. Meier: "We want to appeal specifically to the creative class." Which is obviously appreciated by users. "But we overdid it," says Meier. Since the beginning of March, the site has been more user-friendly again. The layout is a compromise between the otherwise rather sterile-looking usual 2.0 offerings and the old design concept from November last year.
In addition to the technical problems, the community on Youme.net did not develop as the Swiss Web 2.0 pioneers had hoped. "In the beginning, we went broad with the topics in order to cover as many areas as possible," explains Meier. Unfortunately for him, as he says himself, no focus has emerged. Analysis of the usage statistics shows a flat distribution of interests. "We can't identify any topic that users are particularly interested in," says Meier.
The consequence is additional work to coach and monitor the community. Filling social networks with content is already very time-consuming. Meier is also convinced that the content on his platform has no immediate effect. "We can't force users to do anything. Everything is on-demand." But some of the content would be discovered after two months and suddenly users would come in droves. The phenomenon is new to him. Meier: "Either the content is good or it's somewhere unnoticed on the platform."
There is no recipe for good content. Meier can only say that the demand for content depends heavily on the topicality of the media, search engines and the sender of the message. Attracting the attention of users with "fake dialogs" is useless. According to Meier, the "wolf in sheep's clothing" is always quickly exposed. He suspects that this is mainly what advertising agencies try to do. "It always backfires," says Marcel Meier.
The commercial success of the site is still a long way off. "The commercial side is a lot slower than the technology," says Meier. There are no reliable baseline figures, although a beta version went online last spring. However, Meier is convinced that commercial success will come. The cross-story principle - selling content to newspapers or television - will also work in the medium term. Negotiations are currently underway with TV stations to give the Youme community its own program lasting several minutes. Meier is giving his project time because they are not yet in a position to consistently produce content at a certain level of quality.
In its second year of existence, Youme's backers want to see performance. The payment model for the moderators and editors who work for the participatory project has therefore changed since March. Meier has introduced a performance-based wage, a so-called "shared revenue model". Employees are no longer paid a fixed salary. Their earnings are now made up of a fixed component on the one hand and their performance is assessed on the basis of visitor numbers on the other.
This means that employees share in the revenue if their content "performs". "In the future, we will no longer hire and pay people as we did in the beginning," says Meier. The model will also be transferred to users, who can therefore earn money.
Christian Lüscher

 Drum roll and fanfare: The jury of the Swiss Live Communication Awards Xaver let all the cats out of the bag in a press release on Wednesday and announced the nominees for this year's awards.  
In the "Best Event" category, the Xaver.08 jury has nominated: Snap! Event and Marketing Services (Hotel Paradiso), Tanner Communications (TAG Heuer Motor Racing) and Unique Events & Incentives (Sihlcity opening). The nominees in the "Best Expo" category are Andreas Messerli (VSG Erdgas), Bellprat Associates (Opel The Loops) and Schneider, Berthoud Werbeagentur (K2007 Düsseldorf).
 
The nominations in the three new categories were awaited with interest. In the supreme discipline "Best Live Communication Campaign", Premotion (Lilibiggs Kinder Party), Spillmann/Felser/Leo/Burnett (Dreamcard) and W.P.P. expo & event (Antalis Papertour 2007) can look forward to the first-ever Xaver. There is one nominee in the "Best Promotion" category: FastBreak (Sipuro Spring Cleaning, Oho!). And in the "Best Supplier" category, three companies are in pole position: Dr. W.A. Günther (Marketing Day 2007), Habegger (100 Years of the Swiss National Bank) and MIC Catering (BaselWorld).
 
All nominees now have a few days to answer discipline-specific questions, for example on material mix, functionality, design creativity, originality, the history of the idea and the surprise effect. They will also be invited to the "recall". There they will be interviewed live by the jury about their project.
 
Which project will win the gold, silver or bronze trophies will now be decided at the final jury meeting in mid-March. The Xavers will be presented at the gala evening on April 9 at the Kaufleuten in Zurich.
International accolades await all nominees. As the Xaver jury under President André Parsic of Dettling & Marmot announced on Wednesday, all nominees will be given the opportunity to take part in the Globes Awards for the first time this year. The awards ceremony will take place in Las Vegas or Toronto in October.
 
 

 Swisscom wants to bring its loss-making Internet television into the black next year. From 2009, Bluewin TV will make a profit contribution due to strong customer growth, Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter told the SDA news agency on Wednesday. "We had around 70,000 customers at the end of 2007. If we only had 140,000 customers at the end of 2008, that would be a disappointment," said Schloter on the fringes of the annual media conference in Zurich, without wanting to give more precise figures. CFO Ueli Dietiker was unable to say how many customers Bluewin TV would need to reach the break-even point: he had not calculated this. In an interview last year, the CFO said that Swisscom would need 200,000 to 250,000 customers in order to achieve the medium-term revenue target in the three-digit million range
In order to attract more customers, the telecommunications company will be launching a slimmed-down version of Bluewin TV in the coming months. At 4 to 5 megabits per second, the so-called Bluewin TV light requires less bandwidth than the previous offering, said Schloter. However, Bluewin TV light has no hard disk for recording films and no HDTV.

 
Transport Aarau-based Renzen Communications has realized a cross-media campaign for PostBus Switzerland. 
"The yellow class." This is the claim that PostBus Switzerland has been using since July 2007 to position itself in an increasingly competitive environment. "The yellow class" summarizes philosophy, attitude to life, competence and performance: If you ride PostBus, you ride neither first nor second class, but yellow class. In order to communicate the associated values, Renzen Communications developed a multi-stage campaign. Phase 1 was dedicated to internal communication, as CD Text Hanno Lietz explains. The key element was a gift box that was sent to all employees.
and employees. The main content: a DVD produced by Biel-based Twin Productions in collaboration with Massimo Rocchi. The comedian takes viewers on a journey through Switzerland and meets various people - passengers, tourists, PostBus employees - with whom he talks about PostBus. The most diverse aspects of the "yellow class" are highlighted.
Phase 2 of the campaign is aimed at passengers and the general public. The focus of communication is on PostBus drivers as the company's figurehead. CD Art Emmanuelle Friedli has used posters and vehicle lettering to highlight four core values as important elements of the "yellow class": Uniqueness, Reliability, Competence and Helpfulness. On all four subjects, a driver addresses the public with a statement on the respective value. Phase 2 is accompanied by a competition. This passenger quiz involves passengers interactively engaging with the new claim "The yellow class".
 
Andreas Panzeri 

  The Corporate Communications Award, a prize for integrated communications, is becoming European thanks to its new partners. These new partners are: the Haute Ecole de Gestion Fribourg, Publicitas, the Sonntag newspaper and the trade journal Kommunikationsmanager published by FAZ-Verlag in Frankfurt am Main. A new jury for French entries has also been formed for the Award-CC. This jury will be chaired by Mathieu Janin, Président SRRP, Société Romande de Relations Publique and Senior Consultant at Rochat&Partenaires Lausanne. The members of this Award-CC jury are: Olivier Cretton, Publicitas Lausanne and co-editor of the trade journal Com.in, Cristina Gaggini, Economiesuisse Genève, Daniel Hammer, Presse Suisse for French-speaking Switzerland in Lausanne, Daniel Herrera, Romande Energie Morges and Jean-Yves Pannatier, Banque Cantonale du Valais in Sion.
As the two award initiators, Jolanda Eggenschwiler, PR Words and Roland Bieri, Bi-Com, announce, the category prize "Award Media Relations" will also be presented for the second time as part of the Award Corporate Communications. An expert panel of media and PR professionals will honor the best media relations work of the year. The sponsor and initiator of this award is the SDA subsidiary News Aktuell.
The call for entries for the 4th Award Corporate Communications and the category prize Award Media Relations is now open. Applications until May 31, 2008 and further information are available on the Award-CC website:

 The Neue Luzerner Zeitung has begun detailed work on the Sunday edition announced in January. The newspaper will be published for the first time in September 2008 throughout Central Switzerland with an edition for Central Switzerland and an edition for the canton of Zug. It will have a clear link to the weekday edition. The newspaper architecture will be based on a 6-bundle structure. LZ Medien announced that the Sunday edition will be produced mainly in-house because it has a strong regional focus. To this end, new jobs will be created and the network of employees and correspondents will be expanded.
As Werbewoche has already reported, NLZ is also open to cooperation with other publishing houses that publish a Sunday title or are considering doing so (see
). According to the press release, an amount in the region of CHF 2 million has been earmarked for editorial production. The Sunday edition will be delivered to all subscribers. Early delivery will also be expanded for this purpose. Subscribers will have to accept a surcharge, but this will be modest in comparison to the offer, the press release continues.
In the advertising market, the Sunday edition will operate with the existing fixed formats. Combinations with the weekday edition, but also with other Sunday titles, will be used where it makes sense from a market perspective.

 
British veteran rocker Keith Richards has had himself photographed for French luxury brand Louis Vuitton. The advertisements featuring the Rolling Stones guitarist will appear in glossy magazines from next month, the parent company LVMH in Paris announced according to SDA. Richards' predecessors at Louis Vuitton include former Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev, tennis player Steffi Graf and French film diva Catherine Deneuve. Like Deneuve, Richards wants to donate his fee to Al Gore's environmental protection organization The Climate Project. The photos of the veteran rocker were taken by US star photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Richards can be seen with his guitar on a hotel bed, old and leathery like the scuffed Louis Vuitton guitar case next to him. "Some journeys can't be put into words. New York, three o'clock in the morning. Blues in C major," is the advertising slogan according to Vuitton. The company did not say whether this also refers to Richard's psychedelic journeys during his drug experiences.

 
Cinésuisse managing director Sven Wälti demanded on Monday that the federal government increase its credit for the promotion of Swiss films from 20 to 40 million francs by 2012. The umbrella organization of the Swiss film and audiovisual industry hopes that this will bring it a step closer to its goal of achieving a market share of ten percent with Swiss films, as the federal government writes, but the timing of the demand seems extremely bad; on the one hand, the record market share of 9.26 percent in 2006 fell to 5.38 percent in 2007 and even to 2.52 percent in the first two months of 2008, as was reported in Blick. On the other hand, the animated film "Max & Co." appears to be flopping at the box office, even though it received a record CHF 1.5 million in federal funding and, with production costs of CHF 30 million, is the most expensive Swiss film of all time.
Wälti told the Bund: "We shouldn't let a flop deter us from our longer-term strategy". However, it is uncertain whether a majority for the additional credit will be reached in the National Council and Council of States in December 2008. In view of the mixed Swiss film year 2007 and the criticism of the funding concept by federal film promoter Nicolas Bideau, a positive decision seems doubtful. However, according to Blick, Bideau still believes that 2008 and 2009 will be "rich years" for Swiss film.

 The private broadcaster 3+ and Nadja Schildknecht have mutually agreed to continue the second season of the casting show "Supermodel" without the former top model and current businesswoman, according to a press release. Schildknecht hosted the first season, but now wants to concentrate on her main job as Head of Marketing and Sponsoring at the Zurich Film Festival. However, Sonntagsblick speculated that Schildknecht had another reason for canceling the second season: She is apparently expecting a child. 3+ is now looking for a new presenter for the in-house production in Switzerland and abroad. According to the press release, the castings will take place over the next few weeks. Before these have been completed, station boss Dominik Kaiser does not want to comment on the successor. The scripts for the seven episodes have also not yet been finalized. However, the call for applications for the next generation of models is already open: anyone wishing to take part in the show can register at 3plus.tv/supermodel.

 
Cisco Switzerland has appointed Petra Ahlert as its new Head of Marketing and Communications. The 35-year-old German national previously worked in various marketing and sales functions for Siemens in Munich for almost ten years. From 2005, she was Senior Marketing Communications Manager at Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices GmbH & Co. Prior to that, she worked as Business Development Manager and International Product Marketing Manager for the Siemens Gigaset brand. According to a press release, Ahlert was already connected to Switzerland as a "passionate mountaineer" before joining Cisco.

 The multimedia consulting agency for job advertisements Prospective Media Services in Zurich has announced two new appointments: Renato Graziano has been appointed Head of Client Consulting and Scheduling, Rico Juchli has been appointed Key Account Manager. Renato Graziano has held various positions at Publicitas. In recent years, he was responsible for NZZ Executive and NZZexecutive.ch at NZZ Media.
Rico Juchli was one of the first employees of the Jobs.ch job portal. Initially working as a sales manager, he later dedicated himself to various projects and introduced new products to the market.
As a neutral agency, Prospective Media Services provides multimedia consulting and placement of job advertisements. According to a press release, it increased its turnover last year by 60 percent from 19.4 million to 31.1 million.

Melanie Winiger has snapped up the leading role in a new commercial for the Italian luxury label Moschino. She appears as a seductive chambermaid for the "Funny" fragrance, as reported by 20 Minuten. The commercial is to be broadcast worldwide in cinemas and on TV, but exactly where is still a matter for negotiation. The ex-Miss Switzerland actress came to the commercial by chance: She was introduced to the producers and they immediately invited her to a casting in Milan. There, Winiger was able to assert herself against numerous competitors. This seemed to surprise the partner of rapper Stress: "As a soon-to-be 30-year-old with a six-year-old son - I could hardly believe my luck," says the actress proudly.