The jury of the "Best of Swiss Web" Internet competition has nominated the ten most outstanding Swiss websites from the numerous entries for the title of "Master of Swiss Web 2008". The winner will be determined at the so-called Award Night on Tuesday, March 11. A public vote by the readers of Netzwoche, together with the votes of the public at the Award Night, will decide the winners, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. The ten candidates now selected for the 1st prize have emerged from a shortlist compiled by expert juries around two weeks ago. The expert juries assessed the websites and projects in the various categories. The submission deadline for the football website category has been extended until March 1, as many of the projects are yet to be completed due to the fact that the European Football Championship will only be held this summer. A special prize will be awarded in this category under the motto "The web is round". The award ceremony for the "Master of Swiss Web 2008" will take place on Tuesday, March 11, 2008, starting at 6 p.m. in the Kongresshaus Zurich. 500 guests from the web and ICT industry as well as personalities from business and politics are expected to attend.  
 
 
The ten candidates
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/ Execution: Divio GmbHJury: "With 105tv.ch, the good interaction of the components is impressive."
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/ Execution: Cmsbox GmbHJury: The content management system is characterized by "user-friendliness" and "technical maturity".
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/ Execution: Netvertising AGJury: The KPT Versicherung campaign is able to "involve the customer in the best possible way".
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/ Execution: Unic AGJury: "Freitag's revised online presence impresses with the stringency of its design and its clear structure."
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/ Execution: Liip AGJury: The Swiss National Bank's e-learning site is "playfully easy to understand".
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/ Execution: Assai Interactive AGJury: "The site manages to stand out from the usual tourism offers."
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/ Execution: Netvertising AGJury: "This website whets the appetite for food and cooking."
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/ Execution: oSkope Media GmbHJury: Online search assistant with "zeitgeist charm"
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/ Execution: Jung von Matt / LimmatJury: "The campaign manages to create a real viral effect through innovative use of the online medium."
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/ Execution: namics agJury: The TV guide from sf.tv offers "an innovative solution. Very convincing."

 The Zurich agency Lesch+Frei has defended the account for the corporate campaign of British American Tobacco (BAT) Germany in a pitch. The agency had already positioned the tobacco multinational in Germany from 2000 to 2006 with a campaign on the subject of responsibility. According to Lesch+Frei, this helped the company to become a credible opinion leader in the debate on smoking. The agency has now been awarded the newly defined budget following a pitch. In addition to the responsibility issue, the campaign also includes trade measures. The new appearance will initially be seen in Germany and England, with the first motifs being used from March.

 
The free newspaper portal 20minuten.ch has teamed up with the video city guide Cityguide and presents its video clips on its own website. Cityguide offers tips for sixty Swiss cities and over a thousand suggestions for international cities. The Cityguide videos are the ideal preparation for the modern city nomad, according to the press release on Tuesday. You can quickly visit the most important sights of a new city and then discover a city's insider tips. For each city, there are contributions from a wide range of areas such as gastronomy, leisure, hobbies, sport, wellness and beauty, art and culture, excursion destinations, hotels, transportation - and of course nightlife. In addition to the address, telephone numbers and Internet address, a map navigation of the city presented is always included.

 In the opinion of the Glarus government, Tele Südostschweiz's application for a license to supply the canton of Glarus does not meet the requirements. It is therefore requesting that the tender be reopened. Only one application has been received for the TV coverage area in which Glarus is located, that of Chur-based Tele Südostschweiz. It is viewed very critically by the Glarus government. The cantonal executive is therefore calling on Bakom to retender.
The performance mandate of the concession includes a program window for Glarus. Tele Südostschweiz, which belongs to Hanspeter Lebrument's Südostschweiz Mediengruppe, wants to integrate this into the news program for the entire region. However, it is "simply wrong" that the population has had good experiences with this, writes the government. Even such important events as last November's extraordinary Landsgemeinde are only reported on after news of minor traffic accidents or even more insignificant events in Graubünden.
In addition, the invitation to tender was issued incorrectly. According to the government, it would have been wiser to follow their suggestion: It called for an overlap between the Zurich and south-eastern Switzerland licensing regions. The government is requesting that Bakom cancel the tender for the television licenses, carry out the overlap and put them out to tender again in both regions.
On the other hand, the executive was satisfied with the radios: with Radio Zürichsee and Radio Central, Glarus has two strong, rooted regional radio stations. The best performance is provided by Radio Zürichsee.

 
The Crossmedia Award will be presented for the fourth time on May 7, 2008. The aim of the competition is to recognize innovative and efficient campaigns that intelligently combine communication across different media in the marketing of products and brands. As the advertising marketer and competition organizer Goldbach Media writes, a cross-media campaign is characterized in particular by the degree of involvement of the target groups. The recipient must have the opportunity to engage with the brand or product and get involved. With this thematic focus, this year's Crossmedia Award is looking in particular for reference projects, which Goldbach Media believes are still largely lacking in Switzerland. The competition honors campaigns that were implemented between April 2007 and March 2008. The competition is aimed at planners, consultant teams and agencies, as well as customers and clients. The following criteria will be used to evaluate the work submitted: 1. cross-media strategy, intelligent networking and target-oriented use of media. 2. innovation through the use of new media, new forms. 3. creative implementation, media and target group-oriented staging and brand language. 4. evidence of the effectiveness of the entire campaign or parts of it. And 5. overall impression. The closing date for entries is April 2, 2008 and the winner will receive prize money of CHF 10,000.

 The DRS ombudsman's office did not record any significant changes in 2007, even though the framework conditions had changed due to the new RTVA. The number of complaints was almost the same as in the previous year. Many of these concerned election coverage. In his annual report, Ombudsman Achille Casanova concludes that election coverage on Swiss television and on Radio DRS in the election year was decent and appropriate. All complaints received in 2007 about election broadcasts on TV or radio were dismissed as unfounded, writes Casanova in the latest edition of Link, the magazine of the Audience Council and the member companies of SRG Deutschschweiz, published on Tuesday.
Ombudsman Casanova received a total of 146 complaints in 2007. In the previous year there had been 150. There were no serial complaints, which means that the ombudsman's office was not misused for campaigns, Casanova continues.
Casanova classified 25 percent of the complaints as justified. This is practically the same as the previous year's figure of 24 percent. According to Casanova, journalistic errors were found in more contributions than in the previous year. However, these were mostly not relevant enough to be classified as a violation of the program regulations.
Casanova forwarded 11 of the complaints to the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television. In the previous year, this figure was 9.

 The Swiss Press Council has decided against stroking politicians' egos in a ruling on a political farce in eastern Switzerland. It states that the opening speech of a politician at an event does not necessarily have to be mentioned by the media. The committee wrote this in a statement on an article in the St. Galler Tagblatt about the opening of a nativity scene. On August 11, 2007, the daily newspaper reported on the opening of a crèche in the Heiligkreuz district. No mention was made of a cantonal councillor who had traveled from Wil SG to give the opening speech.
On September 10, 2007, a third party filed a complaint with the Press Council. He objected to the fact that a number of guests present had been mentioned, but not the cantonal councillor as the main speaker. The newspaper had thus withheld important information and also violated the principle of truthfulness.
However, the Press Council rejected this complaint on the grounds that the selection of the information to be published was at the discretion of the editorial offices. In this case, it was understandable from the reader's point of view that the report focused on the history of the crib.

 Publicitas Zurich has a new manager: the new branch manager is Astrid Gartenmann. She succeeds René Brunner, who is leaving the company. The exact date of the takeover has not yet been determined, according to a press release. With 36-year-old Astrid Gartenmann, Publicitas is relying on a long-standing employee: she began her career at the intermediary in 1988 with an apprenticeship as a commercial clerk. After working for Publicitas in Zurich and Wollerau, she became Account Director at Publimedia in 2005. The marketing planner imparts her knowledge as a lecturer at Sawi.
"Their nomination underlines our philosophy of filling the management positions of the new Publicitas with a mix of our own young talent and new, proven minds from the media market," comments Thomas Bargetzi, CEO Sales Switzerland at Publicitas, on the choice in the press release.

 
In collaboration with Lowe Paris, the Zurich agency Lowe, part of the Draftfcb/Lowe Group, has launched a new campaign for Cailler. For a poster campaign, it has visualized the chocolate manufacturer's new claim "Pur Chocolat. Pure Emotion" for a poster campaign. The aim is to further emotionalize the brand by placing a real-life message on Cailler chocolate in the various subjects. The poster campaign is also intended to continue last year's TV campaign, which has already "successfully anchored the special nature of Cailler in the minds of the target group", according to the press release issued on Tuesday. In a recent survey conducted by Kassensturz, Cailler milk was voted the most popular milk chocolate in Switzerland, which Lowe sees as a success of last year's efforts.

 On Monday, the Abendzeitung Heute reported that the "Free Internet" commercials in the commercial database on the Publisuisse website are labeled Sunrise. This seems to have solved the mystery of the "Free Internet" campaign. On Tuesday, however, the Swiss Metablog noticed that the commercials can no longer be found on Publisuisse. Peter Kaufmann from Publisuisse says: "Every client has the right to tell us whether their TV commercials should appear in our commercial database or not. This right is hardly ever exercised. In this case, however, the client in question exercised this right after the article in the Abendzeitung Heute. For this reason, we removed the commercials from the database on Tuesday morning." Sunrise is still not commenting on the "Free Internet" issue: "No comment" was all that spokeswoman Sevgi Gezici told Werbewoche.

 
Felix Schneuwly will become the new Head of Policy and Communication at Santésuisse on February 1. The Board of Directors has appointed the 47-year-old to succeed Peter Marbet, as the health insurance industry association announced on Tuesday, according to SDA. Felix Schneuwly, from Fribourg, was Central Secretary of the Swiss Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (SBV) between 2001 and 2008. Prior to that, he was Secretary General of the Federation of Swiss Psychologists (FSP). Schneuwly studied journalism and psychology and has an MBA in the management of non-profit organizations. In addition to management tasks, he has also been responsible for communication and representation of interests, as Santésuisse writes further.

 
After more than 200 years and 21 editions, the internet and Wikipedia have achieved something that neither Napoleonic devastation, unification wars, the Great Depression nor two world wars could: The German Brockhaus, a source of reliable knowledge and a template for countless other encyclopaedias, has stopped publishing its standard work in book form. However, the Brockhaus lives on: on April 15, 2008, the publishing house Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG will continue to publish the encyclopedia as a free online encyclopedia. Not only will the publication be changed from primarily physical to primarily digital, but the business model will also be changed from buyer-financed to advertising-financed. With this historically significant change, the traditional publishing house is reacting to the business development of printed classic encyclopaedias, as stated in the communiqué. In 2007, sales targets were missed, particularly in the area of general encyclopedias, just two years after the publisher published its 30-volume 21st edition. In addition, market analyses had shown that customers would primarily look up factual information online in future. As early as 2007, the Brockhaus editorial team in Leipzig was therefore transformed into a purely online editorial team. The editor-in-chief of Brockhaus Online is the journalist Sigrun Albert.
The fact that the future of the expensive book encyclopaedia did not bode well was evident after the direct comparison of Wikipedia and Brockhaus by the news magazine Stern last year. Wikipedia performed better in terms of quality - who would pay for Brockhaus? In its move to become an online portal, Brockhaus is also setting itself apart from the encyclopaedias written by the public. "With Brockhaus Online, we are now countering the increasingly confusing flood of information from the Internet with a knowledge portal that stands for relevance, accuracy and security," says the communiqué. The Brockhaus will therefore not only live on as the digital spirit of its physical ancestors, the idea of a precise description of the world will also live on. The encyclopaedists will thank him for it.