The 30-second TV spot shows video footage of US soldiers and their families speaking out against the war and in favor of troop withdrawal. The filmmaker was commissioned by the organizations MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org. "I decided to participate in the project because as a war veteran, I know that America needs to listen to its men and women in military service," the 60-year-old Stone is quoted as saying by SDA. "We have leaders in Washington who say they support our troops, but the troops themselves are the ones who suffer the most from their political decisions." The director had fought as a volunteer in Vietnam before studying film. Last year, Stone brought the drama World Trade Center to the cinema, the first Hollywood production to deal directly with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Baschi does it, Yakin does it, Stanic no longer does it and perhaps there will soon be even more ex-racers: from Monday, the poster campaign entitled "Welcome to reality" will confront speeding on Swiss roads with bitter subjects. The campaign is aimed primarily at men, who make up the majority of speeders.  
The press release from the Zurich advertising agency Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett points out that although broad prevention campaigns have been carried out in recent months, they have made little reference to the male-specific motivations for speeding. A broad-based, multi-track campaign for young people in vocational schools, grammar schools and upper secondary schools is intended to debunk the male myths that lead to speeding in order to enable targeted, effective and sustainable prevention. SFLB developed the motifs in a goodwill campaign, as Patricia Balliana explained to Werbewoche. The poster will be displayed throughout German-speaking Switzerland over the next two weeks, as the NWSB announced on Friday. It has also worked with schoolchildren to produce a teaching aid with a DVD on the subject of speeding and risky behavior among young people, and has already received 300 orders. The prevention project is financed by the Road Safety Fund (FVS).

 There has been a change of leadership at Swisscom IT Services: The Swisscom Board of Directors has appointed Eros Fregonas as the new CEO of the IT subsidiary and member of the Swisscom Group Executive Board. He will take over from Michael Shipton on May 15 of this year.  
Eros Fregonas currently works as an independent consultant in the finance and IT sector. The 43-year-old Swiss-Italian dual citizen completed elementary school in Switzerland and graduated from the Zurich ETH with a degree in electrical engineering. Fregonas previously worked at Andersen Consulting and headed the Boss Lab. Fregonas has broad experience in the international IT outsourcing business, according to a press release issued by Swisscom on Friday. The departing Shipton is leaving the company to take on a new challenge.

 In the first quarter of 2007, Google increased its turnover by 62.7 percent from 2.25 to 3.66 billion US dollars. The search engine giant generated 1.13 billion dollars via its partners. The search engine giant's net profit rose by 69 percent year-on-year to one billion dollars in the period under review.  
Online advertising remained the most important source of revenue with a 62 percent share of sales, which corresponds to an increase of 76 percent. With these figures, Google has clearly exceeded analysts' expectations, with Google's profits reaching a point beyond what most thought possible, experts from Capital Management told Kress.de. Moreover, the growth was "phenomenal solid growth". The stock markets reacted accordingly positively: in after-hours trading, Google shares gained 3.3 percent and rose to just under 487 dollars. Rival Yahoo had previously disappointed investors with weak quarterly results.

 Germans already make one in five calls on their cell phones - and the demand for new devices is correspondingly high: More than 30 million are expected this year - more than ever before.  
Mobile telephony is all the rage. According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, around 32.6 million devices will be sold in Germany alone in 2007. The figures quoted are from Bitkom, according to which sales were 32 million in 2006 and 31.3 million cell phones in 2005. However, Bitkom does not expect sales to increase. A fifth of all telephone calls were made by mobile phone in 2006, five years ago the proportion was only half as high, said Jörg Menno Harms of Bitkom. Cell phones are no longer only used for making calls and sending text messages. Four out of five cell phone owners also have the option of using their device to access the Internet, and 40 percent do so. Checking weather information is popular, for example, and one in two mobile surfers has already downloaded a forecast onto their display. Sports news is also in demand, coming in second place with 35%. Local news (32%), international news (23%) and the latest from the celebrity world (20%) complete the top 5 most popular information services via cell phone in Germany. 

 Only a fraction of internet users actively participate in social networking portals. Only 0.16% of all visitors uploaded a video to YouTube, and the statistics are similar for the photo portal Flickr, where an average of just 0.2% of visitors upload a picture. The exception is Wikipedia, where 4.6 percent of all users make an entry.  
These figures were collected in a study by market researcher Bill Tancer from Hitwise.com, as Pressetext.at reports. Despite the low level of participation in participatory websites, they still have enormous appeal. According to Tracer, visits to Web 2.0 sites have increased by 668 percent within two years. According to the Hitwise study, 12 percent of Internet activity in the USA is attributable to Web 2.0 sites, compared to 2 percent two years ago.
 
However, the study does not question the growth of these sites due to low participation. Much more interesting is the question of the profitability of the highly valued Web 2.0 portals. Traditional media houses and Internet companies are buying Web 2.0 platforms in a race. This is not an American phenomenon: in Germany, the Holtzbrinck publishing group invested around 100 million euros in the purchase of the student portal StudiVZ, according to information from Der Spiegel. However, the portal is not yet making any money. Other portals, such as Myvideo.com or Last.fm, are keeping quiet about their figures - the only thing that is known is that visitor numbers are soaring here too.

 The day after Schmidt's appearance as an assistant presenter on ZDF's "Heute Journal", the German media are massively disappointed with their favorite. Nevertheless, everyone wishes him the best of luck for the rest of his life.  
"I have time, I'm not busy with this little show here: ZDF, here's my application," Schmidt announced back in March. "This is the job for me!" But the job didn't seem so perfect for him. His widely publicized taster presentation on Thursday evening was disappointing. When Schmidt finally had his say on "Heute Journal" shortly before the end of the program, he was only allowed to present a segment about con artists. He made an effort with little built-in gags and icebreakers - but the ice remained hard.
 
"The teleprompter threw the otherwise spontaneous entertainer off his stride, his facial expressions were tense, his presentation wooden," Welt.de complained. The latenight talker's appearance lasted barely a minute. Perhaps ZDF was afraid to let him say much. You can't leave serious topics like the Virginia Tech massacre to an entertainer. Harald Schmidt was still allowed to do the farewell, which he mastered with aplomb
- All three presenters laughed heartily together once again and Schmidt's daytime news career was over. In future, "Heute" presenter Steffen Seibert will stand in for Claus Kleber or Marietta Slomka on vacation.

 In front of over 500 guests, Carl-Eduard Meyer, Managing Director of News Aktuell, presented the coveted trophy to the Hamburg agency. The "Gold Award", sponsored by the Dpa subsidiary, was presented at the PR Report Awards 2007 in Berlin.  
The industry prize honors the best campaigns and projects as well as the most successful people and teams in the German PR industry and was awarded for the fifth time. Agency owner Volker Martens is quoted on Presseportal.de as follows: "In recent years, we have consistently realigned ourselves and continuously expanded our profile. With a consistent focus as a communications agency, we have responded to the needs of the market and achieved record results last year."

 Due to the persistently high energy and raw material costs, paper manufacturers have increased their prices again in recent weeks. Unfortunately, above-average demand and capacity bottlenecks in the pulp sector mean that the cost situation is unlikely to ease in the near future.  
As the leading paper wholesaler Antalis announced in a press release, it too cannot avoid adjusting its prices. As of May 14, prices will be adjusted by 4 percent, which will be included in the invoice amounts. In the copy paper range, however, the surcharges will continue to be shown openly. As the increased raw material prices also have an impact on the production and transportation costs of other materials, Antalis is also forced to increase the prices of the Visual Communications range. Boards, self-adhesive films and other POS materials will be up to 3.5 percent more expensive. Fortunately, however, there are also many products in this range that can be kept at the previous price level. To take account of these developments and the need for price transparency, Antalis has revised its print price list. It will be sent to affected customers from May.

Klaus Kappeler, CEO of the Goldbach Media Group, explains how important the Internet is to his company. WW: How important is the online business for the Goldbach Media Group compared to its other divisions? Klaus Kappeler: In 2006, we already generated a good 17 percent of our revenue—in other words, a significant portion—online. At the beginning of this year, we increased our investment in Suchtreffer AG from 30 to 100 percent, demonstrating that we’re making progress in search engine marketing. We also intend to consolidate this within our company this year. The example of Austria illustrates this: When we expand, we always enter new markets via the Internet first. In doing so, we also try to promote the offline sector—our Swiss model. After all, in Switzerland, this approach—combining radio and television—has led us to our comprehensive convergence offering. In Eastern Europe, we’re currently evaluating whether to expand further east beyond Vienna, where we’ll initially enter the market via the Internet. Thus, online isn’t just important for revenue—it also holds strategic significance. WW: You’ve surely been closely following how PubliGroupe is restructuring its business and placing a strong emphasis on online in particular. How do you assess PubliGroupe’s consolidation process? Klaus Kappeler: The acquisition of Adlink Switzerland and Adlink Austria is in no way related to PubliGroupe. But we are proud, in a sense, that Switzerland’s largest media seller is trying to copy us. We’re considered the benchmark; we’re mentioned in interviews as the company with the most cross-media cases, and our competitor is even adopting our wording in every area. On the one hand, that makes us proud, and at the same time, of course, it keeps us very vigilant. We’ll continue to strive to set the trend in the online sector as a center of excellence in Switzerland. We are now also directly integrated into the Adlink network and benefit from its product and innovation pipeline across eleven countries.WW: Which online sectors are currently the most promising?Klaus Kappeler: I believe the market and customer needs have changed significantly. Investments in customer acquisition are on the rise. When we entered the traditional banner advertising market in 2000, it was possible to establish a presence with a single offering. Today—and this is of great importance to clients—the client or media agency expects us to provide comprehensive consulting: In addition to display advertising, this includes search engine marketing, permission marketing, in-game marketing, and affiliate marketing. We’re currently launching the latter and plan to establish a separate company for it. So it’s about covering entire areas so that we can manage our clients’ entire online advertising budgets for them. WW: What do you think of the various innovations on the Internet, such as community portals? Klaus Kappeler: I believe that anywhere on the Internet—especially where a large audience is gathering—it’s of interest to advertisers. This is all the more true because targeting allows you to reach individuals within these crowds more precisely. But I believe you have to take these communities very seriously. They may be passing trends that could disappear again, but you have to keep pace with the active, progressive users. WW: Is there a business model on the Internet that you personally favor? Klaus Kappeler: I believe the successful business model of the future is the ideal mix of the overall offering. Interview: René Worni
Expanding Online: Goldbach Media, Switzerland’s largest marketer of private electronic media, is acquiring 100 percent of Adlink’s operations in Switzerland and Austria. In return, the online advertising marketing company—which operates internationally in ten European countries and the U.S.—is acquiring a 19.4 percent stake in Goldbach Media.
Until now, Goldbach held a 50 percent stake in Adlink in Switzerland and a 70 percent stake in Austria. Both companies plan to launch new services from Adlink’s portfolio and to cooperate closely in the marketing of convergent media. The portfolio of Adlink Switzerland and Austria includes communication solutions for brand building and brand management, performance-based marketing, reach campaigns, direct targeting of selected audiences, and search engine marketing. In addition, both companies intend to expand into Eastern European markets.
By integrating Adlink Switzerland and Austria, Goldbach aims to strengthen its rapidly growing online division and offer cross-media solutions from a single source. Both companies will remain part of the Adlink Group’s international network. The group includes affilinet, the largest affiliate marketing network in the German-speaking world, and Sedo, the world’s leading provider of domain marketing services, according to Goldbach.

Regional TV Christian Stärkle, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the newly founded Tele Oberwallis, is determined to launch a television station in the Upper Valais. WW: The Upper Valais has managed quite well without private TV so far—why is one needed now? Christian Stärkle: That’s not true. There are actually two entirely privately funded TV stations, VS 1 and VS 2, though they don’t quite meet the standards of a regional TV station. VS 1, for example, broadcasts Grand Council debates from Sion or EHC Visp games. WW: But does Tele Oberwallis actually meet a need among the population? Christian Stärkle: The fact is that every—and I mean every—cantonal politician in Upper Valais signed a consultation response calling for a separate Tele Oberwallis. All Upper Valais municipalities also spoke out in favor of it, as did national politicians, even those from Lower Valais. Having its own TV station in Upper Valais is also justified by its unique geographical location. WW: Why shouldn’t what already works in Biel be possible in Valais? Christian Stärkle: Tele Bielingue only works in the city of Biel because the people of Biel are bilingual. But that doesn’t apply to the people of Valais, who speak either French or German. WW: In northeastern Switzerland, the DETEC is conducting a new assessment. Not in Valais. Would you also like to see a new public hearing? Christian Stärkle: DETEC wants to combine the Vaud district of Aigle with the entire canton of Valais—and with two languages, no less. That can’t work. Therefore, a second public hearing with two separate TV stations would actually make sense. Politicians in Bern should deliberately defer to the political will of the Upper Valais. WW: Why did you found Tele Oberwallis right now? Christian Stärkle: No matter how the licensing process turns out, we will definitely operate a regional TV station for the Upper Valais. Under the new RTVG, that’s certainly possible—albeit without a license and a share of the license fee revenue. Producing regional TV isn’t as expensive today as it was ten years ago, anyway. In addition, the Upper Valais municipalities—which already pay half a million francs annually for VS1 and VS2—have pledged further funding. And we also have the support of the cable network operator Valaiscom.WW: Wouldn’t it be better to start talks with Canal 9 after all? Christian Stärkle: Who’s to say that Canal 9 will eventually receive the license for the Lower Valais? They can apply—but so can we. Second, if Canal 9 thinks it can produce a German-language TV station for Upper Valais, it’s mistaken. That’s not possible without the Upper Valais media.WW: One more question about you: You were Head of Electronic Media at AZ Medien, then CEO of Belcom; today you’re Chairman of the Board of Tele Oberwallis and Radio Rottu, as well as a board member at Radio Grischa and Tele Südostschweiz. What exactly is your role in the current radio and TV landscape? Christian Stärkle: I don’t have an assigned role; rather, I act out of my own motivation. I believe that mountain and outlying regions, just like urban areas, are entitled to private radio and TV that is as professional as possible. After all, they pay their radio and TV license fees just like everyone else. Furthermore, regional media enhance the appeal of mountainous and outlying regions. If this appeal is diminished, it contributes to population outflow—and that surely cannot be Switzerland’s intention. These are the reasons behind my commitment. Interview: Markus Knöpfli
Edipresse Plans Regional-Language TV 
At Edipresse, work is in full swing on a TV channel for all of French-speaking Switzerland. Following the SRG channels TSR 1 and TSR 2, the French channel M6, and the music channel TVM3, this would be the fifth regional TV channel in French-speaking Switzerland. Christophe Rasch confirms that, following the entry into force of the new RTVG, the company is moving forward with the project announced two years ago. However, he remained tight-lipped about the launch date, the channel’s profile, the business plan, or distribution—«due to potential competition from abroad and from German-speaking Switzerland.» Back in 2005, the talk was still of «entertainment for a younger audience.» It is therefore possible that Edipresse is planning a counterpart to German-speaking Switzerland’s 3+.

New Media Microsoft is working on a new basis - including for the future preparation of Internet content. In the future, web content will probably no longer be produced in the traditional way using a sophisticated HTML editor. After technologies such as CSS and XML, ASP and Ajax etc., a major technological change is now emerging. Successor systems for publishing content that can be visualized in a browser or in stand-alone applications function completely or partially independently of the operating system and/or make better use of its resources. These systems, some of which are already under development, also take into account the increasing merging of the Internet with the desktop.a new basisOne provider of new solutions that takes account of these developments and the needs of end users for more richly presented information and more user-friendly operation is Microsoft. In its approach to the improved and interactive design of user interfaces, the software giant is relying on an existing technology called "Windows Presentation Foundation" (WPF), which in turn is a component of the .NET Framework 3.0. The technology, which is already integrated in Windows Vista and can be downloaded free of charge for Windows XP, makes it possible to design appealing user elements for desktop applications. With its .NET approach (pronounced: Dot Net), which pursues simplified programming of user interfaces, the company had already created a basis in the past that combines various operating system functions and makes them available to programmers for creating applications in a central location. A Microsoft tool is not necessarily required to program the .NET code. There are development suites from third-party providers and even an ongoing project to create a .NET framework for the Macintosh environment.
With the Windows Presentation Foundation as the basis, the company presented a new subset at the end of last year under the name WPF/E - the E stands for "Everywhere" - which was announced for mid-2007 and which also opens up these rich design and programming options for web applications and makes them accessible to the end user after the installation of a corresponding plug-in - available for the Firefox, Safari, Explorer 6 and 7 browsers. WPF and WPF/E or "Silverlight", as the technology is now officially known since its official presentation at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters; the world's largest electronic media event; www.nabshow.com) on April 15, 2007, is based on XAML, another pioneering development from the Redmond-based company. XAML, a descriptive and therefore descriptive marking and programming language, combines the extended marking language XML with the hypertext language HTML and works harmoniously with the well-known web standards XHTML, CSS, XML, ASP and Ajax. It offers both designers and developers a standardized basis for the joint design of user interfaces. With XAML, animations, design elements and program parts can be described in the same way and developed more easily. The result is greater creative freedom for the web designer on the one hand and a solid basis for the programmer to develop the associated logic on the other.
The Silverlight platform is also particularly suitable for the integration of video content and animations on websites and is therefore also an alternative to Adobe's Flash technology.
Separation of programming and visualizationWPF or Silverlight and XAML and the associated separation of "presentation" (visualization) or user guidance on the one hand and programming or data on the other make it very easy to combine data layers with different presentation layers, which is another strength of the overall concept. In such a development environment, for example, data sources from a measuring station can be evaluated and displayed graphically - based on the same data, a different, perhaps more generally understandable evaluation can be made for another target group by simply linking to another presentation layer, which contains fewer parameters and is presented graphically in a completely different way (see illustrations on page 22). Martin Oser, Business Development Manager at Microsoft in Wallisellen, uses the example of the New York Times to explain how an application downloaded to a laptop automatically adjusts the text and images of news articles to the size of the screen. Or, depending on the default settings, only the most read news items appear, for example. All this works dynamically in an application, but thanks to Silverlight it could now also be realized in a browser.
New toolsDeveloper tools for working with these technologies already exist or will be available in the foreseeable future. The tools from Microsoft are grouped under the name Expression Studio. "The aim of this software suite, which consists of several programs," explains Oser, "is to provide end users with solutions that are both more intuitive to use and have a clearer and richer design." Animations, video content and vector graphics can be integrated or created with the corresponding tools of this new overall solution. Furthermore, Expression Studio allows significantly more data formats to be integrated than was previously possible. The visualization of content and graphic elements should also become more flexible.
Specifically, the single application Expression Blend enables the creation of user-friendly, XAML-based interfaces and programs. While Expression Blend masters the development of user interfaces, Expression Web, which will also replace Microsoft Frontpage, functions as a graphical WYSIWYG web editor. With Expression Design, high-quality, vector-based graphics can be created and exported as XAML code. Finally, Expression Media, formerly known as the iView Media application running on Windows and Mac OS systems, is the matching asset management solution. This application also allows video content to be optimized and automatically prepared for live streaming, for example. Together with the technologies mentioned above, this will enable much richer, more dynamic and interactive solutions on the web in the future.
"With Expression Studio, Microsoft has the tools alongside Silverlight and XAML technologies to meet the requirements for increasingly complex effects and content processing," summarizes Oser. The products Expression Web and Expression Media are already available, Expression Blend and Expression Design have been announced for mid-2007 and are currently available as beta versions for testing at www.microsoft.com/expression. With the Expression Studio program collection, Microsoft is providing web developers and web designers not only with better tools, but also with trend-setting technologies such as XAML and Silverlight, which enable better user guidance and improved handling of content.   
GlossaryAjax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XHTML): Technology particularly suitable for the development of dynamic websites.
ASP (Active Server Pages): Scripting language developed by Microsoft which, in conjunction with its Internet Information Services (IIS), also enables the creation of dynamic websites.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): Similar to style sheets in DTP, but more advanced, CSS can be used to centrally change the appearance of content. A correspondingly structured XML or HTML file is required.
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) - a subset of the SGML markup language - is one of the most important Internet languages. XML is also the basis for many other markup languages such as RSS or XHTML. (jf)
Jürgen Franck