Coop now has three spokespersons for national media contacts: Together with Karl Weisskopf, who will soon rejoin the media team, Ms. Susanne Erdös and Mr. Takashi Sugimoto are now also responsible for media contacts. According to the press release, 44-year-old Susanne Erdös has many years of media experience and was Central Secretary of the Swiss Commercial Association for six years. The 35-year-old Takashi Sugimoto has broad journalistic experience and was most recently deputy head of department at Coop Presse. 

The German media group Axel Springer claims to be making above-average profits with its online offerings. "We are already earning money on the Internet," said CEO Mathias Döpfner in an interview with Handelsblatt. Bild.T-Online achieves a double-digit return on sales. Although the Springer Group only generates five percent of its revenue on the Internet, the online share of the advertising industry nationwide is only 2.5 percent, emphasized Döpfner: "This means we are twice as good as the market." The manager sees the Group in the "acceleration phase" on the Internet. Digitalization is "of existential importance for the future and is therefore a priority". But print media should not be "prematurely buried" either, Döpfner continued. Further print products are also conceivable in the Bild Group. The publisher is currently still examining the right distribution strategy for the establishment of a French version of Bild. Axel Springer took over the publishing house Jean Frey last December. The German group intends to expand its position in Switzerland.

Media companies could be tempted to treat blog sources too carelessly due to pressure to save money. Spiegel fears this in its online edition. With bloggers and so-called citizen journalism, in which readers encourage or write media contributions, many media companies want to strengthen their roots in the region. However, Der Spiegel criticizes that there are also other motives behind the run on reader participation: "From the point of view of many media companies, the greatest thing about Web 2.0 is that it seems to encourage people to work for free," writes the news magazine. Not least the crisis-ridden daily press is discovering this temptation as an opportunity. According to Spiegel, the WAZ newspaper group has the most far-reaching plans in this respect in Germany. It wants to replace local offices with regional collective editions, which will be supplemented by reader blogs on the regional pages on the Internet. However, according to Spiegel, an initial attempt to close a local editorial office was met with numerous subscription cancellations.

Today, Matin Bleu passed the 220,000 copies distributed in French-speaking Switzerland, as the publisher Edipress announced. Matin Bleu is aiming to reach 250,000 copies by the end of March and will also increase its existing 900 newspaper boxes to 1,000. 20 Minutes, on the other hand, currently has a circulation of 200,000. According to an internal qualitative study of the readership of the two free newspapers, Matin Bleu has a slight lead in terms of preferences. Readers attest to the paper's qualities of enjoyment, reader-friendliness and informative character. The relevance of the editorial selection of topics and the usefulness of the information are also emphasized. According to the study, readers of the free newspaper 20 Minutes prefer the information density and international information.
Edipresse assumes that the 300,000 readership mark for Matin Bleu has now been surpassed. The next Wemf figures are expected on March 27.

Last Tuesday, the consumer magazine "Kassensturz" showed a report about the plastic surgeon Peter Meyer-Fürst. A hidden camera was used to film Meyer-Fürst examining a patient. The 19-year-old Miss Argovia, Jessica de Filippis, who allegedly wanted to undergo a breast enlargement, served as a decoy. The "Kassensturz" then raised serious accusations: Meyer-Fürst had downplayed the risks of such an operation. In addition, the surgeon had repeatedly come too close to women physically. Evidence for this was a statement by de Filippis, according to which she had felt "uncomfortable" during the examination, and a story by jetsetter Vera Dillier, which took place twelve years ago in Meyer-Fürst's practice.The Aargauer Zeitung now asks whether "Kassensturz" did not go too far with the use of a hidden camera, which was approved by SF editor-in-chief Ueli Haldimann. In principle, filming with a hidden camera is prohibited, unless there is an overriding interest in the publication of a fact that can only be proven with a hidden recording. In this case, however, according to the Aargauer Zeitung, media law experts doubt the justified use of the hidden camera.
In any case, the accusations that Meyer-Fürst works sloppily and offends his patients can hardly be substantiated with the illegally filmed material. Meyer-Fürst now wants to file a lawsuit: A repercussion for SF is not excluded.

The new internet platform Direktzumbundesrat.ch promises citizens a direct line to the Federal Council. Anyone can submit their concerns without having to go through the authorities. Anyone can submit their concerns on the website - but before the contribution is published on the site, it is checked for seriousness. Once this hurdle has been passed, the contribution is made public and can be freely viewed. The site is intended to communicate problems from the bottom up and make politicians more aware of them, as can be read in an SDA press release. This should be made possible without the direct democratic process. In this way, the whole of Switzerland will be able to read what issues are on people's minds and how the Federal Council is responding to them. The project was initiated by a group of students from Switzerland and the EU. Such services also exist in Austria, Poland, Italy, France, Great Britain and Norway, but are not yet used. The site for Germany is very busy. It was the first to go live on October 3, 2006.

In the current NET-Metrix Audit publication, 132 websites have their usage data reported, including 7 websites without third-party advertising. Newly included are the websites Comparis, heute-online.ch, Piazza.ch, Rsr.ch, Sportal, StudiSurf.ch and swissinfo/SRI.  
For all published websites, a total of around 1 billion page impressions and more than 126 million visits were measured in January. On average, around 8 pages were called up per visit. A visit is defined as a visit to a website that is not interrupted for more than 30 minutes. For page impressions and visits, information on the provider location of website users is included for the first time. The summary share for Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein is listed. Since it is not possible to allocate the countries completely, the information is shown categorized. The information on the location of the provider cannot be equated with the location of use of the website user. Additional information on the location of the user will be collected in the NET-Metrix-Profile study, which will be published for the first time in spring 2007, as stated in the corresponding media release.

Anthrazit magazine has voted Hoerkolumnen.ch one of the 200 best Swiss websites and also the best podcast. The decision was announced to coincide with the first anniversary of Hörkolumnen. The first podcast, in which columnists read out their work, was launched exactly one year ago. In the last twelve months, the pool has grown to eight writers and speakers. There are now 10,000 downloads per month. The authors include illustrious names such as Peter Schneider (SonntagsZeitung), Gion Mathias Cavelty (Weltwoche), Philipp Tingler (Facts) and Bänz Friedli (Migros Magazin). The initiator of the project is 24-year-old Zurich ETH student Denis Nordmann. He and his team were delighted to receive the award at Hörkolumnen's birthday party. More authors are to join the free podcast in 2007. By integrating the audio columns on various media websites, Nordmann would like to further expand and publicize the cross-publisher project, according to a press release.

In the science fiction story Minority Report, passers-by are incessantly texted by billboard advertisements. Thanks to the Cologne-based outdoor advertising company Ströer, this vision is no longer too far away: billboards in ten German cities are now available for dialog.  
Personalized messages are to be sent to passers-by in advance from billboards in waiting areas. The billboards transmit advertising to registered cell phones via Bluetooth - cooperation with the consumer is therefore a prerequisite. As soon as a cell phone with activated Bluetooth is within range, the user is asked whether they would like to receive the advertising message. If they decline, the billboard will no longer send messages to this number. The billboard can transmit images, coupons, videos, games, ringtones or text messages. Advertisers pay an extra 50 euros per site per day - as well as an unspecified service fee, according to a Handelsblatt report.
 
The Mini car brand also relies on personalized advertising and uses radio frequency identification (RFID) to personally address passing drivers in four American cities. The Mini driver is identified via a chip in the key fob. As soon as he drives past, the panel changes from regular advertising to a personalized message that remains for a few seconds. The experiment has brought data protectionists and traffic experts onto the scene. Data protectionists have long had RFID technology in their sights because they fear that RFID could be used to create profiles of consumer behavior. Traffic experts warn that drivers could be distracted by this advertising and cause accidents. They are just as offended by the messages on the boards, as these often refer to driving habits that were previously explored in questionnaires. Speeding drivers, for example, read: "There are bends so they can be cut. "

On Friday, the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) opened the public consultation on the applications for the new digital radio stations. Eighteen applications were received for the eight licenses put out to tender.  
The licences guarantee broadcasters the right to access the new digital radio platform (Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB). After the hearing on 2 March, OFCOM will propose eight applications for licensing. The Federal Council as a whole will act as the licensing authority. According to OFCOM, the SRG is to offer two of its stations on the DAB platform. It has submitted applications for an English-language national radio station (World Radio Switzerland) and for a German-language news program, as reported by SDA.
 
The most important award criterion is increasing the attractiveness of the new DAB technology. Licenses can be awarded to private broadcasters that cover German-speaking Switzerland and are not already broadcast terrestrially via FM. The licenses are based on the new Radio and Television Act (RTVA).

Last week, Microsoft successfully staged Designertopia with the help of Wunderman Zurich. At the first European Microsoft event for creative managers in interactive and advertising agencies, as well as the subsequent reactions in the blog show: Microsoft is also becoming increasingly attractive for designers.  
How will design continue to develop? What new areas of design can be achieved in the future with modern technologies? These were the questions that Microsoft and creative minds from all over the world discussed at the Designertopia conference on February 1 and 2, 2007. One thing is certain: technology providers and designers have similar interests for the future. This is no coincidence: the fields of work of graphic designers and programmers already overlap today and will do so even more in the future. The fact that digital means of communication are increasingly merging with the dynamic Internet world is not only pleasing to designers and programmers, but also to the end user. Thanks to the visual, interactive stimuli, users are offered new perceptual experiences. In this sense, the major event in London organized by Wunderman and Futurecom proved to be an important source of inspiration for future communication possibilities.

The Goldbach Media Group's Crossmedia Award is being held for the third time this year. The new jury president and successor to Dominique von Matt is Geri Aebi. The gold winner will receive 10,000 euros in prize money, while other winners will be awarded silver and bronze.  
The Crossmedia Award promotes networked thinking and action in communication and the innovative use of media. "The success of the Crossmedia Awards and the adoption of crossmedia in the strategy and concept work of advertising and media agencies have confirmed our decision to have the best work evaluated and awarded by a jury," says Klaus Kappeler, CEO of Goldbach Media.
 
The award is endowed with 10,000 euros and will be presented at the Mediarena on May 10, 2007. The jury, headed by Geri Aebi (Wirz Werbung), will evaluate the strategy of cross-media use, the innovation of networking, the promotion of other content and media, the creative implementation, the media and target group-appropriate staging and brand language as well as the effectiveness and overall impression.
 
The closing date for entries is April 3, 2007. Please register and upload your work at Crossmediaaward.ch. Judging will begin on April 6 in an individual process followed by a joint award evaluation.