News1.ch: News portal fails to make the breakthrough
With News1.ch, seven media companies in German-speaking Switzerland sought to compete with automated news portals such as Google News. But now, after one year, the project has been scaled back to a minimum, and the two online editors have been laid off.
News1.ch's headlines and thematic focuses will be generated automatically until further notice, as Norbert Neininger, who is responsible for the project, confirmed in a report by Persoenlich.com. The main reason for this is that the NZZ subsidiaries Neue Luzerner Zeitung, St. Galler Tagblatt, Zürichsee Zeitung, Zürcher Oberländer and Zürcher Unterländer have pulled out. The NZZ Group intends to push ahead with its own platform from fall 2010, as confirmed by spokeswoman Barbara Schibli. The editorial team of NZZ Online will be responsible for the content, while the regional publishers will contribute their regional news. In addition to the NZZ Group, the Mittelland Zeitung, Schaffhauser Nachrichten and Südostschweiz are participating in News1.ch. They now have to decide whether they want to join the NZZ Group with their online portals.
Keeping up with the existing news portals is difficult. News1.ch did not manage to gain sufficient publicity within a reasonable period of time, as the latest figures from the internet research institute Net-Metrix from February show. While news portals such as Blick Online, 20minuten.ch and Newsnetz (with Tagesanzeiger.ch, Bernerzeitung.ch, Baslerzeitung.ch and Derbund.ch) received 16 to 18.7 million visits per month, News1.ch recorded just 35,700. NZZ Online recorded 8.6 million visits. Bluewin.ch has by far the most readers with 45.4 million visits.
Keeping up with the existing news portals is difficult. News1.ch did not manage to gain sufficient publicity within a reasonable period of time, as the latest figures from the internet research institute Net-Metrix from February show. While news portals such as Blick Online, 20minuten.ch and Newsnetz (with Tagesanzeiger.ch, Bernerzeitung.ch, Baslerzeitung.ch and Derbund.ch) received 16 to 18.7 million visits per month, News1.ch recorded just 35,700. NZZ Online recorded 8.6 million visits. Bluewin.ch has by far the most readers with 45.4 million visits.
