EMNOV BER/DECEM BER 2013 our viewpoint / ImPrint Editorial Good to be back at Expo By Dean Roper, Editor-in-Chief A lot of hard work goes into such a massive event, but I always look foward to the challenge of covering it, and especially meeting with so many different friends, colleagues and players in the industry − some who have been around a long time, others just entering the business. It’s the ultimate in-your-face opportunity to gauge the pulse of the industry. At any publishing event, sometimes you tend to get a false sense of the realities “on the ground” as publishers, editors, other managers and suppliers present their top innovations and successes. But I never really get that feeling at Expo, and especially not this year in Berlin. What I sensed was energy, experimentation, innovation, even excitement, mixed with a healthy dose of introspection. That was evident even before the show began, starting with the Media Hack Day, a 36-hour hackathon hosted by Axel Springer and Storyful (see story at right), and reinforced by an intriguing opening panel discussion with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner and Guardian CEO Andrew Miller, moderated by media analyst Ken Doctor. Both Döpfner and Miller addressed most of today’s hottest issues: the use of analytics, the printdigital transformation, paywalls, changing advertiser expectations, the print ad decline, mobile, new investors in newspapers such as Jeff Bezos, and more. See an edited excerpt of that discussion starting on page 12, and the entire Q&A on video here: wan-ifra. org/opening_discussion. La Presse+, the tablet edition of the flagship La Press in Montreal, goes beyond experimentation. Publisher Guy Crevier has put all his chips on the table(t), betting that advertisers will pay handsomely to show their brands on this dazzling platform. We finally caught up with Crevier after the App & Tablet Summit, where he once again proudly presented La Presse+ to a curious audience. See story on page 10. And who would have guessed that a major news site would stop creating Facebook pages in this day and age? That’s exactly what Globo.com in Brazil has done, as Product Development Manager Mariana Correa Esteves told the World Editors Forum’s Newsroom Summit during Expo. See story on page 8. The four Media Port stages featured case study after case study touting innovative products, strategies, and solutions for print, workflow, new revenue streams, and mobile − mostly to packed audiences. Throw in SFN Forums on digital printing, audience analytics, and new revenue streams, also packed, and the level of curiosity and knowledge sharing was indeed impressive. But of course it’s by visiting the exhibition itself, talking with the suppliers who presented their latest products and solutions, and chatting with visitors that you can really get a sense of trends, technology development and the general mood of the business. (See all the major announcements from the show starting on page 15.) Common comments I heard from both suppliers and visitors: “We’re hanging in there. We don’t have time to be worried. Too much to do. There is a lot of opportunity and potential out there. Can we please stop talking about print vs. digital − let’s talk about producing innovative products.” Yes, the event was dizzying with all that was going on and 1,500 more visitors roaming the halls than last year, but that only added to the authentic positive buzz that this industry desperately needs today and in the future. No question about it: I am glad I made it to Berlin. Bring on Amsterdam! 3 Last year’s World Publishing Expo in Frankfurt, practically in my backyard, was the first one I had missed since joining WAN-IFRA in 1996. I was bummed about that. WAN-IFRA Chief Executive Officer: Vincent Peyrègne Director of Publications / Editor-in-Chief: Dean Roper Editorial team: Anton Jolkovski (Managing Editor), Charlotte Janischewski, Brian Veseling, Michael Spinner-Just Translation services: Paul Callaghan, Regina Hansen (freelance), Michael Lindhof (freelance) Design and production: Gordon Steiger, Art Director Contact: E-mail: editor@wan-ifra.org · Tel.: +49.6151.733-6 Subscriptions www.wan-ifra.org/subscribe Customer Service: Iris von der Marwitz E-mail: subscriptions@wan-ifra.org; Tel.: +49.6151.733791 Advertising: Katarina Holmokova, Advertising Manager, Tel.: +49.6151.733-783; E-mail: katarina.holmokova@wan-ifra.org Advertising rates and terms and conditions published in Media Information 2013 are applicable. Please check for details on www.wan-ifra.org/mediainfo_magazine. www.worldnewspublishingfocus.org Hack to the Future During the World Publishing Expo, media professionals from all over the world gathered in Berlin, looking for inspiration, innovations and insights into the future of the publishing business. In case you missed it, a glimpse into that future actually took place on the eve of Expo when Axel Springer hosted the Media Hack Day, a hackathon that brought together creative programmers, designers, tech-savvy journalists and concept designers from all over the world. Their mission: re-invent and re-engineer news archives to bring their contents to life for the content-hungry digital age. News publishers have been struggling to do that for more than a decade, so what’s new, you may ask. Well, the hackers only had 36 hours to come up with a working prototype of a solution. Great ideas that news executives spend years talking about, these hacker kids can execute over a weekend. Together with Anette Novak, CEO, Interactive Institute Swedish ICT, and Marc Mesgarzadeh, CTO, Computer Bild Digital GmbH, Germany, I was in the jury responsible for picking the best hack. Some of the things we saw were just amazing. The winner was Photostories, a mobile app that brings in stories from around the world, organised by photos and locations. If a picture captures your attention, you can go to related articles and, when available, read an entire article straight from the application, which had content feeds from the Guardian (main content), AFP and Axel Springer (additional related content), and Storyful (geolocation content). The winning team of Robert Mielnik, Lukasz Milewski and Mike Skrabacz, from Poland, had a good idea and great hacking skills, and most importantly, they put together a working prototype that the jury members wanted to get their hands on. Their prize: a trip to Silicon Valley, where with any luck they will get the chance to bring Photostories to the market. Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words. Runners-up were: Can I Quote You on That, an app that extract quotes from news stories and maps them to who said them, when they were said, and the context in which they were said. UZINE, an app that allows users to extract content from the AFP archives using simple search terms and make a flip-board style magazine presentation of the results. Very cool. A complete list of the projects is available at hackerleague.org. By Tor Lillegraven, Business Development Director at CCI Europe Copyright and imprint World News Publishing Focus is published bimonthly in English, German and Russian. Copyright 2013 WAN-IFRA CH, Washingtonplatz 1, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany All rights reserved. Republication, duplication or distribution of any article, image, graphic or media contained in the print or ePaper edition or of any material posted on www.wan-ifra.org is prohibited without permission. No responsibility assumed for unsolicited manuscripts. Viewpoints and signed contributions do not necessarily express the opinion of WAN-IFRA. Printed in Germany by Frotscher Druck GmbH, Darmstadt.
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