Monday, August 09, 2004

QuarkXPress 7.0 will be "InDesign-like"

According to AppleInsider's sources, QuarkXPress version 7 -- currently touted for release in early 2005 -- will feature "a 'very InDesign-like interface' and a completely rewritten PDF engine".
(From AppleInsider)

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

We're a niche publisher

Columnist weblogs announced. Computer games goes live Monday.
(From NMA To Go)

Safe from Harm

An "I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me..." moment, with, following the Guardian's recent OhMyNews extravaganza, an article in OhMyNews about the Guardian (albeit from an Enlgish writer). Sometimes cutting. A quote: "So far as I know [Peter Preston's recent epiphanic web article in the Obs] is the first statement on paper in the Guardian or Observer that informs a reader about the digital editions."
(From OhmyNews International)

Twelve sources account for majority of stories on Google News

Despite evidence to the contrrary (albeit now a year old) from my Googlescraper, research by Digital Deliverance shows no Guardian Unlimited in the top ten sources on Google News. Darn! Their table shows (with statistical rounding):
Reuters    175 stories    18% of all
New York Times    80 stories    8% of all
Voice of America    67 stories    7% of all
Xinhua    67 stories    7% of all
Bloomberg    61 stories    6% of all
Washington Post    61 stories    6% of all
ABC News    49 stories    5% of all
Boston Globe    26 stories    2% of all
CNN    22 stories    2% of all
San Francisco Chronicle    17 stories    1% of all
CNN International    17 stories    1% of all
Christian Science Monitor    15 stories    1% of all
Toronto Star    13 stories    1% of all
Seattle Post Intelligencer    13 stories    1% of all
United Press International    12 stories    1% of all
USA Today    10 stories    1% of all
Houston Chronicle    10 stories    1% of all
FOX News    10 stories    1% of all
Newsday    10 stories    1% of all
The Globe and Mail    9 stories    0% of all.
Read Vin's article and associated comments for more on this.
(From Digital Deliverance)

Thursday, July 29, 2004

25% service during DoubleClick attack

The hack attack launched on Tuesday against ad provider DoubleClick -- and the knock-on effect for its 900 customers -- left many of the world's most popular websites delivering content "less than 25 per cent of the time", according to monitoring company Keynote Systems. Targeting DoubleClick proved a clever way of subverting the touted strength-through-decentralisation of the internet.
Washington Post

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Have you tried Newsbot?

They really need to sort out their stylesheets. What's with the paddingless picture wrap? Amusingly, the site works much better in Safari and Moz than in Internet Explorer on a Mac.

Format change calls for rate card based on impact, not ccms [reg req]

Summary of panel discussions at Nexpo from Editor & Publisher. Stig Nordqvist of the Swedish Newspaper Publishers' Association described circulation boosts at two recent tabloid switchers, and noted that an expected short-term drop in advertising revenue didn't happen. "A good tab, he concluded, sells ad impact, not millimeters." Elsewhere Allan Marshall argued that Metro, rather than cannibalising Mail readers, actually gets people into the newspaper reading habit, whereupon they progress "to a more serious read", namely the Mail on Sunday. Discussions also covered e-paper, digital editions, RFIDs and mobile communications (especially Blackberries).
(From Editor & Publisher)

Friday, July 23, 2004

New hardware kills old software at Chicago Tribune

There but ...
(From Editor & Publisher)

Popular news sites don't update that often

In a survey published in OJR of 30 newspaper websites in the US, only 12 were found to make regular updates (ranging from 60 to 200 per day) to their home pages. Five made virtually no changes and the remaining 13 only added breaking stories. Illustrates how many newspaper websites are still basically regurgitators of their print content and follow the same cycles. Article summarised in E-Media Tidbits, plus a little bit of controversy over what constitutes the home page of a newspaper website.
(From E-Media Tidbits)

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Digital Edition circulation figures, USA

Some stats from Digital Magazine for digital editions in September 2003:
New York Times 3,172
Washington Post 424
USA Today 900
(From AOP UK)

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Newsstand gets more funds

$7.2 million, to be exact. The NYT continues to contribute. Newsstand's roster now totals 175 publications.
(From Paid Content)

Saturday, June 12, 2004

No more "Classic" hardware from Apple

Apparently Apple have discontinued production of the PowerMac G4, the (I believe) only remaining machine that runs pre-OS X operating systems and therefore the only machine left that worked with QPS without having to use "Classic" emulation. In Slashdot the sixth post on the news argues that Apple have just "end-of-lifed a majority of newspapers' CMSs".
(From Slashdot)

Monday, June 07, 2004

Paper links to video-by-phone

Korean newspaper the Daily Focus has teamed up with mobile content provider Ico to link sports articles in the paper with rich-media sports news on people's mobile phones. Sports articles will contain a code which allows users to access video content on their phones "by simply holding the cellphone against the printed code" -- presumably using the phone's camera in the manner of the various barcode systems (c.f. this item).
(From E-Media Tidbits)

Thursday, June 03, 2004

Brits versus Yanks

CJR has freed access to its timely re-hash of the old "objective vs subjective"/"American vs European" media debate, hot on the heels of the New York Times's admission that it was fooled over WMDs in Iraq.
(From Columbia Journalism Review)

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

UK and Ireland lead newspaper slump

Ho hum ... the UK newspaper market (traditionally regarded as "one of the most competitive") is slumping faster than the rest of Europe.
(From MediaGuardian.co.uk)