WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

With the same black cover.

And similar news content, advertising and design mix.

Oh, boy… more reading and reading.

These are pictures from different newsstands selling the first issue of MONOCLE, Tyler Brule’s new monthly magazine, in different countries.

Dan Hill is right:

First, black sells very well.

You can see how the black cover performs very well against other magazines.

Second, the placement of MONOCLE is not clear.

Each newsstand puts the magazine in different racks.

See these ones:

Next to women’s magazines

Next to The Economist.

Next to children’s books.

Behind Newsweek.

With VOGUE.

Next to Wallpaper.

Nex to The Spectator

Next to GEO.

And next to National Geographic!

The European Union is a very important reality.

But the 50th anniversary got a very low profile in many newspapers.

With a few exceptions.

Is this another case of “journalistic myopia”?

Now that almost all newspapers are ready for the multimedia challenge, it is time to present the new gear that makes multimedia storytelling as simple as taking notes on a paper pad.

This is not going to be a “best of the best” list.

Just new products that could make our job easier and faster.

Like this pocket-sized, innovative Casio EXILIM HI-ZOOM EX-V7.

The world’s slimmest digital camera with a 7X optical zoom lens.

More than just a still camera, it also records widescreen, next-generation, high-quality H.264 movies — at remarkably small file sizes — with movie stabilizer technology that minimizes the effects of hand movement while filming.

You can record up to three hours of video using a 2GB memory card.

Cost: 279 GBP ($545 USD)

This week, the leading Brazilian newsmagazine (1,200,000 copies) published by Editora ABRIL is celebrating its 2000th issue with a special supplement.

See recent covers of VEJA, the magazine founded by Roberto Civita, here.

Parabens!

How you can produce a front page just with people’s faces?

Well, this is an example…

Of what not to do.

Technology and You is a weekly column from BusinessWeek’s Stephen Wildstrom.

His last one about the new Appple TV was not very good.

Read the comments from many different readers and you will see that he made a lot of factual mistakes.

They are asking him to correct them, but the original piece still stands with the mistakes.

Well, opinions are free, but facts are sacred.

He is in real trouble.

We will not be moved: one family against the developers

The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts reports from Beijing:

Property-owning China has a new hero. Yang Wu, now better known as The Nail, has become the talk of the country for his refusal to abandon his home to property developers.

Despite an eviction order, offers of compensation and the chasm that has opened up around his home, the 51-year-old restaurateur is holding his ground in an increasingly high-profile challenge to the authorities.

The developers, who want to build a six-storey shopping mall, have reportedly offered compensation of 3.5m yuan (£233,000), a staggering sum in a country where the average income is about £1,000 a year. But Mr Yang and his family insist they are not concerned about money.

On Wednesday, Mr Yang placed a banner across the roof of his house declaring: “Citizens’ legal property cannot be invaded.”

The water and electricity have been cut off, but supporters give him food and drink, which he pulls up by rope.

Picture: AP

The Guardian has today this big infographic about he 15 British sailors and marines seized by the Iranian navy.

The paper says that it appears that they were well inside Iraqi waters.

So… why do they publish this inconclusive map?

The Guardian editor said at the Changing Media Summit that it is “impossible to predict on what technology platform journalism will be delivered in five years’ time or even a year.”

He predicted that more and more of that content will be provided by the readers themselves – as opposed to journalists.

“We are grappling with this balance of what goes on to the website and what goes in the paper. A great part of that web content will be generated by users in time.

The role of journalists in this multi-media age has not changed and that user-generated content will only be a compliment to their work.

There is still a role for people to find things out.

But to have people sat in a newsroom in Wapping or Farringdon Road thinking they know everything is barmy.

The smart journalists are working out ways of using that [user-generated content].”

Picture: Dan Taylor