BPN 1089 Volkskrant wants to partner Het Gesprek

Talk television station Het Gesprek (The Conversation) is in exclusive talks with the PCM morning newspaper De Volkskrant. De Volkskrant wants to partner Het Gesprek, but Het Gesprek wants only to welcome De Volkskrant, when it brings along a lot of money. The talks should deliver by summer 2008.

Het Gesprek started in October 2007 as a talk television station, of which the broadcasts are distributed by internet and cable. The station has made a toilsome start in attracting an audience. In the viewing figures of the Dutch television stations, Het Gesprek did not show at all. The talk station can presently be received in almost the whole of The Netherlands in analogue and digital modes. A public broadcast station, KRO, started some co-operation, but the station needs more to be regularly viewed. This is where De Volkskrant comes in; the newspaper should push Het Gesprek with its progressive and intellectual audience, consisting of a large group of singles. Het Gesprek will be able to strengthen its position in the field of content of the programs and marketing.

In the stern wave of De Volkskrant follows the television producer Harry de Winter, who has been an advisor to De Volkskrant in setting up its own television channel, codenamed Oase. De Winter wants also to partake with his company WinterMedia.

The exploitation of Het Gesprek costs 4,5 million euro, according to one of the founding fathers, Ruud Hendriks. De Volkskrant will have to pay 3 million euro for a minority share. And this is a hefty amount within the conglomerate of PCM. Recently De Volkskrant adopted the daily free newspaper DAG and pays 7 million euro for that adventure. Now De Volkskrant wants to pay 3 million euro for a minority on top of that.

Within the holding PCM there is doubt about these financial investments, but De Volkskrant considers the investment in Het Gesprek as an impulse to its multimedia strategy. De Volkskrant has already invested a lot of money in its website and in a video staff, and it produces television programs together with the public broadcast stations VPRO and MAX. Besides the financial problems of De Volkskrant, PCM has to deal with other multimedia projects. Last week PCM stopped the citizens’ journalism site Skoeps and it has a dubious citizens’ journalism experiment going in EN.nl.

Blog Posting Number: 1089

Tags: talk television, citizens' journalism

BPN 1087 Skoeps to be discontinued

Returning from my break in Belgium, there awaited me a rude awakening. The Dutch user generated content site Skoeps, the Dutch version of Ohmynews, will terminate its existence by Monday May 5, 2008. The joint venture with the newspaper conglomerate PCM and Talpa Media/Cyrte investment will end their co-operation. The conclusion is that Skoeps can not exist commercially.

I had my last contact with Skoeps, when I told the management that they were not a prize winner in the World Summit Award 2007 competition; but they were one of the eight Dutch nominees. I had also suggestions about their internationalisation. At the celebration of its first anniversary, the management told that it was cash flow positive. But soon there was an omen of things to come when the team that brought Skoeps into the world, soon after the anniversary was changed completely. And I noticed that something was wrong, as e-mail messages were not answered and appointments postponed one after the other.

Skoeps had the ambition to make of every Dutch man a reporter. The site published photographs and movies of amateurs, who witnessed a newsworthy event. The management succeeded in this ambition as the site contains now 7500 registered Skoeps reporters, who send in 100 to 1500 news items a month. The site did not exploit the reporters, as it shared revenues from sold photographs and movies on a fifty/fifty basis.

The basic problem of Skoeps has been to attract a regular base of users to the site. And Skoeps had a lot of competition. The PCM free daily DAG has a full page of user generated content photographs, while NU.nl has a site Nu.jij; there is also the site Dumpert.nl. Internationally of course Flickr and YouTube dominate this scene.

Skoeps had also an international ambition. It sold the concept abroad. There was an English version in the Netherlands, filled with Dutch items as well as a German version. Negotiations with UK and German companies were on the way. Foreign services did not necessarily bear the name and logo of Skoeps. The concept and technology were both available as white label as well. For example Zoom.in produces the Flemish and French Belgian sites. Skoeps provided the infrastructure for Africa Interactive Foundation, which runs the news service Voices of Africa in Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania. This initiative will continue, according to a spokes person. One of their international ambitions will not be realised: the attendance at the Olympic Games, sponsored by a consumer electronics company (not Philips).

The investing companies, PCM and Talpa Media/Cyrte, have indicated that they service is no longer strategic to them. Talpa Media stepped out as it no longer is involved in digital productions and PCM is experimenting with another citizens’ journalism project EN.nl, which is still a project without any real direction (and in my opinion heading nowhere). The Skoeps staff point Skoeps reporters to the free daily DAG, which is busy to produce an alternative site for the active reporter

Media companies have looked at the site as a take-over target. However they shied away once they saw the costs involved for beefing up the site. Yet the initiator of Skoeps, Michael Nederlof, said in a comment that the disappearance of Skoeps, is a pity and unnecessary. According to Nederlof a broader roll-out has lacked, internationally and in categories.

Blog Post Number: 1087

Tags: user generated content, citizens'journalism

Skoeps' first anniversary coming up

Last week, I visited the offices of Skoeps. The company is based in a posh canal house in Amsterdam. The founding group, of which most members came from the Dutch publishing conglomerate PCM, started there in the basement. In the meantime the company is growing so fast that it also occupies offices at the ground floor and populates the ground and basement level with all young people. The offices are sober and in the corridor a big golden statue of Nijntje/Miffy, a gift from the landlord and a reminder to the founders not to loose their innocence.

Skoeps, a joint venture by the newspaper conglomerate PCM and Cyrte, the investment vehicle of John the Mol, is a user generated and moderated content site where people can upload videos and pictures of news events and sell them. It is citizens' journalism, but excludes photographs from VIP spotters, paparazzi and ambulance chasers. The company has been launched a year ago and has already made impact in The Netherlands. John de Mol is already using the material for a television station on internet and for regional television stations.

After half a year the company behind the site is already cash flow positive. It is also selling the concept abroad. There is an English version in the Netherlands, filled with Dutch items as well as a German version. Negotiations with UK and German companies are on the way. Foreign services will not necessarily bear the name and logo of Skoeps. The concept and technology are available as white label as well. For example Zoom.in produces the Flemish and French Belgian sites. In the meantime Skoeps has already services and offices in South Africa and a few other African countries.

The business model behind the company is interesting. The company gets revues from licensing the concept under the name of Skoeps or as white label. It picks up money by licensing the service and software for events like the Cape to Cape rally, a car rally from the top of Finland to the cape of Gibraltar. But it is also negotiating for the Olympic Games next year in Beijing. Of course there are revenues from classic bannering as well as the sale of a photograph or a movie to news media or Youtube –like services. Another revenue source is sponsoring.

But after almost one year, Skoeps is not resting on its laurels. It is actively looking for partners in other countries. Presently Skoeps is talking to an international network which might deliver contacts in some 50 countries. But it is also working on additions to the service; video logging is one of the opportunities. Recently Skoeps started a cooperation with Startlog Nederland, providing authors of weblogs with news scopes. Startlog Nederland will distribute the scopes through its press release service.

The company celebrates its first anniversary on October 5th, 2007 with a nice first year result of operating a service, foreign services and a positive cash flow. What could an investor wish more for: a product, international expansion and a positive cash flow?

Blog Posting Number: 871

Tags: user generated content, citizens' journalism

2007 WSA Grand Jury Croatia (3)

I came into Brijuni after the welcome dinner. But I met an enthusiastic crowd. Jurors of the Dubai edition and also jurors of the Bahrain edition. It was great to see them back. I started to meet also the new jurors in as far as they did not disappear to their hotel room, catching up from jetlag and days of travelling. The Salzburg team was there as well as the tutor group, a bunch of nice young Croatian students, who will be assisting the jurors. When I woke up this morning, this was the view from the room.

By 10 o'clock the jury were in full swing. An introduction is geven to the World Summit Award and the Eminent Expert jurors are introducing themselves.. Some statistics: 32 jurors, more than 600 entries in eight categories; the 600 entries have been entered by 159 countries.

The jurors’ works consists of three rounds of evaluation. In the first round every category will have four jurors in one team. The assignment of this round is to decrease the number of entries for closer inspection. In the second round, the teams will move to another category. In this phase the jurors can spend more time to familiarise themselves with the selected entries. The goal of the second round is whitled down to maximally ten entries per category. As five entries are needed for the last selection phase, the entries per category are presented to the entire jury and voted in or out. The last five entries that survive are the winners; there is not a single winner with runner-ups. Just for logistics, every juror sees more than 190 entries in eight days.

Every participating country could enter one entry per category. Theoretically 159 countries time eight entries in eight categories could have entered a total of 1272 products and services; but not all countries entered an entry in every category. For example for the Netherlands the national expert Bas Verhart has made a selection of eight entries. To give you an idea of the type of entries, I will use the list as it was published in the press release of the past week in the Dutch media:
1. e-Government: http://www.blob.nl/, a web game by students for the municipality of Utrecht;
2. e-Health: http://www.womenonweb.org/; Women on Waves in co-operation with Mediamatic;
3. e-Learning: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/webspel/rembrandt?lang=nl; http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/webspel/nachtwacht?lang=nl webgame by the Rijksmuseum in co-operation of IJsfontein;
4. e-Entertainment: Triangler; a serious mobile game by TNO
5. e-Culture: http://www.fabchannel.com/; a Music site;
6. e-Science: http://www.wadlandis.com/, a webgame by the Wadden association in co-operation with XMediaworks;
7. e-Business: http://www.skoeps.com/, a user generated news site;
8. e-Inclusion: www. ikzieikziewatjijnietziet.nl, a digital campaign against child abuse by Sire in co-operation with Achtung!

You probably wonder why a juror will spend a week of his/her life to look at entries from all over the world. For a juror it is a unique experience to see the trends in digital media in so many products. Besides the WSA uniquely demonstrates the local diversity and creative use of ICT around the world, serving as a global platform to make today's information society more inclusive. Of course also the experience of meeting 35 experts in multimedia and social activities is a chance of a lifetime. Seven of the jurors have been privileged three times and six jurors twice to be part of the Grand Jury of Eminent Experts. BTW I am not involved as a juror, but as a co-moderator.

BTW There is an official WSA blog on http://worldsummitaward.blogspot.com/
and there will be daily photographs.

Blog Posting Number: 855

Tags: World Summit Award, World Summit on the Information Society

UGC Skoeps already cash flow positive

At Blognomics 07 I again heard the story of Skoeps, a joint-venture of PCM and Talpa. Skoeps is a user generated and moderated content site where people can upload videos and pictures of news events and sell them. Excluded are photographs from VIP spotters, paparazzi and ambulance chasers. The site has now 1.2 million page views, 200.000 unique visitors and 4.000 reporters.

After half a year the company behind the site is cashflow positive. It makes money out of advertisements, sales of user generated content (UGC) video and photographs to media companies, delivering a video player, SMS and MMS shared revenue and a web shop. A reporter gets 50 percent of a video or a photograph, which is sold on to a media company. The videos do sell, but the sale of the photographs lag behind; part of the problem is the problem is the perceived amateur treatment of the photographs by professional photo-editors.

Part of the success is the technology, the upload software and the video player. Version 2.0 of Skoeps has been introduced in 2007 earlier than expected. Now the company can move internationally. There is now an English version in the Netherlands, filled with Dutch items as well as a German version. These versions are trials for foreign launches. Foreign services will not necessarily bear the name and logo of Skoeps. The concept and technology are available as white labels as well. For example Zoom.in produces the Flemish and French Belgian sites.

But it was a surprise to hear that Skoeps will be introduced in Africa to countries as Mozambique, Kenia, Nigeria, Ghana and South-Africa. These are not the countries you think first of for expansion. Normally entrepreneurs want to expand in Europe to countries as the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and last of all to France and using the UK as a stepping stone to the USA. But this service goes to Africa. A foundation has been instituted to steer the activities, which are in a certain way also non-commercial and idealistic. Skoeps wants to go to African countries as this will provide an opportunity to get out of that continent other pictures than the obligated and politically correct photographs. The company Africa Interactive has been set up to collect and distribute the news through internet and mobile. Eventually this company will in due time produce internet television, discussion forums, magazine, web logs, photographs and written news.

To my surprise I read in an Emerce article that Africa Interactive had been set up by an old colleague of mine, Pim de Wit. We worked together in 1979 in the Intermediair Library Project. He was the marketing man and I did the editing. We repackaged free articles of the Intermediair magazine into paid books, which was possible to good marketing (come to think of it: there should be room to repackage free internet info in paid books). We also published a series with titles as time-management and people-management. We called it business porno as we mailed those books in discretely brown paper envelopes. They titles were usually bought, but sometimes a manuscript was offered. I can still remember a book about careers of which the first sentence read like: Your job will come to an end. Hard-nosed Pim went on and made his career in VNU magazines, which were sold to the Finnish company Sanoma in 2001. In 2005 he was moved out of his job as CEO of the Dutch Sanoma magazine division. And this is where his link with Africa starts. After Sanoma he took a social job as the managing director of the Dutch Zoo Association and, amongst others, some elephants and tigers do come from Africa.

Blog Posting Number: 751

Tags: user generated content, user generated video, user generated photograph