The Danish media landscape is being reshaped as these lines are written. Most spectacular this is seen in the ongoing “free newspaper war”, which will reach a climax this friday when the intruding Nyhedsavisen hits the streets.
However when battle is over, and one or perhaps two of the free newspapers stands back as winners, the free newspaper-war might lateron be considered a minor and insignificant event compared to the changes occuring on the internet scene at the same time. Allthough these seems to be set off or at least accelerated by “the free newspaper war” itself.
Entering the internet scene: something new!
Som three weeks ago the nothern jutland newspaper Nordjyske launched a hitherto onseen integrated free newspaper/internet media platform, Centrum.Ekstra Bladet has launched an extremely interesting Danish user generated content-site.Politiken has redesigned its entire mediaplatform shifting the newspaper newsdesk to the Internet and promising to go wholehartedly into the user-driven arena as well.And then friday Nyhedsavisen is expected to arrive to the online scene with what is expected to be a wholeharted Danish OhMyNews-like newsservice engaging citizen journalist to deliver content alongside the employed professional editorial staff.
But this is not all: Among others also Jubii (Lycos Denmark – story), Urban (story) and Fyens Stiftstidende (story) (and MSN!) have engaged in highly interesting initiatives.
The reasons why
Yesterday I spoke on these issues at the CFJE in Aarhus highligting the three main drivers of this media explotion:
1. Technological landscape. 89 percent of danes are online, 80 percent of these on broadband connections (says Statistics Denmark). Accordingly traffic numbers on the Danish websites have seen an unparalled and continues growth since, close to five-doubling since 2001. The internet is today as accepted and used a medium as any!
2. The money issue. In 2005 more than 1 billion Danish kroners was spend advertising on the internet. In 2006 this number might reach more than 1,5 billion DDK. Growthrates are incredible, and the internet is soon to reach 10 percent of total advertising spend in Denmark.
3. Web 2.0. “The social internet” is here for a fact, and it has unleashed an enormous potential in relating to users not as an audience but as particapants in content creation. More than 50 millions blogs is presently measured by technorati, photo- and videosharing sites as Flickr (and in Denmark 23hq), YouTube and Google Video are blooming, Social bookmarking (del.icio.us) and blogrecommending (DIGG and Netscape News) are spreading with the wind. On top (or: on side) of this the entire highly userdriven online gaming industry (e.g. World of Warcraft) seems to be proliferating into a non-gaming social universe (Secondlife) offering complete new user experiences.
The scene is, in other words, set for an entire new media era. Which is bound to take place on the internet.