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Online Journalism News

Get multimedia news via Messenger

Posted: 06/09/06 By: Oliver Luft
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Leading Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant has launched what it claims is the world's first video news cruncher - nieuwskraker - a piece of software that delivers news via MSN Messenger.

Launched earlier this year, the cruncher sits in MSN Messenger as a buddy contact. When a user comes online it supplies the latest news via a conversation box.

When a user clicks to enter a conversation with the news cruncher, the message box acts as a news keyword field that filters de Volkskrant news items, presenting them as a series of links.

de Volkskrant has now soft launched a video section to augment the existing text-based cruncher, which it will launch to the public in the near future.

Adverts in the news items act as a way for the publisher to create revenue from the service as news videos play through the messenger.

Speaking at an Ifra press conference in Amsterdam, Pieter Kok, publisher of de Volkskrant, said:

"The multimedia approach is quite simple, if customers change their approach to news then we change with them."

The cruncher, which already has 50,000 Dutch users, is designed to supply news to the Netherlands' five million Messenger users and be a way for de Volkskrant to connect with a younger audience.

Mr Kok later told Journalism.co.uk:

"If you ask a person of 15 years of age or a person of 50 years of age about the news, at the end of the day they know the same amount.

"It is just that the 50-year-old gets it from newspapers and the 15-year-old grabs information from several places, from Messenger, mobile phones, the internet and TV.

"It is not really important how they got it, just that they got it from a trustable source.

"The news cruncher is just part of us wanting to have an anytime, anyplace, anywhere approach so people can easily get their news from that trusted source."

The software was developed by Dutch firm Oberon - one of de Volkskrant’s technological partners - and was taken up as MSN's first bot. An English language version – Livebot News supplies links to CNN stories.

de Volkskrant, which holds the European rights for the bot, has begun licensing the technology to other news publishers.

"We really want to be front runner worldwide with these new technologies," added Kok.

"This new software means we will be faster and better on the internet, where we want to be the primary source of news."