With Europe’s largest mobile expo just a few short days away, the Digital team at NewspaperDirect is pumped and ready to attend Mobile World Congress 2012 held this year in Barcelona, Spain from February 27^th to March 1^st.

The event is especially exciting this go around as we’ll have the opportunity to showcase both current and future developments of PressReader and PressDisplay across our range of platforms at the pavilions, booths and theatres of several of our key technology partners including Motorola, LG, Samsung and RIM!

Just as in previous years, MWC 2012 will look to embrace and celebrate the current state of mobile while taking captivating looks into the future – a fact not lost on eager event attendees.  Last year, MWC attracted over 60,000 individuals from 200 countries to peruse, ogle and admire the latest and greatest technological offerings from over 1,400 companies – talk about a big crowd!  Among them were 2,900 members of the press representing over 1,500 media groups.

This year, we’re delighted to be right in the thick of things. If having access to over 2,000 newspapers from 95 countries on your favorite tablet or smartphone is your thing, you won’t want to miss us! We’d love to meet, chat and provide you with the opportunity to walk away with some really cool swag! Here’s where and when you’ll be able to find us:

Where: Motorola Pavilion – Partner’s Booth

When: Monday February 27^th 15:30 – 19:00 & Tuesday February 28^th 8:30 – 12:15

Each day, Motorola will be running various contests and events. Part of the daily prize packs will include annual access to PressReader & PressDisplay.com!  Get ready to shoot some hoops for your chance to win!

Where: BlackBerry Showcase Theatre (7B42 Hall 7)

When: Tuesday February 28^th at 16:25

Igor Smirnoff, NewspaperDirect’s VP, Digital will take centre stage for a short overview entitled Beyond the Printed Newspaper covering NewspaperDirect and its own mobile offerings, PressReader and PressDisplay. The digital team will be hanging out with the folks from RIM until closing on the 28^th to address any questions you may have. Don’t miss out on your chance for free PressReader for PlayBook access before and after Igor’s overview!

Where: LG and Samsung Pavilions

When: Duration of event

LG and Samsung will be running continuous demos of PressReader on their tablet and smartphone devices in the demo areas at each of their respective pavilions.  If PressReader catches your eye, make sure to ask either an LG or Samsung representative about us – they’ll be happy to point to a member of the NewspaperDirect team floating close by.

We can’t wait to catch up with our partners at the event and we definitely can’t wait to have a chat with event attendees!  Make sure to follow us on Twitter for the duration of MWC using hashtags #MWC12, #PressReader and #PressDisplay.

See you there!

Last week, the New York Times joined the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times in confirming something we’ve been preaching for a long time – people are still willing to pay a premium for high-quality news content! We were so excited to read this article from the Columbia Journalism Review, we just had to share it with our readers.

One quarter after establishing their metered paywall, the NYT saw its revenues go up for the first time in twelve quarters! They’ve discovered that up to 15% of their online audience are actually heavy users that are willing to pay for content.Additionally, their new digital deal has encouraged those wavering on renewing their subscriptions to move forward, seeing the value for their money.

If that’s not encouraging enough, the paywall also helped the newspaper’s ad revenues. Contrary to the public opinion that a paywall would slash digital ad revenues, digital advertising actually increased by 16%! Advertisers see the potential with this paywall, as these paid digital subscribers become sort of a premium class of customers whose reading habits they can analyze, which supports targeting and garners higher ad prices.

BCG did a study last year and discovered that large numbers users world-wide were in fact willing to pay for news content, and that the impact on a newspaper’s margins are significant. You can read more on their February 2009 study here.

Our publishers have long known the benefits in choosing a strong technology partner. They focus on doing what they do best – generating quality content, and they let us do what we do best – giving their subscribers what they want, wherever they want it, in print, online or on their mobile device/tablet of choice!

Here at NewspaperDirect, we’re feeling fantastic impacts as well.  With new tablets hitting the market, such as the iPad2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and BlackBerry Playbook, more people than ever are discovering PressDisplay.com and its companion application PressReader and the great value they offer to readers.

It’s exciting to see that people are re-igniting their love of newspapers, and it gives us great pleasure to offer them access to all their favorite publications. As one loyal fan from Australia raves:

“Mighty impressed with PressReader App. For someone who enjoys reading quality newspapers it is pigs’ heaven! $1 a day for unlimited reading.” Neil, Australia

We’re thrilled that the word is spreading on what we’ve known all along, that newspapers aren’t dead and that people are willing to pay for quality news content. With a great app like PressReader, which can give users unlimited access to all their favorite publications worldwide, staying up to date with the news most relevant to you is easier and more convenient than ever!

Cheers!

-Kate

News junkies rejoice! PressReader v1.1.11.0221, now available for download through the Android Market or PressReader.com, brings users some great new features, functionality, enhancements and fixes.

With PressReader for Android v1.1.11.0221, users now have the ability to:

• Easily set up new accounts using in app registration
• Share articles via Twitter and Facebook
• Select and designate favorite titles (synced with PressDisplay.com “My Newspapers”)
• Sort and view titles in Store by favorite designation or recently ordered (in addition to country or language)
• Intuitively browse supplements grouped under respective main publications with the option to “download all supplements”  (a note to Pay As You Go subscribers:  once a supplement is purchased within a supplement group, all others within that group are available free of charge)

…where they will be able to enjoy:

• A streamlined auto-delivery process where a publication’s latest issue will be downloaded rather than its complete issue history
• A notification message appearing in the system bar advising download completion
• Enhanced search functionality when searching within a specific country (i.e. results from that specific country will appear first)
• The ability to select a specific account if multiple accounts have been authorized

…and will no longer have to worry about:

• The unavailability of 7 free trial issues associated with each new PressReader installation
• Not being able to “Connect to the server”
• Purchasing individual issues without receiving a confirmation prompt (applies to Pay As You Go subscribers only)

As always, we would love to hear your feedback, comments and suggestions! Please let us know how we’re doing by sending us a note through PressReader’s email utility, located under the Settings option, or by sending an email directly to androidsupport@support.newspaperdirect.com.

Cheers,

Michael

With its success and popularity only growing on the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Samsung Galaxy S (amongst other Android devices), newspaper junkies and Samsung enthusiasts will be pleased to learn that PressReader will be pre-installed on Samsung’s two latest gems, the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Unveiled by Samsung earlier in the week at the Mobile World Congress (14-17 February 2011) in Barcelona, Spain, each device will see PressReader housed in Samsung’s unique ‘Readers Hub’.

PressReader for the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1 will provide users with the opportunity to download and read over 1,800 full-content digital newspaper replicas from 94 countries in 49 languages just the way the title was printed – with no compromises in quality, fidelity or content.

Catch a quick peek of PressReader in the Readers Hub of the Galaxy S II in the video below (approx. 2:05 mark):

More and more, manufactures are understanding that to effectively meet the needs of consumers, their devices need to look good, feel good and most importantly, do more.

With the world’s press just a finger tap away, PressReader helps to do just that!

For more information on PressReader, make sure to check out PressReader.com.

Cheers,

Michael

Earlier in the week, NewspaperDirect officially announced the appointment of Igor Smirnoff, former Director of Strategic Development, to the position of Vice President, Digital.

In his new role, Igor will be responsible for driving strategic relationships with technology and market partners, while managing digital sales channels, including professional content-management solutions and the fast-growing Library and Corporate PressDisplay services offered by NewspaperDirect.

“Over the past seven years, Igor has been a key contributor to the success of this company,” said Alexander Kroogman, CEO of NewspaperDirect. “I look forward to his continued success in managing strategic alliances with our partners while he takes on the added responsibility of growing revenues in corporate, academic and public sectors.”

“We have made tremendous progress in recent years: from a small print-on-demand company that organized distribution at selected international hotels, to a global, dynamic print and digital enterprise that is a locomotive for innovation in the publishing industry,” said Igor Smirnoff, vice president, Digital at NewspaperDirect. “Change is omnipresent and inevitable in this business; every technology innovation we introduce, every new market we open, or new partnership we forge, has an immediate and positive impact for the newspaper and magazine industry and individual publishers. These are exciting times and I am thrilled to be behind the wheel on this ride.”

Congratulations from the entire NewspaperDirect Team!

-Michael

It’s official! Earlier today at Monaco Media Forum 2010, NewspaperDirect announced a new partnership with Samsung Electronics that will see PressReader, PressDisplay.com’s reading app, come pre-loaded on the “Readers Hub” of the new Samsung GALAXY Tab device.

With the announcement, GALAXY Tab users will now have access to the world’s largest digital newspaper kiosk which includes over 1,700 full-content publications from 92 countries in 48 languages!

Watch Igor Smirnoff, NewspaperDirect’s Vice President, Digital, officially announce the new partnership during the Media Forum’s “New Waves” session (5:30 mark of video):

The significance of the announcement was certainly not lost on Steve Cho, Director of Samsung Media Solutions America and Alex Kroogman, NewspaperDirect’s CEO:

“When it came to news content, we wanted to offer our customers the best in the industry, and PressDisplay service from NewspaperDirect fit the bill,” said Steve Cho, director, Samsung Media Solutions America of Samsung Electronics. “When the Samsung GALAXY Tab goes on sale in Europe within weeks, owners of the device will be able to use PressReader in the Readers Hub to download local, national and international titles available on PressDisplay.com, and read them in their entirety.”

“With PressReader pre-installed on the new Samsung GALAXY Tab, NewspaperDirect just added close to two thousand daily newspapers to this new, Android-powered tablet. Publications instantly available include titles from Postmedia Network of Canada, Fairfax of Australia and New Zealand, News Corporation, Independent News Media, and Tribune Company, to name a few,” said Alex Kroogman, CEO of NewspaperDirect. “We are focused on, and committed to, opening new channels of distribution and revenue for all our existing publishing partners, and we continue to welcome new publishers from around the world. As the global leader in newspaper distribution, our mission is to ensure that our publishing partners’ content is made immediately available to their readers on all the new and hot devices hitting the market today and in the future.”

We’re ecstatic at the opportunity to partner with Samsung and as always, we’re really looking forward to hearing your feedback on the reading experience the new app provides!

Cheers,

Michael

Hey…psst…we haven’t formally announced this yet, but just between you, me and the World Wide Web, did you hear about the latest PressReader app pre-installed on the world’s newest, most highly anticipated tablet?

If you haven’t, here’s a little something that’ll hopefully wet your beak… .

Earlier this month at the IFA 2010 trade show in Berlin, Germany, Samsung announced the launch of its GALAXY Tab, powered by Android Operating System 2.2.

The device marks Samsung’s first foray into the tablet market and if early reviews are any indication, the Tab promises to give the iPad and other tablet-like devices a run for their money.

With a PC-like web browsing experience, 7” touch screen, continuous communications via e-mail, voice and video call, SMS/MMS and social networks and easy access to news, books and multi-media content, Samsung is banking on the GALAXY Tab offering users more capabilities while they’re on run.

And with PressReader an integral part of the Tab’s ‘Readers Hub’, users will benefit from an immensely popular news application that delivers immediate access to over 1,700 full-content publications from 92 countries in 48 languages in their truest form.

TechRader.com, in their assessment of PressReader went as far as saying, “The newspaper viewer is an interesting one … One nice feature is the ability to tap on any story and see it presented on the screen in its own right – making viewing a newspaper in the way you want much easier.  Samsung claims the Galaxy Tab will ‘play an important role in the digitization of printed material’ and if newspaper subscriptions all look this good on the Tab then we can see why.”

Happy days!

John Gillooly in his review of the GALAXY Tab for Australian PC Authority says the device’s, “16:9 screen is particularly well suited, and PressDisplay, for example, reflows stories to fit the screen when text is selected.”

Get a glimpse of John previewing PressReader on the GALAXY Tab at around the 2:55 mark of the video embedded in his article.  Great stuff!

So remember, whether you’re a casual news reader or an avid newspaper junkie reading online, offline, at work, at home or on the go, we’re confident PressReader for GALAXY Tab will help quash your appetite for full-content daily news .

Cheers,

-Michael