Update: German Newspapers and Magazines

Maybe some of you remember that I was rather disappointed that big German newspapers and magazines hardly used any Web 2.0 related services like social news and bookmarking sites to offer their readers additional value and maybe even gain some more traffic to their online presences.

Two months have passed since then, so it’s time to see if something has changed. Last time I was just concentrating on social news and bookmarking services; this time I try to consider some more features.

Der Spiegel

Besides offering a RSS feed – every newspaper and magazine mentioned here has feeds – Der Spiegel articles can be directly bookmarked to the following sites:

• Del.icio.us
• Folkd
• Linkarena
• Mister Wong
• Webnews
• Yigg

Those services are well integrated. There is just a link which is hiding a dropdown menu; very unobtrusive. Also there are accompanying videos to some of the articles.

Die Welt

Die Welt has been relaunched recently, though links to bookmarking services have not been added. But Die Welt has some other bonus features like several blogs, a weekly podcast, videos, and a great comment function. It works similarly to comments on blogs. Usually users have to register before they are able to leave a comment on websites of newspapers. On Die Welt that’s not required; they can even add their own website or blog to the comment. Did I mention it’s like comments on blogs? Very cool.

Die Zeit

There are several bonus features available on the Die Zeit website like podcasts, videos, some good blogs like the one by Falk Lüke – who has posted a very interesting article on blogs on media sites last week – and the option to bookmark articles on Del.icio.us, Mister Wong, Webnews, and Yigg. Well done.

I think I should mention that Die Zeit is part of media company Holtzbrinck. That’s not very exciting per se, though Holtzbrinck also has a venture capital branch, Holtzbrinck Ventures which some may know from their acquisition of German StudiVZ which was also making waves internationally. Well, Webnews is part of Holtzbrinck Ventures’ portfolio so it is no wonder that Holtzbrinck newspapers feature this service.

Financial Times Deutschland

Not much can be said about FT Deutschland. There are some videos, podcasts, and also several blogs which are quite interesting. They cover business themes (who would have guessed this?) but also technology. There are no bookmarking services available, though.

Focus

Weekly magazine Focus has videos and a huge number of blogs, eleven to be exactly, which cover a wide range of (political) topics. While readers have to register with Focus to comment on articles it has a feature no other newspaper or magazine has: rating of articles; even without registering. It’s a feature I don’t really need but it seems to be quite popular. Bookmarking services? Nope.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Web 2.0 on the FAZ site? Wishful thinking. Oh, I have almost ignored some videos.

Frankfurter Rundschau

So is the other well known newspaper from Frankfurt more advanced? Hardly. The Frankfurter Rundschau has some videos and three blogs. No podcasts, no bookmarking service. Considering this newspaper is struggling to survive and needs more readers it is very disappointing.

Handelsblatt

Handelsblatt is the complete opposite of the Frankfurt based newspapers. Several podcasts, videos, many blogs including the well known Indiskretion Ehrensache blog by Thomas Knüwer, and even a vblog, Der Elektronische Reporter by Mario Sixtus. Though there is just one bookmarking service, Webnews, which is no surprise because Handelsblatt is also part of Holtzbrinck. Overall a really good site.

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Munich based Süddeutsche Zeitung features a nice range of bookmarking services: Folkd, Google, Linkarena, Lufee, Mister Wong, Webnews, and Yigg. I was surprised to discover all those links and expected more features like blogs. Unfortunately there are none. This newspaper has more potential but just doesn’t make use of it.

Stern

In January I already mentioned that Stern has the most links to bookmarking services: Blinklist, Del.icio.us, Folkd, Furl, Google, Linkarena, Mister Wong, One View, Webnews, Yahoo My Web, and Yigg. There are also some videos and well hidden a blog. That one should be easier accessible from the front page, I think.

Summary

Some newspapers have changed a few things over the last two months and have improved their online presence. It is especially encouraging to see that they seem to focus on German news and bookmarking services. This makes sense because German articles – non-English in general – are mostly ignored on international services like Del.icio.us or Digg.

Handelsblatt and Die Zeit have the most impressive sites (oh, both Holtzbrinck papers) while Die Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung could easily be strong contenders. Both have a lot of potential.

If you want to know more about German newspapers check the link Falk Lüke posted in the comments of the January article. Hopefully there will be an update to it soon.