There's some re-branding going on...

The excellent re-branding of the BAY brand preceded the revamping of Bay's (slowish) colourful website. As is with any other website, one has to see if the site is going to be updated regularly and if radio listeners are going to follow. The new bay.com.mt also includes Abel&Elinor's new blog. There's a lot going on in their radio show and it is worth extending its lifetime by posting snippets of it online. Sadly enough, following the first post last Thursday, nothing else has been added to the blog.

The slogan for the BAY brand remains the same one, yet the trade mark features a new, fresh font which in my opinion will soon be the 'new helvetica' of mainstream design.

The Times Newspapers

Even the popular Sunday Times and The Times (daily) have lately been given a new look. The Times ran a double page spread outlining the changes on Saturday. I will below relate to you some of its contents:

Front Page: More are dedicated to news and a smaller 'navigation' area. The crest which features in both logos has been redesigned and will feature in all media.

Page 3: This will now become a content page. A 'Quick Find' section will also be added to page 3 (on Sunday) and page 2 (any other day).

Consistent Sections: All sections, including the very useful Classified Supplement, now feature consistent headers

traditional media going online all the time

XFMmalta.com will soon be getting a new look and feel. We promise to review it as soon as it happens. In the mean time, timesofmalta.com has just launched a music section were local music is reviewed. The section also includes 30 second demos of each song!

The Times Picture Annual

If a picture is worth a 1000 words...than how much is a publication full of the best press pictures of the year worth?! I was lucky enough to get The Times Picture Annual 2006 as a late Christmas gift at the beginning of this year. The good news is that the 2007 edition has also been published and the two editions can be bought as one package. The following links may come useful...



..to get your hands on the real thing (buy online)
..to get a quick preview

2007 Highlights

Below I would like to draw up my list of 2007 highlights of the local interactive and marketing worlds:

#1: Virtual Competitions
In 2007, XFM gave us The Virtual Model and Virtual Rock Star Competitions. The online audience had to vote for their favorite model or band. The winning model got a front page on Pink Magazine whilst the winning rock star got to record her own song, a photoshoot in London (and much more exposure locally). Bands/Artists had to post their home-made video. Some of user-generated content did get some good viewing (ex. Slur - 1,939 views; Drive - 1,249 views; Elisa - 2,141 views)

#2: You - syndrome
On a similar note, Vodafone (Malta) has come up with 'The Face of Vodafone' campaign. In this same year, UK's teen magazine Shout launched a campaign to search for a teen fashion model. The campaign was managed by Miller, the local distributors of Shout magazine.

#3: PM discusses budget online
This was the year in which the Prime Minister (of Malta) discussed politics through an online forum. The budget2008 website has been given a lot of attention in all media. Politics apart, I believe this was a highlight (especially because we did it before The Queen posted her first video on YouTube!). This gets me to the second highlight:

#4: Facebook Malta
The local acknowledgment of online channels also results in a number of important people having their own facebook profile. Apart from the music artists such as Ira, Wintermoods and Salt (my band), a number of MPs also have their own facebook profile. 13,753 have joined the Malta network and that still excludes me and a couple of other lazy people who still plan to join later.

#5: Lamp-post advertising!
In the past 3 years, FacesDisplays introduced bus-shelter advertising in Malta. In 2007, our lamp-posts are also holding promotional banners, similar to the Chogm ones. Brands who have started using the service include Rocs & Inglott, KFC, Burger King & SG Solutions (Apple)

#6: Juice, You and ME
The list of free magazines continued to grow. In March Juice Magazine hit households. The magazine's 160,000 copies are printed in Milan by In-Print. Maltapost also continued to invest in its Direct Marketing services through Mailbox magazine published by 26thFrame. Design magazine ME got its online space at medesignmag.com. Health & Beauty magazine, You, also launched in 2007. The magazine is distributed with The Sunday Times.

#7: 2 Covers, 1 magazine
Tune-in also came up with a first for the local publishing industry. To promote 89.7 Bay's Abel and Elinor, Tune-in published 2 versions of the magazine on the same Sunday. Readers could choose between getting Abel or Elinor on the front page. My household got Elinor!

#8: Shu!
Exit launched Shu! store. The store design was in the creative hands of Chris Briffa Architects. In 2006, Exit and Chris Briffa have also worked together on the 2-22 wine bar, also situated in Valletta.

#9: New / Revamped websites in 2007
I surely did not come across all the local websites which were launched or revamped in 2007, but here are some I know of, and have also blabbed about: GO.com.mt, Timesofmalta.com, Di-ve.com, klikk.com.mt & Kiwilicious.com

#10: I started blogging
And finally, in 2007 we also launched our mini-project which is still at its early stages...and started blabbing on this blog.

the new timesofmalta.com (part 2)

A new service on the new timesofmalta.com, currently being discussed by many during coffee breaks, is the new ePaper. In appearance, the ePaper looks like a PDF version of the print issue, but technically, the ePaper offers much more than that.


The highlight of the ePaper is its ability to translate news articles to audio allowing busy readers to listen to a news broadcast whilst posting a blab such as this one! The ePaper is being provided by NewspaperDirect, 'the world leader in multi-channel newspaper and magazine content distribution and monetization. The company has agreements with over 500 newspaper and magazine publishers from 73 countries around the globe to market, sell and/or print their publications worldwide.'

I am no expert but I believe Allied Newspapers’ approach of making news content available as much as possible enables it to fully monetize the content proposition.
On the other hand, I am not sure the ePaper will catch up. I believe additional functionality provided by the ePaper could have been included in the website directly.

The website contains most of the printed content (and more), it’s easier to handle, bookmark, link to blogs and simply browse through. The ePaper is slower, less interactive and priced in a complex manner. If Allied Newspapers want to offer additional functionality at a price, may i suggest a more sophisticated version of the website, offered to users who sign up against a monthly subscription.

It would be interesting to test the ePaper against the normal website on devices other than the normal computer screen, PDAs, for example. Would the above arguments still hold?

Finally, the new Times’ website includes audio visual ads. whilst the ePaper fails to translate the Vodafone advert to normal audio.

go back: the new timesofmalta.com (part1)