Itella To Test Newspaper Reading With An e-Reader - August 26, 2010
[Press Release.]Itella will test newspaper reading with the electronic iPad reading device at the end of the year. The test will be executed in cooperation with the Borgåbladet newspaper. In the test, the electronic version of the newspaper will be delivered to NetPosti, an electronic mailbox provided by Itella. The objective is to involve five to ten mail recipient households who already participate in the experiment carried out in Anttila, Porvoo, concerning the electronic delivery of letter mail.
"Newspapers in electronic reading devices are already common in many countries. With the Borgåbladet newspapers and those reading it, we want to try out how suitable newspaper reading with an electronic device is in Finland. We will also obtain experiences on whether Finns have an interest in and a need to use the reading method enabled by the new technology. We believe that the test will also more extensively benefit the Finnish media sector as it considers operating models of the future," says Tommi Tikka, Development Director.
"Participating in the test is a valuable opportunity for us to try out new means of reaching our readers," says Stefan Holmström, Editor-in-Chief of Borgåbladet.
In the experiment, launched in the Anttila area in Porvoo, the participants receive their letters in electronic format in NetPosti. The experiment involves a total of 140 companies and households in the area. The participants have been mainly satisfied with the new way of receiving letter deliveries, and the experiment has already been modified according to the feedback given by the customers.
"It is great that Borgåbladet joins in. There are residents in Anttila in Porvoo, who have a positive attitude towards testing something new, and they see that in this way, they can contribute to the progress of development. We believe that a sufficient number of interested participants will also be found to read their newspaper in electronic format," says Tikka.
Pos Malaysia's Earnings To Grow By 66.4 Per Cent, Says OSK Research - August 25, 2010
[Bernama.]Pos Malaysia Bhd's earnings in financial year 2011 will grow by 66.4 per cent from financial year 2010 as full contribution from the postal tariff hike takes effect, according to OSK Research.
The research house maintained a "buy" recommendation on Pos Malaysia with target price of RM4.03 in a research note today.
It also maintained Pos Malaysia's financial year 2010 revenue forecast of RM978.3 million.
OSK Research expects operating margins in the second half of this year to improve as the quantum of tariff hike offsets the higher staff and operating costs.
On Khazanah Nasional's plan to divest its stake in Pos Malaysia, the research house said the foreign and local strategic partners from the entire Khazanah stake sale have been quite active in the past two months.
The potential suitors include DHL, TNT and recently a leading global private equity firm, CVC, emerged as another bidder, it said.
"We do not rule out that this may have progressed to the advanced stage as the year-end deadline approaches," it added.
According to OSK Research, a synergistic partnership will be able to drive efforts to boost Pos Malaysia's retail segment to provide more value offerings upon the revision of the Postal Land Act to enable the company to use its government land bank for non-postal services.
Deutsche Post Consolidates Involvement In Online Advertising Market And Acquires Nugg.Ad - August 24, 2010
[Press Release.]Deutsche Post will implement the vision of predictive behavioural targeting with nugg.ad.
In taking over nugg.ad AG, Deutsche Post AG is acquiring Europe's largest targeting platform and in so doing has expanded its competence as a service provider in the on-line advertising market. With this investment in the leading targeting technology, the Group has consolidated new areas of growth in online marketing fully in accordance with its 2015 strategy. As a subsidiary, nugg.AG will continue to be an independent targeting service provider for marketers and advertising agencies from the company's headquarters in Berlin. The company structure remains unchanged and will be expanded.
Targeting in the online field includes targeted management of display advertising on websites to achieve as high a level as possible in terms of targeting effectiveness. With its platform for targeting marketing across sectors and the implementation of completely new approaches for branding campaigns nugg ad, the targeting market leader, is acting as a service provider for numerous players in the online advertising market such as publishers and media agencies. As a subsidiary of Deutsche Post, nugg.ad wants to drive forward the vision of a new market standard for targeting campaigns.
Chinese Postal and Express Industry Sees 72.84 B Yuan Operating Revenue in First 7 Months - August 24, 2010
[Capitalvue.com.]Nationwide postal service companies and large-scale express delivery companies generated an operating revenue of 72.84 billion yuan in first 7 months of 2010, up 19 percent year-on-year, reports Yicai.com, citing statistics published by the State Post Bureau.
Revenue in July grew 12.8 percent year-on-year to 9.58 billion yuan, according to the State Post Bureau.
The shipping volume of nationwide postal service companies and large-scale express delivery companies in the first 7 months of 2010 reached 1.23 billion, up 23.6 percent year-on-year.
Express delivery shipping volume in July grew 18.7 percent from year-on-year to 190 million.
Royal Mail Poll: Keep Postal Service Public - August 23, 2010
[UKPA .]The Government has been urged to drop Royal Mail privatisation plans after a new survey showed that most people wanted the postal service to remain publicly-owned.
Just one in seven of 2,000 people polled by Labour leadership contender Ed Balls and the Communication Workers Union said they supported privatisation.
Just over half of Conservative voters and two-thirds of Liberal Democrats supported a fully publicly-owned Royal Mail.
The union has already mounted a fresh campaign after the Government signalled its intention to introduce legislation paving the way for Royal Mail privatisation.
Mr Balls, speaking in Burnley, said the case for privatising or selling off parts of the Royal Mail had not been made, adding: "Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union have made massive strides to agree tough modernisation plans which mean it has a long-term future in the public sector.
"With the economy so uncertain, it's unlikely to fetch a fair price and the taxpayer may still be expected to carry the burden of Royal Mail's pension deficit - a massive public handout to whoever bought the company.
"The right solution is to make a modernised Royal Mail work as a public service. So, over the coming weeks, I will be campaigning with CWU members to keep the post public and reject any proposals to sell it off."
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, said: "This poll reaffirms what we already knew - the British public do not want their postal services sold off.
"The union and the company have worked hard to agree a fully funded modernisation plan and that work needs support from the Government.
"We hope that the coalition Government will recognise that the British public don't want the sale and will follow Ed's lead in defending a hugely popular public institution and drop plans for a Bill to privatise it."
Comreg Not Allowed To Put €2.5m Surplus Into Pensions - August 23, 2010
[Ian Kehoe, ThePost.ie.]The government has clashed with the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) after the watchdog attempted to transfer millions of euro from its operating surplus to prop up its ailing pension fund.
The Sunday Business Post has learned that the Department of Finance intervened after it emerged that ComReg had transferred €2.5 million from its 2008 operating surplus to help plug a €5 million pension deficit.
ComReg also intended to transfer a further €2.5 million from its 2009 surplus to wipe out the pension shortfall completely.
The money was due to come from the operating surplus, which would otherwise be transferred to the exchequer.
Following government queries, ComReg has agreed to ‘‘restore the €2.5 million payments’’, and the commission is working on an alternative solution to deal with the pension problem.
Details of the issue are contained in confidential briefing notes prepared by the Department of Finance, which have been obtained by this newspaper following a Freedom of Information request.
According to the briefing notes, the Department of Communication, Energy and Natural Resources noticed that €2.5 million had been transferred in 2008 when examining ComReg’s accounts.
The regulator generates income of around €14 million a year by levying postal operators and telecoms companies and from licence fees.
The surplus is handed over to government.
The issue was raised with ComReg, which explained that an independent actuarial assessment identified a €5 million pension deficit that it was obliged to deal with.
‘‘ComReg decided to offset the deficit by transferring €2.5 million in the accounting periods year-ending June 2008 and year-ending June 2009 from its surplus income," read the documents.
‘‘This was done following consideration by the pension trustees, the audit committee, and the commissioners and after taking independent professional advice."
However, the matter was subsequently subject to discussions between the government, the Comptroller & Auditor General and ComReg.
U.S. Magazine Puts Video Ad In Select Copies - August 23, 2010
[Lynn Hicks, DesMoines register.]Meredith Corp. has found a new way to use multimedia: a video inside a magazine.
Its August issue of Successful Farming has an insert from Bayer Crop Science. When readers open the page, a video plays a commercial for Votivo, a pesticide that protects crops from nematodes.
The video, about the size of a cell phone screen, also plays four other commercials when readers push "play" buttons on the advertisement.
Successful Farming — which was first published in 1902, making it Meredith's oldest magazine — included the insert in 17,000 copies of the magazine, or about 4 percent of its subscribers, said Publisher Scott Mortimer. Meredith matched its database with Bayer's list of customers, and the advertisement also went to some farmers who have more than 1,000 acres.
The Des Moines media company said video-inserted advertisements have appeared in magazines only twice before. Americhip, which created the Successful Farming ad, also created similar advertisements for Pepsi and CBS to run in Entertainment Weekly last fall.
Mortimer said two or three advertisers have requested information after seeing the ad in the August issue.
"I imagine we'll see more of them," he said. "This is client-driven. It depends how much they want to push the envelope."
The U.S. Postal Service required that Successful Farming include the words "Magazine contains lithium-ion batteries" on its table of contents. That warning confused at least one reader who didn't receive the ad, Mortimer said.
"Future Mail" Business Taking Off In China - August 23, 2010
[People Daily.]Have you ever dreamed about sending a letter to yourself or your friends in the future? While express mail represents efficiency and speed and is prevalent in China, there is another type of mail emerging as a new business: "future mail."
"The letter should be delivered next 'Mother's Day' and not a day earlier!" Lin Xiaofan, a senior high school student in Hefei, capital of central China's Anhui Province, instructs one of the companies offering the service.
Companies delivering mail as slowly as their customers want are popping up all over China, in cities like Beijing, Chongqing, Hefei and Hangzhou.
The price of the service depends on how long clients want their mail to be held, and a longer period is more expensive.
Lin Xiaofan wrote the letter to her mother in advance, before she left home for a college in Beijing.
"I wrote what I was feeling at the moment. And I wanted to express my thanks and love to my mother for next Mother's Day," she says.
"Offering this service makes people slow down and let them understand the meaning of 'time' in another way," said Zheng Zhimin, manager at a "future mail" company in Hefei.
"People can write their letters in advance and we will keep them for some period and then deliver them on the day the customer designates," he said.
Zheng thinks "future mail" letters are "reminders of and catalysts for affection, friendship and love."
"For the 'future mail' letter writers, each letter represents hope. They put their hopes and wishes in the letter so they can experience the connection between the past and the present while they receive the letter. It can help people reunderstand the meaning of 'time'," said Wang Kaiyu, a sociologist in Anhui Province.
Kenya Postal Workers Opt To Retire - August 20, 2010
[Michael Karanja, CapitalFM.]Four hundred Postal Corporation of Kenya employees are up for voluntary retirement as the company seeks to restructure itself and improve efficiency.
Information and Communications Minister Samuel Poghisio says the move is not a retrenchment exercise but measures to make the corporation lean as it makes room to grow its revenues.
“There needs to be some order at posta and we need to help posta shed some of the weight it has in terms of works and such,” Mr Poghisio said.
The decision to let the workers go was arrived at last year after consultations with the ministry and is expected to cost Sh2 million.
Mr Poghisio said the Postal Corporation is now charged with more responsibilities that encompass courier services and internet services that needed to be developed.
“The Postal Corporation needs to be supported to do what it does best which is provide services to Kenyans. It has the potential to grow rapidly,” he said.
The Minister spoke as he led corporation heads through a performance contract signing ceremony. He urged the parastal heads to change with the times and usher in cutting edge strategies that would take their organizations forward.
The Kenya ICT Board was challenged to increase the country’s internet infrastructure to ensure its services are available to all Kenyans. The Brand Kenya board was given a five-month deadline to have its master plan in place as it seeks to market Kenya globally.
“Performance contracts are a very serious issue. It’s not going to be business as usual and we will be raising the bar much higher going forward,” he stressed.
TNT Post Introduces adMail - August 20, 2010
[Post and Parcel.]TNT Post has launched a service aimed to help increase the return on investment for marketers of promotional direct mail.
adMail is a reduced cost service that has been specifically designed for promotional direct mail which drives sales or encourages support for a cause.
In addition to increasing a mailing’s return on investment, adMail also aims to promote best practice in data management; customers using the adMail service will commit to diligent data processes through suppression of customer and prospect data against consumer and business data files, such as the Mail Preference Service.
adMail is available for delivery in a five working day delivery window and is for customers sending upwards of 4,000 items a day, or at least 10,000 items a day for Access 700 CBC customers.
Nick Wells, chief executive of TNT Post UK, said: “adMail offers the direct mail sector a new, cost-effective and efficient service that meets the needs of marketers in the current economic climate. By introducing a reduced cost service for promotional direct mailings, we aim to provide real value to customer.”
Itella To Test Newspaper Reading With An e-Reader - August 26, 2010
Pos Malaysia's Earnings To Grow By 66.4 Per Cent, Says OSK Research - August 25, 2010
Deutsche Post Consolidates Involvement In Online Advertising Market And Acquires Nugg.Ad - August 24, 2010
Chinese Postal and Express Industry Sees 72.84 B Yuan Operating Revenue in First 7 Months - August 24, 2010
Royal Mail Poll: Keep Postal Service Public - August 23, 2010
U.S. Magazine Puts Video Ad In Select Copies - August 23, 2010
Kenya Postal Workers Opt To Retire - August 20, 2010
TNT Post Introduces adMail - August 20, 2010
