Contact:
Dr. Markus Schranz
Phone: ++43-1-81140-0
E-Mail: schranz@pressetext.at
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Skopje (pts043/13.06.2005/14:30) - The news platform NEDINE (Intelligent News Distribution Network) http://www.nedine.org , which is part of the EU-sponsored programme e-Content, was presented to representatives of private and independent news agencies from south and eastern Europe for the first time last Friday. The outcome showed that news agencies from the Balkans are very interested in an intense cooperation with central and west European agents. The meeting took place in Skopje, Macedonia, as part of the SEEMO http://www.seemo.org/ conference.
The agencies mainly discussed the difficulties of the transformation processes and the idea of learning from others' 'best practice' examples. For many, lack of economic structures, legal foundations, and public funds are reasons for the harsh fight for survival, particularly in former Yugoslavian countries. On the other hand are the agencies BGNES (Bulgaria) und Mediafax (Romania), who have taken over the leading positions in their country's market in the shortest amount of time, and have left state organisations behind.
Pavol Mudry and Dusan Devan of the Slovakian SITA http://www.sita.sk gave a talk on how they set up their news agency in 1997 and the path it has taken to become a diversified and profitable media establishment with over 100 employees. The company is currently in the process of trying to oust the state-owned news agency TASR.
Head of pressetext marketing, Wilfried Seywald, presented NEDINE's project developments together with Mudry und Devan, and invited south-eastern European agencies to join the syndicate of the same name.
"NEDINE's goal is to provide a uniform European platform for journalistic exchange and commercial press releases, and is an especially good chance for our south-eastern European colleagues to exchange experience and Know-how," said Seywald. "The feedback has been positive. More agencies have spontaneously said they would join."
Generous SEEMO-sponsorship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The two-day conference in Skopje was organised by the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) and was chaired by SEEMO general secretary Oliver Vujovic (Vienna) and SEEMO president Radomir Licina (Belgrade). They introduced the informative South East Europe Media Handbook 2004/2005, which was produced in conjunction with the University of Vienna/Institute for Journalism and Communication. Austria's embassy attaché Michael Pal told participants that the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs would provide eur 430,000 in sponsorship for SEEMO activities over the next three years.
About NEDINE
NEDINE was founded in April 2004. Project partners from six different European nations dedicated themselves to the realisation of an international system of news distribution. The project is being led by pressetext.austria in cooperation with the department for Distributed Systems at the Technical University of Vienna.
NEDINE'S goal is to offer readers an exactly profiled, personal portfolio made up of news and paid press releases from all over Europe. As well, an affordable and attractive solution for those sending press information across borders should also be made possible. For technical implementation, modern technology and standards will be used, as well as methods of artificial intelligence.
Besides pressetext.europa (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) the consortium of NEDINE consists of the news agencies CIA (Czech Republic) http://www.cianews.cz and SITA (Slovak Republic) http://www.sita.sk . Additional cooperation with other agencies within and outside the European Union is being sought. A particular emphasis will be given to making the system multi-lingual. In this way it should be possible for each receiver to configure the news and system in one's own language.
In order to make these standards possible, developers from the news agencies are working with experts from the Technical University Vienna. (Department of Distributed Systems) http://www.infosys.tuwien.ac.at , as well as artificial intelligence experts (Technical University, Madrid) http://www.fi.upm.es . The latter is meant to allow the correlation of articles from various sources, and at the same time avert the multiple deliveries of identical news articles.
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