USA : My Daily 10, the first daily newspaper for kids in America, about to be launched next week

Soon, American kids aged 8 to 10 are going to have their own daily newspaper. Yes ! You read it correctly. I said DAILY newspaper. Its name : My Daily 10 at mydaily10.com. You can already download PDF samples (here) that were tested, about a year ago, with the Miami Herald. I also encourage you to read the testimonials of parents and teachers about this experiment here.

Since the experiment, we have been developing the kids' newspaper as an online service. It is not a website. It is an e-paper.

Kids will be able to turn pages like in a real newspaper. They will have a new issue every day of the week, Monday to Friday. They will be able to create their own encyclopedia, saving the graphics, the photos and also the cartoons. Difficult words are explained and saved in an online dictionary.

Mydaily10.com will be a paid website. The idea of this experiment, led by Play Bac Presse and 5W Mignon-Media, is to know if parents are ready to pay for an e-paper for their kids versus a website. We'll have the answer soon. Stay tuned !

PS : You can discuss the idea of news for kids in our blog : whynewsforkids.com

Last stretch and VC funding for our online personalized news page: "It's my news"

Some of you know that we have been developing on the side for about sixteen months, a new online personalized start page. Its focus : managing your sources of news and information. Its name is it's my news (itsmynews.com) and the tagline is : Online personalized news service.

A little less than a year ago, we tested a private beta version in Flash and finalized our different business models. Then we presented itsmynews to different investors.

Today, we are happy to announce that we just closed our first round of investment with an American venture capital firm.

Right now, part of our team is concentrating its effort on finalizing itsmynews. We will release a new beta version soon. We will first give access to beta testers that will volunteer to give us their feedback. If you are interested in being a beta tester, please send an email to info[at]mignon-media.com.

This service, free of charge, will first target the American market, then will quickly be launched in other countries and other languages.

YouTube Videos Better than News

If you haven't gone to YouTube and searched for videos of recent events in Lebanon, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Explosions, interviews, mainstream news reports, air raids, even satire. It's all here, the best of the Internet, for all to watch. Is it better than any news outlet? You decide.

South Korea Loses 65% of its Magazine Titles in 8 Years

A Press Gazette report on publishing in the digital age contains this astonishing fact: The number of magazines in South Korea has fallen to 2,200 ffom 6,243 in 1998 - a 65% reduction.

Given South Koreans' embrace of all things digital - by many measures, they are the most wired population on earth - this could be a big sign of things to come.

Rugby Magazine Wins Industry Award

Rugby, a sport magazine designed by 5W Mignon Media for Groupe L'Equipe, has won the 2006 award for best print media launch in France. L'Equipe is the largest sports publisher in France.

"Meet Me at the 7-11!"

There are companies out there looking to put flat-screen TVs into 7-11s and millions of other consumer outlets across the country and then charge advertisers to reach these new audiences. The chains like the idea, as the screens are free or very low-cost, and they get to roll house ads into the mix.

But what if they brought participatory media into the mix? The local General Store dominated American social life for decades, and could again: Imagine these convenience stores allowing their local customers to upload karaoke videos, short art films, comedy sketches, home movies, and much more. Authors would bring friends, they'd hang out and watch their video, and others, two, three times, and...buy more chips and soda. And hang out.

The store could sponsor poetry slams, and sewing circles, and...become a center of local life again.

Skype to Offer Free Calling to Handsets

In a move to ramp adoption in North America and maintain its lead in VoIP telephony, Skype has announced free calling to land and mobile phone numbers, for the remainder of 2006, for US and Canadian users.

When a company like Skype, which already counts 100 million users worldwide, has to resort to such a huge increase in customer-acquisition costs, we begin to see the enormous fight shaping up in the telco universe. This is gonna be huge.