German publisher Axel Springer plans to launch an international weekly edition of its flagship daily, Die Welt, in a 48-page tabloid format starting February 2010. Springer is still mulling distribution options but the paper will likely be available from airlines.

Die Welt is a conservative daily founded in 1946 by British occupying forces after the Second World War and acquired by Axel Springer in 1953. It has around 690,000 readers.

The thinking at Springer Verlag is that Die Welt could fill a void for non-German readers who are interested in news from continental Europe, while attracting lucrative new advertising customers.

That’s an interesting idea, considering the current dismal state of newspapers and remembering past attempts of others to attract English readers.

In April 2000, the F.A.Z. launched an English edition as a supplement in the International Herald Tribune - in what the New York Times called an opening up of “the first-class coverage of one of Germany’s best newspapers to the English speaking audience”.  That project was a first in German publishing.

But just two years later, F.A.Z. was forced to reduce it to a weekly edition and eventually had to close the project down altogether as money grew tight. 

Der Spiegel’s foray into the Anglophone world never got past special English editions on single topic issues despite dreams of an “English Spiegel”. However, it has been successful with its English website. 

So, Springer’s loss making Welt aims to prevail where the country’s most reputable newspaper and the country’s leading news magazine failed.

Good luck and let’s remember this: Die Welt tried to address English speaking readers before. In October 1999, its Berlin section had one page in English and in April in the following year, an English page was added to its national edition. 

It never did catch on.

The traditional art of drawing could see a renaissance helped by the boom in touch-screen mobile phones following the launch of Apple’s iPhone in 2007, says British artist Derrick Welsh.

“The touch has tipped, and drawing messaging is where touch leads,” said Welsh.

It could also create the next money-spinner for mobile operators, for whom text messages are still the key data revenue generator in 2009.

To promote drawing on phones, Welsh — whose mobile paintings have been downloaded some 500,000 times from Nokia’s mobile-sharing service Mosh — is planning a drawing tour across Britain, to visit art venues, universities, schools and nightclubs.

“Fine art drawing and painting are drenched in tradition, but all children draw — as with the transformation that is happening to the rules of photography, the overwhelming majority of people who now take photographs no longer consider themselves photographers,” Welsh said.

“One day maybe the use of drawing will change as children grow up with drawing as an instant communication option.”

So far there is little that’s “instant” in drawn messages — they have to be downloaded through an Internet browser on the phone or sent as multimedia messages (MMS) from one phone to another.

“Currently, nobody trusts the networks as everyone knows a horror story or two to put them off being adventurous on the web from a mobile, and parts of the world don’t have it,” Welsh said.

A few years ago MMSs were expected to be the next big thing for mobile operators, but they have gained only a limited following among consumers due to technical glitches and some phones like the iPhone do not even support them.

Welsh, who has used Nokia’s Mosh service to study people’s interest in drawings on cellphones, says a simplified way of communicating through drawings was needed, and the potential could be surprising.

“A favorite story I heard while talking to many people was of a grandmother in Japan, who had all the usual methods to communicate with her grandchildren and she chose fax, because she could draw and then receive pictures from them,” said Welsh.

In addition to touch screen devices Welsh himself uses different technologies for his drawing, pictures in the posting are made with a Nintendo’s Wii remote control, which has been linked with Nokia’s N95 8GB phone.

The superhero finally gets to meet his humble fan thanks to the magic of Marvel Comics.

The comic book setting is inauguration day 2009. And it is the president-elect who is the superhero and none other than the irrepressible Spider-Man who’s the fan.

“…This is your day, after all, and I know it wouldn’t look good to be seen palling around with me,” Spider-Man says as he tries to leave Obama to the limelight.

“Hey, not so fast,” says the soon-to-be commander-in-chief.

Then comes the confession: I’ve been a big fan of yours. The conversation ends with a fist bump between the two men.

Obama, in turn, might get the services of Spider-Man as he deals with multiple problems that have landed on his plate: the recession, the Iraq war and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“The future president’s gonna need Spider-Man,” the narrator says.

Meanwhile, on the cover page, Spidey is seen trying to broker a deal with Obama: “Hey, if you get to be on my cover, can I be on the dollar bill?”

The issue will hit the stands on Jan. 14 as Marvel joins the long list of newspaper publishers, news stations and gold coin makers hoping to cash in on the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

(Picture: Marvel Comics)

Keep an eye on:

• US Supreme Court asks for governement’s view of an appeal by film studios and TV networks of ruling allowing a new digital video recorder service by Cablevision (Reuters)
• CBS expands carriage deals with Verizon (Reuters) and adds new programs on TV.com (WSJ)
• Time Warner’s AOL Web services arm will expand and centralize is digital publishing operations (Reuters)

Can you drive really fast around tight corners? Do you lose your temper and burst into tears when other drivers cut in front of you?  If you answered yes to both questions, NASCAR might want to hear from you.

The motor racing sport could do with more exciting, emotive personalities, NASCAR Chief Executive Brian France told reporters at the Reuters Media Summit in New York.

France said some drivers might feel restricted by their sponsor contracts and not want to show too much emotion when they step out of their cars — even after a major incident like a crash.

“What we need to do more with our athletes is to bring out their emotions because one of the things [that's] a drawback is we’re so sponsor-dependent and [the drivers] represent all these companies, their merchandise sales are based on doing the right thing,” France said.

People like to see the emotion in athletes, he said. “If you’re running 200 miles an hour, racing somebody who wrecks you and spins you out, you don’t need to hop out of the car and act like you’re in the library.”

NASCAR is perhaps best known for the stoic, monochromatic personalities of some of its best known drivers, such as Jimmie Johnson.

“He’s a very nice guy, a cool customer, obviously very talented in our sport… but he’s not gonna do a lot of things that are gonna wow you or stun you or surprise you in the way that sometimes other athletes make their mark. ”

Of course, character cuts both ways. One imagines that other sports commissioners would be grateful to have a boring Jimmie rather than an exciting Plaxico.

It's not every day that you have a top executive in big business talk about how nice it will be to see the back of the Bush administration. Republican presidencies typically tout their adherence to free markets, unbridled capitalism and, most importantly, a smaller pile of what corporations often consider burdensome regulations. That isn't what they usually expect from Democratic administrations, even ones led by Barack Obama.

That's why we thought it so interesting that Time Warner Cable's chief financial officer, Rob Marcus, is happy for some turnover at the Federal Communications Commission. It is the FCC, after all, that has to approve some key licenses for Time Warner Cable's split from its majority owner, Time Warner Inc. For some reason, the FCC can't seem to find room on its schedule to do that, and that seems to have irked Marcus. It is, after all, preventing the two companies from separating by the time Time Warner Cable said it would.

"There's nothing substantive that has currently arisen in connection with the FCC approval. They just haven't put it on the agenda," he told the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Monday.

The FCC has made no special demands, he said. Rather, it just hasn't seen fit. He did note that Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, seems to be the stick in the mud, but declined to talk more about why he thinks this.

So what is he looking for from a commission where three of its five members are selected by the upcoming Obama administration?

"We're looking forward to a little more rationality."

Ernst & Young's Howard Bass joins us to preview the themes likely to top the agenda at the Reuters Media Summit which will take place December 1 through December 3 in New York.

Are broadcast networks seeing a slowdown in advertising revenue? What's likely to be the impact of the highly-anticpated launch of the new MLB Network? What's likely to top the FCC's agenda under the incoming Obama administration? Speaker: Howard Bass Sr. Partner, Ernst & Young

Presenter: Ruben Ramirez New York