General Description
Sanoma News is Finland’s leading newspaper publisher and online media operator. It publishes the biggest newspaper in the Nordic countries, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s most popular tabloid Ilta-Sanomat and two of Finland’s most read free sheets, Metro and Vartti. Five of Sanoma News’ websites are among Finland’s top 20 sites. The company’s stronghold is the Helsinki metropolitan area where its roots go back for more than a century. Sanoma News is a part of Sanoma, which operates in diverse fields of media in over 20 countries. Sanoma is one of Europe’s largest magazine and learning material publishers. It is a major operator in digital media in Finland, the Netherlands, Hungary and Bulgaria. Its net sales are EUR 2,761 million, and it has nearly 20,000 employees. Sanoma is listed on Nasdaq OMX Helsinki.
Relevant Competence for the project
Sanoma News’ hyperlocal site Omakaupunki.fi (My City) operating under the Helsingin Sanomat site HS.fi, records approximately 400 000 browsers/week. The main focus of Omakaupunki.fi is to co-create content with the citizens of the Helsinki area.. The user-generated concept is backed by printed products, in which co-created content is also published. Omakaupunki.fi already has a fixmystreet-concept in place. Another similar service, targeted at cyclists, will also be integrated in the service (fillarikanava.hel.fi). Omakaupunki.fi also has a mobile site and an iPhone app (Puskaradio) for user generated content.
Sanoma News and Omakaupunki.fi recently teamed up with Helsinki Region Transport to organise an open competition for developers of mobile apps. Developers were building apps to encourage people to cycle, walk and use public transport. A similar initiative was launched by Helsingin Sanomat in HS Open Labs, which offers the HS.fi site as a platform for new apps.
Main role and activities to be carried out
Sanoma news sets out to plan, develop and implement, with the city of Helsinki, a working channel through which people can report local problems and follow their progress. Sanoma News will provide the project with an agile platform, Omakaupunki.fi. The Omakaupunki.fi site, backed up by the family of Sanoma News’ other digital and print products, will give the Pilot maximum reach in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The work has already begun to create a concept that is as automated and user-friendly as possible.
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