EU Media

Description

EurActiv JobSite describes itself as being "a part of the wider FastActor service which includes the EurActiv Press Release Service and Agenda. Reaching more than 200 000 pageviews a month (and growing), publishing jobs and internships in EU affairs, from junior to top-level positions, the EurActiv JobSite provides you every day with the hottest vacancies in EU circles".

Indeed, you can find there a great variety of positions from different organisations (consultancies, industry federations, NGOs, etc.) mainly related only to the European affairs can be found here.

Evaluation of positive / negative aspects

EurActiv JobSite has recently been relaunched to optimize its design and general interface in a use-friendly prospective. Its new internal navigation system and the integration of web 2.0 features - notably the tag could - really improve the search. Moreover, the useful Yellow Pages lets you browse a wide range of accommodations and services in Brussels very interesting from a business perspective.

If you don't have the time to go to the website, a well-done weekly newsletter is set up reaching more than 7500 subscribers. Additionally, you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Actually, it would have been also interesting to extend the use of RSS feeds to specific categories to monitor positions in a country, a sector or a type of organisation.

Popularity

EurActiv JobSite is clearly one of the most popular jobsite relating to EU affairs. From an advertiser point of view, it also benefits not only of the visibility of EurActiv.com but also of its CrossLingual Network which makes its positions visible across 10 countries in Europe. This is only one feature of the FastActors service with the Agenda and the Press Releases services meant to support the online communication of European actors.

Description

EuroBrussels.com is the one of the central places to find a job or an internship in the small and very competitive world of European affairs. 

Evaluation of positive / negative aspects

As far as I am concerned, EuroBrussels.com is updated daily and provides obviously accurate positions if you want to work in the EU affairs world.

One complaint might be the enhanced "Latest jobs" category (with logos) taking a lot of space on the homepage. And its just a pity that there are no RSS feeds provided. There is a newsletter sent twice a week. A very good point  is also the presence of a tutorial giving some hints to the jobseeker to find an internship or a job in the Brussels' arena (see Career Guides).

A final criticism would be that the positions offered are too focused in Brussels. It would be excellent - from a foreigner's point of view - if you could find internships and jobs offered in EU affairs in other cities than Brussels!

Popularity

EuroBrussels.com claims to have more than "800,000 page views per month and 40,000 subscribers to their weekly newsletter". This makes the site a major force in Brussels, as it would in any other geographical market. I

Today's article will be on the blog A Fisful of Euros.

Description

A Fisful of Euros is a multi-user blog dedicated to "important developments from NATO to UEFA, from the EU to Eurovision". There are currently 15 active authors and a dozen of additional worth contributors. Though different nationalities are represented, articles are only written in English. Generally, editorial content is very good and updated on a regular basis. In parallel of their common editorial activity, they are apparently planning to develop podcats.

In 2007,  A Fisful of Euros has also been hosting a very interesting online event called "The Annual Satin Pajama Awards" meant to "celebrate the best of the European blogosphere". Even if this event did not collected an important amount of votes, polls' results seemed rather to reflect the reality. For your information, Petite Anglaise won the third edition "The Satin Pajama 2007 for the Best European Weblog".

Evaluation of positive / negative aspects

As I already mentionned it, A Fisful of Euros produces very good content on EU-related topics in a very good English.  However, English is the sole and only language used on this platform. As far as I am concerned, this lack of multilingual policy when dealing with the EU affairs is clearly a failure (even if English is overly represented in the European institutions).

While the blog platform is very-well designed, the interface is not fully optimised from a user-friendly point of view. For instance, taking into account the great amount of articles in their archive, I would rather add an internal search engine to browse this noteworthy content. Additionnaly, a couple of minor changes could really improve the blog platform as a whole.

Popularity

A Fisful of Euros has  strangely very low Page Rank of 4/10 though being one of the most popular EU blog platform.

This is a short post about Les Euros du Village's European Web Directory called "Europe on the Web", a very nice feature I would like to introduce to you.

More than a coherent agregation of links, Europe on the Web is a typology of the European webosphere and blogosphere with about 370 ressources including descriptions, logos and links.

Categories are the following ones:

• Euroblogs and militant websites
• Universities and think tanks
• European policies and institutions
• European news
• Resources
• Lobbying, political parties and civil society
• Europe by geographical areas
• Initiatives corner

I would have probably add an internal search engine to browse these golden pages. And it is just a pity that you canno't submit a link!

Another initiative worth to be mentioned here is the one of NoseMonkey's EU Blog Directory which ranks EU blogs on the basis of Technorati and provides useful hints and remarks.

Today, I invite you to take a look at these two interesting articles.

• "Open Letter to European Leaders on Europe’s Banking Crisis"

Europe is in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. Every European knows what happened when financial markets seized up in the dark years of the 1930s. It is not an exaggeration to say that it could happen again if governments fail to act. We are not predicting that it will happen, but it is critical to know that this is what is at stake.

• The smoking gun

By general accord, much of the current financial crisis arises from "regulatory failure", something to which numerous references have been made, not least by the shadow chancellor over the weekend, when he complained that "Gordon Brown's regulatory mechanism has comprehensively failed".

Today's article will be on a major French EU Media namely Touteleurope.fr.

Description

Touteleurope.fr is French web portal on European issues set by the French European Centre of Information in May 2006.

In the scope of the French EU Presidency, Touteleurope.fr is currently leading a project called "Paroles d'Européens" meant to give young French citizens the opportunity to give their opinion about the EU in different cities of France (successively Marseille, Lyon, La Rochelle, Paris, Nantes, Paris). Next interactive event is planned in Nantes, a city I particularly cherish and cherished because I am from there. Just take a look at their DailyMotion's channel to see their vibrant interviews (in French only).

Evaluation of positive / negative aspects

The originality of Touteleurope.fr is probably its use of web 2.0 tools (Del.icio.us, Facebook Group, FlickR, Netvibes Universe, etc.) which seems to perfectly fit with their web-publishing strategy. Indeed, not only do they produce articles and analysis, but also run a regularly updated blog (eToile). As far as I am concerned, one of their main interesting production has been a Cartography of the European webosphere and blogosphere showing who links to whom and which sites have the highest influence (and which should be updated as noted by Jon Worth).
On of the criticism might the absence of a multilingual policy compared to other well-established French EU media (Les Euros du Village is published four languages,  Café Babel in seven ones, etc.).

Popularity

Thanks to his high-quality articles and analysis plus its web 2.0 strategy, Touteleurope.fr (PageRank : 7/10) is very well-positionned on a number of key topics. However, their blog has only a Technorati rank of 29.

Today's post will be about Café Babel an European affairs magazine well-known for its EU blog platform. Don't hesitate to correct me if I am wrong.

• Description

Café Babel was created in 2001 by European students to trigger the debate about EU issues among the young Europeans. 8 years after its launch, Café Babel is definitely a big boy in the EU media landscape.

Café Babel describes itself as the "the first multilingual European current affairs magazine" essentially based on on participatory journalism mainly targeting a young audience namely "the first generation living Europe on a day-by-day basis thanks to the Erasmus study exchange programme". Indeed, CafeBabel estimates that about 73% of its audience is composed of "students and young professionals" (18-35 years old). These readers, being familiar with the use of Internet technologies, have many ways to contribute to CaféBabel. As a collaborative European magazine, Café Babel has about 80 active blogs from about 8 countries and 8 Fora. Worth articles are usually displayed on the homepages by sections (Culture, Economy, World Affairs, Society, etc.).

• Evaluation of positive / negative aspects

As far as I am concerned, Café Babel is an extraordinary community-based European platform and its develop model rely mainly on its young, enthusiastic and participatice Babelians readers. Another strengh is multilingualism. Indeed, though the main content is available in English and French. The magazine is also partially translated into Spanish, Italian, Polish, Catalan and German.

However, its main strengh can is be a "double-edged sword". Indeed, compared to Blogactiv - strictly EU-focused platform with "Guru Bloggers" - the content of Café Babel looks rather "younger".

• Popularity

Café Babel has a Page Rank (7/10) but - as noted by Nosemonkey - a strangely low Technorati rank. From my humble point of view, the positioning of Cafe Babel could certainly be improved having more than 80 active Babel Blogs...

As I reffered in my first post, Blogactiv - the EU blog platform launched by EurActiv.com at the end of 2007 - will be today's subject. For any EU media / EU blog, I will follow the same methodological approach in three points.

1. Description
2. Evaluation of positive / negative aspects
3. Popularity

I will try to be fair and honest but  if you think I've forgotten an important aspect, just drop a comment.

•  Description

If we reffer to the About Page, Blogactiv is blog platform dedicated to European affairs launched by EurActiv.com. Launched in 2007, it  has been growing very fast and reached an important and tailored readership thanks to its integration with EurActiv.com Network.

Looking at the Bloggers Page, it has about 30 worth "really active" bloggers (I mean bloggers having post more than 10 times) in its community.

• Evaluation of positive / negative aspects

Launched in 2007 in alpha version, then in bêta in early 2008 and finally relaunched ("reloaded") with a new design and additional feature in June 2008, Blogactiv is clearly a dynamic and innovative platform. Moreover, it offers a wide range of services thanks to its powerful open-source infrastructre (Wordpress MU) and the dedicated technical team behind. Just take a lot at the Support Blog.
But why blogging on Blogactiv?

Well, if you want to open a blog on European affairs, Blogactiv seems to be the best platform to do it. You can reach quickly and easily a wide and tailored readership. Indeed, if you open a blog on another blog platform like Blogger, who will care about your blog? It should take some times before you got any visits / comments even if your articles are excellent.
The problem might be that the community hasn't reach a critical number of bloggers. Indeed, comments rate is not impressive (even if one could object me that one article of Blogactiv blogger Richard Hill got the historical number of comments of 178 comments!). One other problem is that Blogactiv is still 90% english-speaking. It's just a pity that French or German is not better represented! Multilinguism is to be a challenge to achieve!

• Popularity

Well, a PageRank of 7/10 and Technorati Rank of 122 (which is fairly good in comparison of other 'Big Boys' as said Nosemonkey in his EU Blog Directory). Some blogger - like Stanley Crossick - who's been only blogging for 9 months - has already a PageRank of 6/10. I know PageRank is not everything but it remains an interesting and reliable indicator of the popularity of a website. From these figures - and because of its integration EurActiv.com Network, we can deduce that they must have an interesting amount of traffic. However, statistics are not disclosed.

But what does the EU media / EU blogs think about it?

Well, of course the Eurosceptics have been yelling at this supposedly "EU-funded artificial grass-roots" blog platform (Devil's Kitchen as an example). Even europtismists have been defiant against Blogactiv like Jon Worth who thaught  in February 2008 that there is "little incentive for someone like me to join Blogactiv." . However, recent moves show that Blogactiv try to be more inclusive and progressively reachs out the EU blogosphere. Four innovations makes me came to this conclusion.

• The Blogactiv Blogroll
• The Blogactiv Netvibes
• The "European Blogosphere Search Engine" with a database of more than 170 EU blogs
• The Meta-Agregator of EU blog posts displayed on the left-hand column of the homepage

These new features are encouraging.

Wait and see what will be the surprises for the year 2009!

Here is a short "Hello Post!" to introduce you my blog which - as the title clearly states - will be on EU media, EU blogs and EU politics. My modest goal is to give you personal - though accurate - relevant comments about what's going on the EU media landscape and general EU politics.