“Our clients seek attention for their news, so we designed a new website with our clients’ audiences in mind: traditional media, the financial community and bloggers,” said Carolyn McGill, CNW President and CEO. “The new site is rich with features that will help professional users get more out of our clients’ content and help them do their jobs better.”

The CNW website at newswire.ca is the most visited source of news releases, webcasts and multimedia content issued by Canadian organizations. Much of the traffic to the site originates from traditional and online news media and from brokers, analysts and others in Canada’s top financial districts. The new newswire.ca website will make it easier for these professional users to find and share news releases and multimedia content, and to explore the site for in-depth information about issuing organizations.

“Increasingly, consumers of news and information are requesting more multimedia content. Our new website design means that every news release can easily become an Enriched News Release with the simple addition of photos, video and social tools,” says Ms. McGill. “The transformed CNW website will help communications professionals reach their goals by giving the media, markets and consumers what they have requested. The power of the Enriched News Release is in its ability to reach web audiences with engaging content. The days of the plain text news release are gone – the Enriched News Release delivers the video, photos and graphics that web audiences demand, all attractively displayed as a single package of content. The new CNW website is a powerful showcase for that content.”

Find it faster
Users of the new CNW website can locate content with exacting precision using an intelligent, filtered search system.  Search filters can then be saved for later use, or users can subscribe to an automatically-updating feed of new results via RSS. They can also save news releases to a folder for later reading – helpful when researching a story, or when a headline sparks a new story idea.

At the core of the new newswire.ca website is the adaptive and relevant user experience, powered by Endeca, a technology used by leading media and eCommerce companies around the globe.

"CNW is on the forefront of innovation in the media industry, offering news consumers an interactive user experience across all of their online content," said John Andrews, vice president, marketing and product management at Endeca. "As audience expectations become more sophisticated and online competition continues to grow, CNW is realizing the benefits of differentiating its online presence to effectively engage its users. With Endeca technology, CNW allows users the ability to experience content and information in an intuitive way."

Share online or in the news
CNW has designed its new website to showcase multimedia assets and make them easy to share, download, embed and repurpose on the web.

As media outlets evolve to a digital-first approach to news gathering and reporting, communications professionals are under increasing pressure to provide multimedia assets with a news release to give blog posts and news stories greater appeal for online viewing.

To enable this evolution, CNW has introduced its new enriched news release offering: a hybrid of traditional text newswire distribution and the static CNW Social Media Release that combined text, links, multimedia and social tools on a webpage hosted by CNW.

All news releases are now published together in a single newsfeed, displayed in an attractive, magazine-like format. CNW clients can choose to add multimedia to their newswire-issued news release and moderated comments.

Explore for more
CNW’s new website users can dig deeper and learn more about the organizations issuing news releases. Events, financial details and Organization Profiles add a new level of depth to content on newswire.ca.

CNW’s popular Media Daybook and Weekly Look-Ahead Calendar and webcast listings are now available on a new Online Events calendar, viewable by date, type (webcast or on-site event) or by map location. These new features have been designed to help newsrooms manage resources as effectively as possible.

The new Organization Profile feature gives journalists, online audiences and the financial community easy access to additional details within the context of a news release. The profiles provide a company logo, description, contacts and a dynamic market performance section (for public companies) that includes links to financial news releases and current stock performance information. Also featured is a real-time listing of an organization’s news releases, photos and videos issued using the CNW Newswire.

The new newswire
The backbone of the newswire.ca website has always been the CNW Newswire feed. Updated numerous times over its 51-year history, the CNW Newswire is currently powered by XHTML, a robust, web-based technology that enables simultaneous text and multimedia distribution. CNW Newswire recipients can now receive text and associated multimedia, such as photos, together in one single file, allowing them to see the news opportunity as a whole with easy access to all the elements they need to build a story.

“Today, we need more than just the printed word, we need video, audio – we need the multimedia components that the new CNW file provides,” said Scott Anderson, senior vice president of Content, Postmedia Network. “CNW has led the way in creating a tool that staff can utilize day-to-day.”

The new CNW Newswire also ensures that news websites such as TMX.com, Globe Investor, Sympatico.ca and Yahoo! Canada can optimize their sites to display CNW’s newswire feed in a more attractive way, creating greater appeal for their own audiences.

Join the conversation
CNW's blog Beyond the Wire will be highlighting features of its new website. Visit blog.newswire.ca for more information.

Feedback from professional news consumers is welcomed at feedback@newswire.ca.

In 2009, CNW and Leger Marketing conducted the first Social Media Reality Check, a unique study that explored professional communicators’ use of social media compared with consumer opinions about social media influence on their purchasing behavior. Now, two years later, the Social Media Reality Check 2.0 has revealed insight into how social media use has grown; campaign objectives and measurement, as well as gaps and overlaps in PR practitioner perception and the consumer reported reality.

“Social media continues to be one of the most quickly evolving areas of the public relations profession; not to mention a hot topic of discussion both online and off,” said Laurie Smith, Vice President, Culture and Communications at CNW. “Two years is a long time in the online world and much has changed. We are very excited to partner again with Leger Marketing to re-examine the results of the 2009 Social Media Reality Check and see what’s new.”

Twitter use continues to grow

There’s no denying the impact of Twitter on the social media scene in the past two years. In 2009, only 39% of communications professionals reported using Twitter in their professional life. In 2011, Twitter usage has jumped to 76% among this group. Their audience, however, is only using Twitter 32% of the time.  While this is still significantly less, it highlights a 300% growth in the past two years, up from 8% in 2009.

The practitioner/audience gap is closing

While Facebook and YouTube are still the top two go-to sites for users, others that have surged in usage (besides Twitter) since the 2009 study include Wikipedia, Skype and LinkedIn. And it seems that communication professionals are now in tune with consumer users – in 2009 there was a disconnect between these two groups when it came to top site usage. Now practitioners are also using LinkedIn and Skype significantly more.

The influence of social media on consumers

Despite only half of respondents stating that online reviews influence their purchasing behavior, 37% of consumers say that they have purchased a product they heard about on social media first. Consumers agree that social media influences smaller purchasing decisions such as which books to read and music to buy.

Rising social media budgets

The number of organizations that have a budget devoted to social media have doubled since 2009 (from 15% to 30%), and 32% of professionals surveyed this year say they have a dedicated social media team in place.

Objectives remain informal

Awareness (66%) and generating dialogue (59%) were the top objectives for social media campaigns in 2009. This year, visibility (73%) and awareness (70%) top the list. However, campaign objectives remain largely informal with little change vs. 2009 (26% vs. 31% respectively saying that they have formal, measurable objectives in place).

“The results of the Social Media Reality Check 2.0 survey revealed some interesting trends and changes over the last two years,” said Dave Scholz, Vice President and General Manager of Leger’s Toronto office. “Keeping the pulse on audiences’ changing uses of social media will give PR practitioners valuable information that may be useful in designing social media campaigns in the future.”

This year, the scope of the survey was expanded to include US PR practitioners and consumers, as well as investor relations professionals and institutional investors.

More results from the Social Media Reality Check 2.0 will be presented at the Canadian Public Relations Society Annual Conference on Tuesday, June 7. Laurie Smithand Dave Scholz will share the Canadian results of the 2011 survey and what it all means for public relations practitioners.

To join the ongoing conversation on the Social Media Reality Check, visit Beyond the Wire at http://blog.newswire.ca.

To request a copy of the full report, contact Amanda Laird at amanda.laird@newswire.ca.

This survey was conducted among 1,039 users of social media and 590 practitioners. With a sample of this size, results of the user study can beconsidered accurate to within +/-3.04% and results of the practitioners can beconsidered accurate to within +/-4.03% at the 95% confidence level, 19 times out of 20.

“The addition of Sympatico.ca to our web video distribution network dramatically increases the potential audience for our clients’ web video content,” says Tim Griffin, Director, Product Management, Multimedia Group. “Sympatico.ca has consistently proven to be a popular destination for online video viewing and we’re thrilled to offer our clients the added exposure that availability on Sympatico.ca entails.”

The only Canadian newswire company to distribute video content to Sympatico.ca, CNW now offers web video clients unparalleled reach for their video news. As online video audiences continue to grow, it is especially important for clients to distribute their videos as widely as possible.

“As one of Canada’s premier online destinations, Sympatico.ca is always looking for ways to provide our viewers with more quality content,” said Gavin Lucas, Product Manager for Video at Sympatico.ca. “We feel that this new partnership with CNW – which complements our already established CNW news release feed – is another great way to keep our viewers informed.”

CNW’s XHTML-powered newswire feed paves the way for the simultaneous distribution of text news releases and multimedia such as photos and videos directly into newsroom editorial terminals and web distribution points. Combined with CNW’s web video distribution network, which includes Newswire.ca, the most frequently used bilingual news release site in Canada, Sympatico.ca and the most important video sharing sites such as YouTube, CNW offers clients’ video content a potential audience reach in the millions.

Each panelist provided a unique perspective on the changing media landscape and the role of public relations, but one thing was clear: when it comes to delivering your news with impact, multimedia is no longer a nice-to-have but a must.

“If you took photos and video out of how you consume media, it wouldn’t be the same experience,” said Chris Hogg. “Multimedia is hugely important, whether you’re in the editorial department or on the business side. Having multimedia and having multiple forms of content helps execute multiple goals as a news organization.”

In particular, journalists and editors are looking for photos for use in print and on the web.

“I’m always looking for art to go with stories,” said Sarah Millar. “A selection of photos is key because every website is different. Ask me how many I’d like and we can go from there.”

The event, moderated by CNW president Carolyn McGill, was part of CNW’s award-winning Breakfast with the Media series.

“CNW began hosting Breakfast with the Media events 21 years ago to give PR professionals insight into the day of a working journalist,” says Carolyn McGill, president, CNW Group. “CNW is in a unique position to connect communicators and the media so both can overcome the challenges of working in today’s digital environment.” 

Full video coverage of the event is available for viewing here.

Read CNW’s blog, Beyond the Wire, to keep up to date with CNW’s upcoming events.

Chris Hogg, CEO, Digital Journal; Anjali Kapoor, Managing Editor, Digital, The Globe and Mail and Sarah Millar, Web Editor, The Toronto Star, will discuss how news has evolved and why multimedia is now essential for delivering your news with impact. Moderated by Carolyn McGill, President and CEO, CNW Group.

What: CNW Breakfast with the Media – The Multimedia News Evolution 

When: Friday, April 15, 2011
7:30 am – Breakfast & Registration
8:00 am – Presentation

Where: Bram & Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library    
789 Yonge Street, Toronto

Breakfast with the Media events are compliments of CNW.

For more information and to register to attend the live event visit:

http://guestlistapp.com/events/49836. A video archive will be made available following the event.

Tweeting about CNW’s Breakfast with the Media? Use hashtag #cnw.

Users of CNW’s MediaVantage now have a more complete picture of what’s being said about them as a result of new enhancements to its already-powerful search engine.

“As more consumers move online, it becomes imperative for professional communicators to know what’s being said about their brands online, in both social media and online news outlets,” said Carolyn McGill-Davidson, President and CEO, CNW. “MediaVantage’s latest release gives users access to more content within a highly efficient user interface.”

Highlights of the release include:

Expanded Social Media Content
MediaVantage now includes the full breadth of social media, alongside extensive Internet News coverage.

• MediaVantage draws content from the most influential posters (e.g. Top 400,000 blogs) and public content from the most popular social sites (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Flickr), providing users access to significantly more online content.
• Users can chose to view only the social media sources of interest to them, filtering out noise and irrelevant content.

Tonality Scoring
MediaVantage now includes automated tonality scoring for English Internet News and social media. This new functionality allows users to understand overall coverage and tone over time, without manually reviewing and scoring each clip.

Improved Search Results Interface
MediaVantage includes a refined user interface for viewing and processing search results. This allows users to:

• Filter desired results more effectively (e.g. by Date, Source, Type)
• Scan and browse search results more efficiently (e.g. controlling display preferences for records per page, whether summaries are displayed, etc.)
• More effectively save and score clips, if desired.

“CNW has expanded the audience for our clients’ photos beyond that of any comparable service,” said Nicole Guillot, Vice President, Product Management and Operations, CNW. “CNW clients are sure to benefit from increased photo pick-up given the high volume of media traffic to the Newscom site.”

Today’s media need compelling multimedia assets to run with stories, both online and off. Now in its fifth year, CNW Photo Services offers a cost-effective, one-stop solution for business photography needs. CNW clients can book a photographer, deliver images to newsrooms and archive photos in an online, media-accessible database.

Users of CNW’s proprietary photo archive include 1,900 representatives from every major Canadian print media organization, most television stations, numerous radio stations and media websites, online news sites and blogs.. Photos are also featured atop the popular CNW newswire.ca website as they are distributed and are returned in search results related to the issuing organization, along with relevant news releases and video.

CNW’s XHTML newsfeed enables distribution of multimedia assets such as photos, video and audio files within the body of a news release over the wire, ensuring newsrooms have greater access to multimedia support for their stories than ever before. XHTML enables CNW’s evolution of the newswire, from news release to news package.

CNW has adopted XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) as a new formatting standard for news release processing and distribution across the Web and into newsrooms and financial centres coast to coast.

“It’s all part of CNW’s reinvention of the newswire,” said Carolyn McGill Davidson, president and CEO. “Among other benefits, moving to XHTML formatting allows us to create and distribute better looking, more functional releases that are more suitable to online use. CNW clients are thrilled.”

CNW News Centre Associates use proprietary editing software to prepare client news releases for distribution over the newswire. Until now, CNW adhered to limited ANPA-1312 formatting standards set long ago by the American Newspaper Publishers Association for receipt of newswire transmissions and news story formatting.

“It didn’t make sense to distribute our newswire feed in a format that no one could receive,” said McGill Davidson. “So we stayed with ANPA until the recent growth of online newsrooms and the increased demand for multimedia content presented the perfect opportunity for us to work with newsrooms on a move to the rich and robust format supported by XHTML.“

CNW is the only newswire provider to accommodate newsrooms through this transition by supporting both ANPA and XHTML delivery. This transition will provide numerous benefits to recipients of the CNW Newswire feed, including easier access to much-needed multimedia files and more flexibility for coding and filtering the content they receive.

The Globe and Mail/Globe Investor, TSX, Money.ca, Yahoo & Yahoo Canada, Sympatico.ca, Moneysense.ca, Tickertech.com, Financials.com, Quotemedia.com, Stockwatch.com and more than a dozen others are upgrading to CNW’s new XHTML feeds and are already displaying or testing CNW news releases on their websites in the new format.

All news releases issued through CNW’s newswire networks now support:

• Bold, italic and underlined text
• Wider financial tables in HTML, preserving the look of the original document
• Full text alignment: centered, right and left
• Bullet points and bulleted list (ordered and unordered)
• Superscript and subscript including footnote
• Anchor text/hyperlinked keywords
• Specialized characters (œ, Æ, Ë, ®and ©)
• Content is tagged (headline, sub headline, text, tables and contact information) so that recipients’ systems can automatically extract the exact data they need

From news release to news package

Formatting releases with XHTML opens other doors on a new future for the news release. XHTML enables transmission of data other than text, giving CNW the potential to distribute multimedia assets within the body of a news release over the wire and having it display at the receiving end packaged together in the correct way – a reasonable expectation that was simply not possible using ANPA.

“XHTML allows full flexibility and customization to the end user to control how they display and use the content we send them,” said Nicole Guillot, Vice President, Product Management and Operations. “With the inclusion of multimedia assets, better tagging and social content, the control we give the end user is unmatched. This is the true power of XHTML.”

XHTML formatted news releases also include robust metadata tags that send extra information into the newsroom. These tags allow CNW to distribute descriptions of news release content along with each release to allow for better parsing within newsrooms and online, helping journalists and website users to find news releases quickly and easily.

With this metadata, releases that make it onto online publications will also benefit from enhanced visibility and searchability – leading to improved search engine optimization (SEO) and increasing the potential reach for clients’ messages.

CNW clients who subscribe to CNW’s MediaRoom service will notice XHTML formatted news releases now populating their websites. Also benefitting from XHTML formatting is the CNW Newswire site at newswire.ca, CNW’s Media Daybooks and Weekly Look-Ahead Calendars –essential elements of all newsrooms. CNW’s Portfolio Email subscribers now also receive their news in the new format.

Newsrooms of the future

“As newsrooms evolve, media outlets are adapting to new technological standards and finding ways to share news in multiple formats. Even so, the change to XHTML required a proactive move on CNW’s part to encourage newsrooms to cast aside decades-old requirements for editorial newsfeeds and help guide them into the 21st Century,” said Senior Vice President, David Milliken. “For almost two years, CNW has been working with newswire feed recipients in traditional and online newsrooms to upgrade their ANPA-based editorial systems to receive feeds formatted in XHTML.”

CNW has always led the market in technological change. CNW was the first newswire in Canada to adopt satellite distribution, then IP over Internet, and now true XHTML processing and distribution.

Over time, CNW’s goal is to help all its newswire feed recipients move away from ANPA so they can benefit from XHTML delivery. In the meantime, clients can be confident that CNW will keep its promise to provide the broadest possible reach for their news by presenting multiple newswire feed formats.

Media wishing to sign up for CNW’s XHTML newswire feed can contact John Mania, CNW’s Director of Product Management, at john.mania@newswire.ca or by phone 416-863-5628 for further information.