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WALKING THE LINE WITHEUROPE
Europe Online (EOL)
is the first European
multimedia internet site
EOL unites all aspects of politics,
sport, the arts and travel
The internet site by Europeans for the rest
of the world will go online in the autumn
of 2009 and will in the initial stages be
formatted in German and English. Future
Steps include widening the formatted languages to French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.
Travel Magazine: From a tourist’s point of view the internet is unstructured and rather hit and miss. EOL will show
the continent in a bird’s eye view with a simple mouse-click
and will share it’s secrets with all prospective travellers with
fun, well thought out and well-structured tours for example; The Tour d’Amour, Tour Sportive, Tout de Torture, Tour
Romantique and Tour de Nature.
Despite the everincreasing importance
of globalised markets and international
politics both regional and national media
often overlook issues addressed and decisions made in Strasbourg and Brussels. The
European institutions and mechanisms are
basically unknown to the general public.
EOL aims to make European politics more
transparent.
Arts Magazine: EOL ‘Art Affairs’ is a worldwide network
of artists and experts who are on a mission to discover new
trends and to report on artists, exhibitions and performances of note happening Europewide. Apart from the above the
main focus will be on the largest virtual online gallery in
Europe and an art-community forum in which Europe’s artists, critics, and art-lovers can exchange ideas and discuss
current topics.
Sports Magazine: EOL Sports will report Europe’s sporting
news concisely and precisely and provides a network
for Europe’s sportsmen and women with tour tips.
For example Mountain-bike World Champion Marco
Hösel (Men’s 20) describes some of Europe’s top
trails; Nordic Walking Champion Hella Holzbauer
tells of her favourite routes between the Alps and the
Zittauer Mountains; Para-glider Petra Slivova invites you to join her on a virtual Transeuropean flight.
What makes us unique?
The First Contact in Europe:
EOL shows you who the people
are behind the institutions in
Strasbourg and Brussels, the
personalities who work on the
organisational side and the elected representatives. Who are the
decision-makers, and who moves
the scenery? The editors discuss
the background and prepare
conferences and forums for the
public. Partner institutions from
the various states provide local
information and news.
Europe in your Hands:
‘Yourope’ is a pan-European
forum, a virtual Round Table for
young and old with blogs, videos
and podcasts. There are services
provided from car-sharing schemes for one-off trips to flat-swapping, from community issues to
an online swapshop.
Dissidents Soapbox: The ‘Maison des Journalistes’ in Paris
provides a safe haven for persecuted Media representatives from
over 100 countries. EOL provides
a forum for them and other dissidents from all over the world. The
‘EOL-Stiftung für Pressefreiheit’
(EOL support fund for Free Press)
supports these people and their
families and is active in the fight
for Democracy and freedom of
speech. EOL aims to be the centre
of the global, intellectual resistance.
The First Continental Travel
Guide: EOL travel considers the
whole of Europe as a united travel
opportunity. Europe from the
perspective of experts and passionate travellers all-inclusive!
The editors will provide tips and
‘must-sees’ and ‘must-dos’ which
might just take you off the beaten
track.
Travel Calculator for Individuals:
EOL travel summarises what the
individual wants. A travel calculator will take into account the
individuals wishes and specifications when planning a route
for example between London and
Cologne. The personal preferences
such as 4 star hotels, Cathedrals,
golf courses will be taken into
consideration, the route planned
with all the highlights, an itinerary provided with all driving and
flight options and a link to ticket
services.
We are Europe: In all aspects
and at all levels the journal, the
arts forum and the travel magazine will approach the topics from
a wide angle, and will zoom in
to show the necessary detail. All
the European member states right
down to the micro regions and
communities are shown. The site
will receive new information daily from travel reporters keeping
the pages up to date.
Technical and
Graphic Design
Tailor Made: A team of programmers and software designers have devised a content-management solution for the EOL project that enables
global development possibilities but remains
easily usable.
Sensible but with Soul: Design, user-interface
and visual structure have been developed by
experts for a aesthetically pleasing and timeless
style. The News items are short and concise. the
travel reports tasteful and exciting.
Quality and Language: EOL proves it’s standing with high quality reports and pictures. All
the leading articles are written or controlled by
the central editing team, daily and regional articles from partner media groups and agencies are
then added to compliment the finished product.
Icons and Looks: To compliment the individual
look of the Travel and Art sections a completely
new picture language has been developed. EOL
photographers have been covering the most important points of interest in Europe. EOL graphic
artists have been illustrating and optimising the
artistic and philosophical content.
The Target User
The Clients
Accumulative Groups: These are groups in a position to pass on the information to a wider audience.
Europeans with interests in political, business and
cultural aspects of life. We also target EU members and
professionals directly involved in politics from a local
to an international level but also school children and
students.
Business Clients: Travel Agents (including but not
exclusively from USA, China, Russia, and Japan)
can use EOL as their online travel guide and offer the tours as part of a travel itinerary. Tourism
representatives from all around the globe can use
EOL as a platform for their products or tours, as
of course can the entire tourism market, from hotel
chains to golf clubs.
Tourists from all Countries: EOL travel will enable
non-Europeans a fast and easy look at the highlights
they might otherwise miss on a spontaneous trip to
Europe, from USA, China, or Japan. But also Europeans themselves will get a new perspective on the old
continent. There will be insider tips from over 50 experts, including unique tours, combining the planning
of routes to include personal interests and services for
each individual traveller. This will open up a completely new dimension of travel planning to all potential
users.
Private Clients: EOL is a practised travel aid. Here
you will find tips for every kind of travel, from carsharing schemes to a sofa bed for the night, from a
villa-swap to an all-in weekend at Dracula’s Castle.
A perfect environment for real estate agents, an online market offering everything from a flat or houseswap to the search for an au pair girl or university
and college places. The immense scope of the internet
is put to use here, because every click from Afghanistan to Zanzibar brings in revenue.
Communities: The art section shows by example
how the EOL communities can be integrated. Using a
Europe-wide network of special and specific interests a
contact or forum can be used to bring together what belongs together. Artists can find partners, colleagues, or
even a market for their creations on a worldwide stage
or can join in the debate on any number of subjects.
New Deal: the owners of google, Sergey Brin and
Larry Page were willing to pay 1.31 billion US
dollars for the online private video portal youtube.
Our business concept has taken into account the
likely interest of the giants of the business. That is
why EOL is working on perfecting the contents and
services, and building communities and networks.
Mixed Media and
Event-Marketing
Print: That the oldest and most established corporations are becoming aware of the power and importance of hip online portals is clear. ZDF is at now
testing this with a working partnership with Yahoo.
EOL is available for such a partnership with publishing houses or media companies.
Print on Demand: EOL-users will be able to have
their very own individually specified travel route
guide printed for €14.95 and have it sent to their
homes with all the service information included.
EOL Parties: Constantly changing locations will be
used by EOL with partners, communities, artists’
circles or active underground groups to host multimedia parties and gatherings, perhaps with a business partner who is trying to establish themselves,
for instance a new chain of coffee shops.
Googleads: The right margin, the
skyscraper, is for the googleads
relevant to the page being viewed.
This is a method without risk
or effort on our part but still
provides real cash flow. We can
also place ads from authorised
sponsors, whose trust in the EOL
philosophy and concept would be
credited by the placement in such
a high-profile window.
Network
Co-operation: A small team of editors similar in
structure to the Wikipedia concept will organise
and compliment a network of partners Europewide. The latter provide journalistic and travel
information and reports. The advantages are
numerous, but the local partner will have a worldwide forum for it’s news and/or problems, instead
of fighting for recognition on a smaller stage.
Networks: The visionary organisation enables
the use of volunteers, users, students and adventurers, who want to be part of this fascinating project from the beginning and to aid in the construction and development of this new site. The travel
reports and news items will be translated into the
most important languages, feeding the communities and individuals it aims to serve.
Tourist Agencies: The content will be complimented by free and/or low-cost reports and information from smaller agencies Europewide.
Franchise Fees: All Media-partners will receive
70% of the advertising revenue. 30% will provide
funds for the development of the effective infrastructure that make-up EOL. In the short term
this means the set-up of a Key Account and a PR
organisation here at EOL.
Local Ads: The lower half of the
second column on the right (second of three or four columns accordingly will be decided after the
usability tests) is reserved for the
use of and sale by the local editing
teams. The motivation is increased to sell these spots as the provision is high (70% goes straight
to the local editing teams), and it
also provides local colour to the
regional reports.
Small Ads: Under the titles
‘Market Place’, ‘Housing’ and
‘Carshop’, private ads can placed
by individuals for free, and by
businesses for a fee. The more
users log on, the more attractive
and effective it becomes. This
could also lead to partnerships
with the market leaders (Immowelt, Autoscout etc.) but also with
local businesses and services.
Shop Renting: On every page
there is the possibility of having
online stores that offer relevant
wares or services to the users viewing that particular page, such
as travel services, books, music,
housing, art, kitsch. These stores
can be self-run, but mostly will be
rented. The look and the feel of the
shops will remain EOL, and will
remain under the control of our
designers, so as to always remain
a part of the larger picture. The
potentially huge number of ‘shopkeepers’ would give all a massive
advantage. They profit from the
high profile and high quality scale
of the EOL package and concept,
and also from the huge increase
of their customer base. The partnership is also without risk as the
provision is first due when a sale
is made.
References for Hotel/Catering and Small Businesses:
Of course the potential for small
businesses, restaurants and bars
on such a large scale is infinite.
In order to create a real alternative to the often wordy and easily
misunderstood ‘adverts’ or reports
on offer the development team
Marketing
and Potential
has conceived a completely new,
modern and multimedia ‘Web 2.0’
version for use on the site. Hotels,
restaurants, theme parks, culture
centres and sports facilities can
present themselves with pictures
and films, which will provide a
huge advantage over the competition, especially when one considers the very low start-price of
€49.95 per month. Small businesses will not be able to ignore the
possibility of increasing potential
customer bases immeasurably.
The customer is acquired in two
ways. In order to ensure a complete and exact mail contact the
first contact would be programmeled. Then a call-centre or the local
site would step in to take over
after an assessment of the required quality and criteria.
Sale of Travel Guides: The individually planned and tailor made
guides described above would
be printed and sent worldwide.
This would happen automatically
through a Print-on-Demand service provider who already delivers
photobooks all over Germany.
Sale of Travel
Routes: EOL is
confident in becoming the market
leader in competent
and reliable travel information.
This means EOL is an obvious
partner for travel agencies providing information and services.
The details of an individually planned trip can be sent to different
partners to obtain the best offers.
A provision model would provide
EOL with a fee for every click or
trip sold. The potential partners
include special service operators,
tourist agencies, airlines, booking
and travel agents. Site content
and information is desperately
needed, insiders have known it for
along time- and after researching
the travel press it is clear that the
customer needs more incentive to
spend time on the websites.
Balance: EOL brings together
everything in Europe that belongs
together. The potential detailed
here is by no means complete but
overwhelming, and shows through
it’s sheer size and the named examples the need for a new forum,
for information, discussion and
critique, for advertising and markets. The required critical mass of
users is planned strategically and
based on realistic and plausible
prerequisites. The market research has shown that even small
local publishers with a compact
group of editors and a marketing
team are capable of a turnaround
in 6 figures. EOL aims to be a
multi-level local provider with a
global view, making our aim and
potential very clear.
For further
information please
contact us personally:
Europe Online
Publishing House.
Managing Editor
Jürgen Herda
Europe Online Publishing House GmbH
Weigelstraße 16 • 92637 Weiden • Germany
Email: juergen.herda@europeonline-magazine.eu
Phone: +49 (0)160 9691 5088