Tag Archives: Europe

Partnering to help curb the spread of terrorist content online

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube are coming together to help curb the spread of terrorist content online. There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies.

Starting today, we commit to the creation of a shared industry database of “hashes” — unique digital “fingerprints” — for violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos or images that we have removed from our services. By sharing this information with each other, we may use the shared hashes to help identify potential terrorist content on our respective hosted consumer platforms. We hope this collaboration will lead to greater efficiency as we continue to enforce our policies to help curb the pressing global issue of terrorist content online.

Our companies will begin sharing hashes of the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos we have removed from our services — content most likely to violate all of our respective companies' content policies. Participating companies can add hashes of terrorist images or videos that are identified on one of our platforms to the database. Other participating companies can then use those hashes to identify such content on their services, review against their respective policies and definitions, and remove matching content as appropriate.

As we continue to collaborate and share best practices, each company will independently determine what image and video hashes to contribute to the shared database. No personally identifiable information will be shared, and matching content will not be automatically removed. Each company will continue to apply its own policies and definitions of terrorist content when deciding whether to remove content when a match to a shared hash is found. And each company will continue to apply its practice of transparency and review for any government requests, as well as retain its own appeal process for removal decisions and grievances. As part of this collaboration, we will all focus on how to involve additional companies in the future.

Throughout this collaboration, we are committed to protecting our users' privacy and their ability to express themselves freely and safely on our platforms. We also seek to engage with the wider community of interested stakeholders in a transparent, thoughtful and responsible way as we further our shared objective to prevent the spread of terrorist content online while respecting human rights.

Celebrating iconic British fashion on Google Arts & Culture

Creativity? Craftsmanship? Iconic Design? Count us in.

With our shared passion for great design, Google and the British Fashion Council are teaming up to bring to life the creativity, heritage and craftsmanship of British fashion--for anyone around the world to enjoy, for free. The project, online at g.co/britishfashion, aims to educate and inspire present and future generations of young fashion creatives, designers and students.

To celebrate its rich history and create new experiences around British fashion, the British Fashion Council has invited fashion icons - designers, makers and craftspeople, creatives, photographers, stylists and models - to come together and use advanced technologies to share their stories.

Visitors will be able to trace the history of British Fashion over the decades, and see giants of the industry - from Alexander McQueen to Vivienne Westwood - in specially curated digital experiences showcasing their stories, work and inspirations. There are over 1,500 gems to explore in over twenty-five multimedia stories and exhibits, more than one hundred and forty videos and three virtual reality experiences, all accessible from anywhere in the world, on desktop, laptop or mobile on iOS and Android.

British Fashion CI

As part of the collaboration, Sarah Mower MBE, the American Vogue Chief Critic and BFC Ambassador, has directed an immersive short film - Fashioning the Future - bringing viewers face-to-face with industry luminaries in virtual reality. Using Google Cardboard or on YouTube via a 360 video, users can be part of a conversation with supermodel Naomi Campbell, designer Anya Hindmarch, creative director Edward Enninful and Joan Burstein, founder of Browns Fashion.

More highlights of the digital collection include:

Sorting their searches by colour and chronology, visitors can also explore rich archival materials from top British fashion institutions such as i-D Magazine, trailblazing 1960s designer Mary Quant, and the milliner Stephen Jones. They will be able to get close to British Fashion’s biggest characters and moments, reliving Kate Moss’s first runway show at London Fashion Week and exploring profiles of the fashion industry’s key players - from David Bailey to Naomi Campbell.

Users will also be able to go behind-the-scenes of top craftspeople and producers of British fashion, learning about the methods and histories of enduring symbols of British heritage. And, in anticipation of London Fashion Week Men’s in January, the site will feature a ‘Spotlight on Menswear’ featuring content from fashion insiders such as Dylan Jones, Jim Chapman and Nick Knight.

To mark the launch of the project, Britain’s Paul Smith has designed a special-edition Google Cardboard and created an online experience around five objects that represent his creative vision and brand.

Cardboard CI

The online exhibition opens today at g.co/britishfashion and is available for free online and through the new Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android. You can watch all the 360 degree videos on YouTube.

Celebrating iconic British fashion on Google Arts & Culture

Creativity? Craftsmanship? Iconic Design? Count us in.

With our shared passion for great design, Google and the British Fashion Council are teaming up to bring to life the creativity, heritage and craftsmanship of British fashion--for anyone around the world to enjoy, for free. The project, found at g.co/britishfashion, will support the Council’s Education Foundation and aims to educate and inspire future generations of young fashion creatives, designers and students.

To celebrate its rich history and create new experiences around British fashion, the British Fashion Council has invited fashion icons - designers, makers and craftspeople, creatives, photographers, stylists and models - to come together and use advanced technologies to share their stories.

Visitors will be able to trace the history of British Fashion over the decades, and see giants of the industry - from Alexander McQueen to Vivienne Westwood - in specially curated digital experiences showcasing their stories, work and inspirations. There are over 1,500 gems to explore in over twenty-five multimedia stories and exhibits, more than one hundred and forty videos and three virtual reality experiences, all accessible from anywhere in the world, on desktop, laptop or mobile on iOS and Android.

British Fashion CI

As part of the collaboration, Sarah Mower MBE, the American Vogue Chief Critic and BFC Ambassador, has directed an immersive short film - Fashioning the Future - bringing viewers face-to-face with industry luminaries in virtual reality. Using Google Cardboard or on YouTube via a 360 video, users can be part of a conversation with supermodel Naomi Campbell, designer Anya Hindmarch, creative director Edward Enninful and Joan Burstein, founder of Browns Fashion.

More highlights of the digital collection include:

Sorting their searches by colour and chronology, visitors can also explore rich archival materials from top British fashion institutions such as i-D Magazine, trailblazing 1960s designer Mary Quant, and the milliner Stephen Jones. They will be able to get close to British Fashion’s biggest characters and moments, reliving Kate Moss’s first runway show at London Fashion Week and exploring profiles of the fashion industry’s key players - from David Bailey to Naomi Campbell.

Users will also be able to go behind-the-scenes of top craftspeople and producers of British fashion, learning about the methods and histories of enduring symbols of British heritage. And, in anticipation of London Fashion Week Men’s in January, the site will feature a ‘Spotlight on Menswear’ featuring content from fashion insiders such as Dylan Jones, Jim Chapman and Nick Knight.

To mark the launch of the project, Britain’s Paul Smith has designed a special-edition Google Cardboard and created an online experience around five objects that represent his creative vision and brand.

Cardboard CI

The online exhibition opens today at g.co/britishfashion and is available for free online and through the new Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android. You can watch all the 360 degree videos on YouTube.

Celebrating iconic British fashion on Google Arts & Culture

Creativity? Craftsmanship? Iconic Design? Count us in.

With our shared passion for great design, Google and the British Fashion Council are teaming up to bring to life the creativity, heritage and craftsmanship of British fashion--for anyone around the world to enjoy, for free. The project, online at g.co/britishfashion, aims to educate and inspire present and future generations of young fashion creatives, designers and students.

To celebrate its rich history and create new experiences around British fashion, the British Fashion Council has invited fashion icons - designers, makers and craftspeople, creatives, photographers, stylists and models - to come together and use advanced technologies to share their stories.

Visitors will be able to trace the history of British Fashion over the decades, and see giants of the industry - from Alexander McQueen to Vivienne Westwood - in specially curated digital experiences showcasing their stories, work and inspirations. There are over 1,500 gems to explore in over twenty-five multimedia stories and exhibits, more than one hundred and forty videos and three virtual reality experiences, all accessible from anywhere in the world, on desktop, laptop or mobile on iOS and Android.

British Fashion CI

As part of the collaboration, Sarah Mower MBE, the American Vogue Chief Critic and BFC Ambassador, has directed an immersive short film - Fashioning the Future - bringing viewers face-to-face with industry luminaries in virtual reality. Using Google Cardboard or on YouTube via a 360 video, users can be part of a conversation with supermodel Naomi Campbell, designer Anya Hindmarch, creative director Edward Enninful and Joan Burstein, founder of Browns Fashion.

More highlights of the digital collection include:

Sorting their searches by colour and chronology, visitors can also explore rich archival materials from top British fashion institutions such as i-D Magazine, trailblazing 1960s designer Mary Quant, and the milliner Stephen Jones. They will be able to get close to British Fashion’s biggest characters and moments, reliving Kate Moss’s first runway show at London Fashion Week and exploring profiles of the fashion industry’s key players - from David Bailey to Naomi Campbell.

Users will also be able to go behind-the-scenes of top craftspeople and producers of British fashion, learning about the methods and histories of enduring symbols of British heritage. And, in anticipation of London Fashion Week Men’s in January, the site will feature a ‘Spotlight on Menswear’ featuring content from fashion insiders such as Dylan Jones, Jim Chapman and Nick Knight.

To mark the launch of the project, Britain’s Paul Smith has designed a special-edition Google Cardboard and created an online experience around five objects that represent his creative vision and brand.

Cardboard CI

The online exhibition opens today at g.co/britishfashion and is available for free online and through the new Google Arts & Culture mobile app on iOS and Android. You can watch all the 360 degree videos on YouTube.

Google’s European Growth Engine: 2 million trained and counting

When we first launched the Growth Engine programme in February 2015 , we set a target of training 1 million Europeans in critical digital skills. Within a year we’d reached our goal, and extended it to 2 million.

Today, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve hit that target -  we’ve now helped 2 million Europeans learn about and improve upon digital skills.

That included people like Carlo Reviglio; now an intern at BikeSquare, a development company that works closely with the Italian tourism company Itaway, which helps tourists rent electric bikes. Carlo learned SEO and digital marketing skills through courses offered as part of Google’s Crescere in Digitale  programme, and was then selected for a traineeship run in partnership with the Italian Ministry of Labour in the framework of the EU Commission Youth Guarantee.  

That traineeship led to his internship with the BikeSquare team, where Carlo has worked to improve the platform’s performance, doubling in the number of e-bike rentals through Itaway in just a year.

Carlo’s success is remarkable--but happily not entirely unique: He’s one of scores of Europeans trained in digital skills through Google programmes. According to the European Commission, almost half the EU population (47%) is not properly digitally skilled, resulting in 700,000 unfilled jobs by 2020 because of this skills gap. Our programmes across Europe have a goal of helping as many people as possible make the most of the digital opportunity brought by the Internet.

With Commissioner Oettinger in Brussels
With Commissioner Oettinger in Brussels

We heard the call from the European Commission and others: we must all work together to fill this skills gap and so today we’re delighted to have this work recognised by Commissioner Günther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Digital Economy. Today Commissioner Oettinger presented our Growth Engine programme with an award for helping businesses and individuals succeed in digital.

Our programmes cater for everyone from entrepreneurs, to small businesses, to app developers and individuals. People of all ages, backgrounds and interests have taken part in our training programmes.

But there’s still more to be done, and so today we pledged to the EU Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition.

Over the coming year, we pledge to continue to support Europeans to gain essential digital skills through the following initiatives:

  • Digital Workshop – our digital skills training programme which provides free online and offline training training to anyone looking to gain essential digital marketing skills, including young job seekers, entrepreneurs and small businesses.

  • Funding 10,000 Android scholarships via Udacity and in partnership with Bertelsmann for EU mobile developers.

  • Computer Science First - a free program focused on increasing 9-14 yo students’ exposure to computer science education, through after-school and in-school programs led by teachers.

We’ll also be deepening our partnership with national, regional and local governments, as well as private sector businesses, to expand our national training programmes beyond the EU.

My hope is that, a year from now, tens of thousands more Europeans will be able to share similar stories to Carlo’s. There’s so much more to do, and we’re here to help.

Google and Bertelsmann launch mobile digital skills initiatives with Udacity – 10,000 Android scholarships available for EU developers

The great thing about the web is that it enables anyone - from anywhere, of any age, and any skillset - to start a new business, grow an existing one, become an entrepreneur, a developer or a content creator or hone a new skill. From Berlin to Birmingham we’ve met people across Europe who are doing just that - developing the digital know-how needed to achieve their dreams.

Like Evrard in France, who works for GreenRiver, a small company providing private cruises along the river Seine and the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris. He joined our training programme Google pour Les Pros, where he was trained by a Google AdWords advisor over three months. He learned how to launch digital marketing campaigns and discovered other tools that helped increase their online visibility. He told us, “After Google pour Les Pros training our business grew by 30% and sales grew by 60% in one year”. Green River is now using Evrard’s learning as a stepping stone to further success.

Evrard is just one of the nearly 2 million people we’ve trained over the last 2 years as part of our Growth Engine programme to help close the digital skills gap among Europeans. And yet there’s still more work to be done. On current projections, the growing gap between skills required and the training that workers receive, has lead the EU to predict that almost a million ICT jobs would remain unfilled by 2020.

That’s why today Google, Bertelsmann (the global media, services and education company) and e-learning provider Udacity are coming together with a goal of closing the mobile digital skills gap in Europe and preparing the new European workforce with the mobile development skills needed to help them get a job or start their own business.

Udacity Android scholarship announcemtn
With Vishal Makhijani of Udacity and Steven Moran of Bertelsmann at Monday's announcement

In Europe, more than half the population primarily uses their mobile phone to access the web, and that’s only increasing. This represents a huge opportunity for ambitious Europeans to join the more than 1.3 million developers in the region benefitting from the advancement of the mobile economy. According to Stackoverflow 2015 study, 42% of developers are self taught and could benefit from acquiring new expertise to take them to the next level. Android tops the list of new languages that developers want to learn.

We want to help, which is why we’re funding 10,000 Android Developer training scholarships across the EU via Udacity. Aspiring developers can apply for one of 9,000 scholarships for an Android Basics course and more experienced programmers for one of 1,000 scholarships for the Associate Android Developer Fast Track, a training course that leads to Android developer certification, a key credential for the industry. Applications are open at https://www.udacity.com/google-scholarships.

At the same time, Bertelsmann will start shifting skill-building and training budgets across its about 1,000 businesses towards ICT, in conjunction with Udacity’s training programs. In addition, starting next year, every qualified apprentice, student and trainee at Bertelsmann - about 2,000 women and men across Europe - will be granted a Nanodegree scholarship.

By getting together with Bertelsmann and Udacity we aim to close the mobile digital skills gap, and help people to get the in-demand skills needed to get a job or advance their career. These scholarships are a chance for all aspiring mobile developers to make the most of the opportunity by mastering accredited digital skills that will put them on the path to success. We look forward to seeing what they do next.

Queen Máxima of the Netherlands marks first anniversary of Digital Workshop

The Netherland’s Queen Máxima visited Google’s Digital Workshop in the Enschede region of the country today to mark the first anniversary of the programme to increase the digital skills of Dutch entrepreneurs.

We introduced the Digital Workshop a year ago in the Netherlands in collaboration with the microfinanciers at Qredits and several municipalities around the country. After a kick-off in Eindhoven in November 2016 and successful iterations in Nijmegen, Groningen, Hilversum, Rotterdam, The Hague and Maastricht, today entrepreneurs in Enschede brushed up their knowledge. Since the start of the programme in the Netherlands, 29,183 Dutch professionals and entrepreneurs have participated.
Her Royal Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands
Queen Maxima of the Netherlands outside the Digital Workshop

Queen Máxima visited the Digital Workplace in her capacity as a member of the Nederlands Comité voor Ondernemerschap en Financiering (the Netherlands Committee for Entrepreneurship and Funding). Among other things she attended a workshop for entrepreneurs on increasing brand familiarity, and talked to entrepreneurs about the opportunities of doing business online and funding growth.

The internet offers significant opportunities for Dutch companies, and via the Digital Workshop, a part of Google’s Growth Engine program across Europe, we want to give entrepreneurs a helping hand with it. We believe in the power of entrepreneurs and the important role they play in the growth of the Dutch economy. Today it’s possible for every entrepreneur to do business worldwide using the internet. Even the smallest entrepreneurs have the ability to find their clients on the other side of the country, or even become a multinational.
Queen Maxima and entrepreneurs
Queen Maxima speaking to Dutch entrepreneurs at the Digital Workshop

Although the Digital Workshop began in the Netherlands with gatherings throughout the country, the programme has now been expanded to online training courses and a Digital Workshop for students. With today’s event, Google is closing in on our target to train 30.000 Dutch entrepreneurs in digital skills--and we’ve one more city to go before the end of the year!

Research has shown that just 20 weeks after completing the program, 79% of the participants has taken one or more actions. They have improved the content of their website, used web analytics,optimized their website for mobile and improved their social media presence. Off all respondents, 63% has spent more time and 22% more budget on learning about the internet and online applications.

The Netherland’s Digital Workshop is one of many we have around Europe, where we’ve pledged to train 2 million Europeans in digital skills by 2017. We’ve seen for ourselves how improving digital expertise can give people new opportunities to grow and develop, and how businesses can flourish with the skills learned at our Digital Workshops.

See here for stories of Dutch success online… we’re encouraged by their progress and looking forward to more!

Debating the openness and opportunity of Europe’s mobile economy

In just the last decade mobile computing has boomed and people around the world have been using mobile devices to do almost everything. Mobile phones that once just allowed you to make phone calls or texts have been replaced by pocket-sized, smart supercomputers that empower consumers to do a wide range of things, from booking restaurant tables, playing games, ordering taxis to doing financial transactions.

Many more of the world’s leading mobile startups are European players, like BlablaCar, Rovio, Spotify or Skyscanner. In fact, 30 of the top 100 apps downloaded globally as measured by App Annie were created right here. At the same time, Europe is the birthplace of some of the fastest-growing mobile manufacturers including BQ, Fairphone or Gigaset who are now competing on the international market.

As this European ecosystem should be encouraged, supported and promoted, we decided to celebrate the Mobile Innovation in several countries. Last week and after Madrid, Paris, Rome and Istanbul, we celebrated the best of Europe’s mobile economy at the Autoworld Museum in Brussels, a place that stands like no other for mobility, innovation and digital transformation. What did we discover? That Europe is a hotbed of innovation for developers.

In Europe, the mobile economy has generated already more than 1.6m jobs with an estimate that, by 2018, the apps sector could create 4.8 million new jobs in the region. At the event, UK-based King, creator of the famous game Candy Crush told their story of rapid growth to over 2000 employees, collecting more than 394 million active users along the way. Linda Griffin, Head of Global Public Affairs, shared with the audience that “access to talent and finding qualified talent are the major challenges and costs for the tech sector”.

The Marseille headquartered device manufacturer WIKO explained how they became the second most sold mobile device brand in France, and Olivier Jeannel from RogerVoice shared how mobile solutions can be a driver for social good. His free application is helping the 70 million deaf people who cannot hear on the phone. He highlighted that “Android openness permitted us to built quickly our tool and to spread it to the world".

Mobile Innovation Day panel
L to R: Olivier Jeannel from RogerVoice, Herve Vaillant of WIKO, Android developer Ash Davies, Fabienne Weibel from Bla Bla Car, Laura Griffin of King with moderator Mishal Husain of the BBC on opportunity of the mobile economy in Europe

Being Brussels, the conversation turned to policy-making. King’s Griffin urged the European Commission that in order for startups to succeed in Europe, the “DSM policy-making must enable more investment and a better attitude to risk”. And Irmfried Schwimann, Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s DG GROW called on all stakeholders to “create an ecosystem where everyone can thrive online” from urban to rural areas.

As demonstrated last week and at events across Europe, app developers, device manufacturers and mobile operators have reaped the benefits of Android, a free, open-source mobile ecosystem in which Google has invested for a decade. Today, we’re proud to count 1,300 brands offering 24,000 distinct Android-based devices and 1,3m individual mobile developers because we believe that competitive ecosystem means better choice and better prices for consumers.

Strong partnerships within this mobile ecosystem--from app developers to device manufacturers and mobile operators--are key to continued success in Europe. Working together, we can ensure that European companies will continue to lead in the field.

Calling European game developers, enter the Indie Games Contest by December 31

Posted by Matteo Vallone, Google Play Partner Development Manager

To build awareness of the awesome innovation and art that indie game developers are bringing to users on Google Play, we have invested heavily over the past year in programs like Indie Corner, as well as events like the Google Play Indie Games Festivals in North America and Korea.

As part of that sustained effort, we also want to celebrate the passion and innovation of indie game developers with the introduction of the first-ever Google Play Indie Games Contest in Europe. The contest will recognize the best indie talent in several countries and offer prizes that will help you get your game noticed by industry experts and gamers worldwide.

Prizes for the finalists and winners:

  • An open showcase held at the Saatchi Gallery in London
  • YouTube influencer campaigns worth up to 100,000 EUR
  • Premium placements on Google Play
  • Tickets to Google I/O 2017 and other top industry events
  • Promotions on our channels
  • Special prizes for the best Unity game
  • And more!

Entering the contest:

If you're based in Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France (coming soon), Germany, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Poland (coming soon), Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, or UK (excl. Northern Ireland), have 15 or less full time employees, and published a new game on Google Play after 1 January 2016, you may now be eligible to enter the contest. If you're planning on publishing a new game soon, you can also enter by submitting a private beta. Check out all the details in the terms and conditions. Submissions close on 31 December 2016.

The process:

Up to 20 finalists will get to showcase their games at an open event at the Saatchi Gallery in London on the 16th February 2017. At the event, the top 10 will be selected by the event attendees and the Google Play team. The top 10 will then get the opportunity to pitch to a jury of industry experts, from which the final winner and runners up will be selected.

Even if someone is NOT entering the contest:

Even if you're not eligible to enter the contest, you can still register to attend the final showcase event in London on 16 February 2017, check out some great indie games, and have fun with various industry experts and indie developers. We will also be hosting a workshop for all indie games developers from across EMEA in the new Google office in Kings Cross the next day, so this will be a packed week.

Get started:

Enter the Indie Games Contest now and visit the contest site to find out more about the contest, the event, and the workshop.

Digital News Initiative: second funding brings €24M to 124 projects across Europe

We are thrilled to announce the second round of funding of the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund, Google’s €150m commitment to spark new thinking and give European news organisations of all sizes the space to try some new things, experiment and innovate in the digital space. Today, project leaders are being notified of funding offers that total €24 million to 124 projects originating from 25 European countries.

In October 2015, we issued the first call for applications to the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund. Since that time our team has had the opportunity to speak to thousands of ambitious European newsrooms, individuals, traditional publishing houses, startups and academics and to discover the stunning amount of research and development going on across the news sector here. With today’s funding announcement, the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund has so far distributed €51M to these efforts, and we’re just getting started.

In this second round of funding, in addition to the main criteria of impact, innovation and project feasibility that were set out as parameters from the outset of the Fund, we looked for projects focused on collaboration. The projects that stood out prioritise collaborative approaches between publishers, academics, designers and entrepreneurs, both within a single country and across Europe.

We received more than 850 project submissions from 25 countries, and of the 124 projects funded today, 43 are committed to the spirit of collaboration and partnership. And among the 30 Large projects selected for funding, 15 are collaborative. We see this collaboration--across countries, across newsrooms and across specialties--as an amazing display of the intent to energise the European news ecosystem with new ideas, new technologies and more.
DNI Fund Round 2

While the list is long--happily so--a few projects are highlighted here as a sampling of this funding round:

Spiegel Online - Germany - in collaboration with Institut für Spielanalyse & TU München
What happens when you mix sports reporting and data science? With EUR 689,116 from the DNI, Spiegel’s collaborative project aims to create an entirely new way for readers and journalists to experience and analyze soccer games. With a goal of using new approaches in data collection, data interpretation and player analysis, Spiegel Online plans to help fans become experts--using novel applications of artificial intelligence.

Corriere della Sera: The Vocal Bot - Italy
With EUR 300,000 in funding, Corriere della Sera will pursue the design of a digital assistant where Corriere della Sera can answer users’ news-related questions on a variety of devices. The ambition is to be able to answer natural language queries such as “Please, tell me the latest on the Brexit” or “Who won today’s GP?.” The “Digital Assistant” will read headlines and articles, search Corriere della Sera’s archives, and scrape the publisher’s digital content for material.

Le Temps SA - Switzerland
The industry agrees that exceptional content increases loyalty and engagement. So with EUR 45,000 in funding, Le Temps is pursuing a tool to resurface and republish the newsroom’s best ‘evergreen’ articles when they relate to current events. Called “Zombie,” the tool will analyse articles on Le Temps’ website using data from both Chartbeat and Google Analytics and apply a score to each piece. At the same time Zombie will analyse web activity for trending topics--which can be matched to Le Temp’s database of content. If so, the tool will alert the newsroom.

The full list of projects offered funding to date can be found at digitalnewsinitiative.com/fund. The Fund is one arm of the Digital News Initiative, which today meets for its annual conference in Berlin. The two additional pillars of focus are Research & Training and Product Development that includes the Accelerated Mobile Pages project and the YouTube Player for Publishers.

The Digital News Initiative now counts 180+ members from across the European news industry and is focused on three pillars of advancement: product development, research and training, and the funding of new journalistic approaches via the Fund.