News portal Watson starts operation
Watson started operations on the evening of January 22, 2014. The news portal aims to establish itself with a young, mobile readership and is cooperating with Spiegel Online.
According to the press release, the company wants to offer an independent mix of news, sports, digital and entertainment. This is ensured by a team of over 50 journalists, designers, marketing people and developers in Zurich. Until recently, more than 40 of them worked at 20 Minuten Online. Content benefits Watson from an exclusive cooperation with Spiegel Online. The cooperation gives Watson access to the content of almost 300 journalists who publish on Spiegel Online. With a responsive design that adapts to any screen size, Watson also wants to stand out visually from the competition. Native apps are being developed for Apple and Android users. Their launch is planned for the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
According to the statement, Watson's target group is digitally native, affluent, urban, connected - and above all mobile. The offer is free of charge. A paywall is not planned. In the area of advertising, Watson offers new forms of native advertising in addition to banners, which aim to make intelligent use of the possibilities offered by smartphones in particular.
Behind Watson is the Zurich media start-up Fixxpunkt, which was founded in April 2013 by the former editor-in-chief of 20 Minuten Online, Hansi Voigt. Since May 2013, he and a development team of around 15 have been driving forward the technical and content development of the portal and have developed their own CMS from scratch. Since November 2013, AZ Medien and BT Holding - the holding company of publisher Peter Wanner - have held a majority stake in Fixxpunkt.
