Entering the Norwegian market and welcoming Eirik H. Urke as Country Manager
We are so incredibly fascinated by how many visitors Norway’s largest tabloid sites attract each week. With a population of 5M people, Norway’s largest tabloid sites VG and Dagbladet, attracts approximately 3.5M respectively. 2.2M visitors every week (TNS-Gallup stats)

70% vs. 50%
If you divide Aftonbladet’s weekly visits (5M) with the Swedish population of 9M you get 55 I.e. 55% of the Swedish population visit Aftonbladet.se each week (this is of course not completely true, as the definition of unique / unique visitor is only unique for a limited period of time). But if you make the same calculation with VG’s statistics you get 70. I.e. 70% of Norway’s population visits vg.no each week.

So of course, Norway is an incredibly attractive market for Shoot it live. Not just for the Internet penetration and tabloid sites visitor statistics, but also how far ahead they are to use the web medium. Several Norwegian sites are heavy users of live reporting with Twitter, chat, Live TV, and we believe now it’s the time for them to start live publish photos and video clips!

“The Norwegian photo journalism’s future is called Eirik H. Urke”
The above has been said several times about our brand new Norwegian Country Manager Eirik H. Urke. After some interesting retweet’s during the spring of 2010, we began to follow Eirik on twitter, and when we were in Norway a few weeks later we hooked up for a cup of coffee. Eirik had exactly the same view of the challenges and future of photojournalism as we had. How the web becomes increasingly more important and how the daily way of working needs to change and adapt.

Say hi to Eirik on twitter, eirik@shootitlive.com or visit his web site gigapix.no
Read Eiriks blog post about joining the Shoot it live team here

“New time for photojournalism”
Eirik posted a very interesting blog post (that quickly got many comments) about this later, “New time for photojournalism” (translated from Norwegian):

“With the introduction of the web, social media and new technology Norwegian photojournalists have better possibilities than ever to improve photojournalism. More photos, more important photos, more recent photos, photos that says more and can reach new readers. There are new business models and generally fantastic opportunities to tell journalistic stories in a new way.

All these possibilities are open to everybody, but are used in a very limited extent by the Norwegian media. Who is it that hold back, is it the Managers or the photographers….”

We are extremely pleased that Eirik H. Urke, with his knowledge, beliefs and extensive network of contacts, is our Country Manager in Norway. Read the full press release below:

Press release, Stockholm 08 sep 2010
Entering the Norwegian market and welcoming Eirik H. Urke as Country Manager
Shoot it live has quickly established itself as the leading service for live publishing of photos in Sweden and Denmark and it is now time to offer Norwegian newspapers Shoot it live

Norwegian newspapers are in the forefront in terms of live reporting by using twitter, chat and live-TV. In proportion to the population Norwegian tabloids are among the world’s largest newspapers on the web. Therefore Voogly AB is now launching Shoot it live on the Norwegian market and welcome Eirik H. Urke as Country Manager in Norway. Eirik has background as a journalist, web editor, and photographer and also holds frequent lectures on the future of photojournalism.

– With the introduction of the web, social media and new technologies Norwegian photojournalists are more likely than ever to improve photojournalism. Shoot it live is a service that allows faster and more important photos that can be monetized and Norwegian newspapers are ready for live publishing, says Eirik H. Urke, Country Manager Norway, Shoot it live

– We are very pleased that Eirik is our Country Manager in Norway and we look forward to soon be able to present our first Norwegian Shoot it live customers, says Martin Levy, Founder and CEO Voogly / Shoot it live.

Shoot it live helps newspapers to live publish professional photos and video clips. The service is intended for websites, where on-the-field photographers publish photos and video clips of current events live as they unfold, from any location with 3G coverage. Shoot It Live / Voogly AB (previously Livebloggen) was founded 2008 and is today used by Scandinavia’s largest newspapers in their online publications.

Shoot It Live: http://www.shootitlive.com
Shoot It Live News: http://www.shootitlive.com/news
Shoot It Live Press (picture/logo): http://www.shootitlive.com/contact

For more information, please contact:

Martin Levy, Founder and CEO, Shoot It Live / Voogly AB
+4673-150 00 22
martin@shootitlive.com

Eirik H. Urke, Country Manager Norway, Shoot It Live / Voogly AB
+479 016 14 07
eirik@shootitlive.com

Voogly AB
Döbelnsgatan 65, Stockholm
E-mail: hello@shootitlive.com