20 Minutes: What Every City (and everyone online) Needs

Posted on November 28, 2007
Filed Under Business & Entrepreneurship, Ideas |

Network news demands an hour of your time to get up to speed on the latest happenings, and the local paper takes at a minimum half of that.  I don’t usually have that much time, which is exactly why I like the idea of 20 minutes so much.  Here is what the company is all about:

“20 minutes is a free, high quality newspaper concept targeting morning commuters in major urban areas. The name “20 minutes” refers to the average time that European commuters spend in public transport every working day.

Published every weekday, 20 minutes fills an empty time-slot in the media consumption habits of active urban people. The newspaper gives its readers an update and overview of the most important news and is a useful guide to urban life.

Initially launched in Zurich Switzerland in December 1999, 20 minutes today publishes 27 editions in 3 countries. With a total circulation of more than 2,3 million, 20 minutes reaches more than 5,5 million people five days a week. Our readers are mainly young urban citizens (15-40 years old) that to a lesser extent consume traditional newspapers.”

I can see this same model working in just about any major city, especially those with frequently used public transport systems. 

Although, perhaps an even better use of this model, with a much larger reach, is to create the web version of 20 minutes.  Condensing all of the world’s information into digestible chunks that take an average or 20 minutes to read isn’t easy, but that is exactly why it would be profitable.   This reminds me of the publication The Week, which summarizes all of the major world news into a few paragraphs, and then adds in what the major media outlets and op-eds are saying.  Although, The Week takes a bit longer than 20 minutes to read. 

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