French Publishers Fight Back With a Communal Digital Newsstand

NYTimes: "PARIS — With sales of newspapers and magazines flagging at the ornate kiosks that adorn the boulevards of Paris, French publishers hope that a planned 'digital kiosk' can help revive their fortunes. The publishers, representing eight of the leading dailies and weeklies in France, said last week that they had formed a consortium to manage the project, which aims to create a single online portal to sell the publications’ contents via the Web, mobile phones and tablet computers like the Apple iPad. Consumers could buy articles or subscriptions with a single click of a mouse once they had created an account. 'The idea is to put a value on online content,' said Frédéric Filloux, a former newspaper editor who is heading the project. 'It’s a matter of survival for us.' ..."