Awards for innovation
COMPANIES at the cutting edge of communications and IT in ship-ping were toasted at the CITIS 2002 Gala Dinner in London with top honours going to a daily electronic newspaper, an evacuation simulator, a collision avoidance trainer and a message management concept, writes Mark Warner.

Besides these awards International Maritime Organisation secretary general William O'Neil received a lifetime achievement award for overseeing introduction of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System.

NewsLink Services won the Innovation in Ships' Communication award for its multinational news service.

Top prize for innovation in IT for ship operation went to BMT SeaTech's maritime Exodus evacuation model software developed with the University of Greenwich.

Videotel Marine clinched the award for innovation in ships' electronic safety and navigation equipment with its CD Rom collision avoidance trainer, developed in conjunction with the Standard P&I club.

The Inmarsat innovation award for effective use of internet protocol went to Thenamaris Ship Management.

Mr G J Hoyt (Chief Executive)
NewsLink Services
Ltd PO Box 53627 CY - 3317.
Limassol Cyprus

12th November 2001

Seafaring today is becoming more and more professional as smaller crews carry out their tasks on vessels, which are working consistently hard.
There has been much emphasis from the IMO to the safety management and training departments in shipping companies to focus specifically on work related activities. It is almost a mantra that companies will only provide resources to cover mandatory training and in so doing do not reflect on the social needs of seafarers which are so essential for well being and good morale.
Inevitably all investments are linked to commercial advantage but because a company cannot assess the productivity of welfare and support services, it does not mean that they are not needed.

The Nautical Institute strongly supports NewsLink Services Ltd as a way of keeping seafarers in touch with news at home and for providing a vehicle to develop language skills as well as being entertaining and interesting. The shipping industry must contribute to seafarer support services. Today they are needed more than ever.

C. J. Parker
Secretary
(The Nautical Institute)

Xantic launches daily maritime news service

Mobile satellite communications leader Xantic (formerly Station 12 and SpecTec) has signed a joint marketing agreement with NewsLink Services to carry their products on Xantic's satellite communication service for the maritime industry. NewsLink publishes a daily electronic newspaper, covering 22 nations, with country and region specific news, aimed at helping seafarers enhance or maintain their English language skills, whilst keeping crew informed of news at home and helping to maintain higher levels of morale.

Initially the service will be provided via Xantic's AmosConnect and AMOS Mail. AmosConnect is a messaging service which provides for the integration of e-mail, telex, fax, interoffice communication and access for ships personnel. A single messaging system, that enables ship-shore and shore-ship satellite communication in the most cost-efficient and optimised way.

Currently NewsLink's daily electronic news service is supplied to more than 2,000 vessels, who access the newspaper via a number of different messaging systems. Using Amos Connect as the access service will cut costs for many customers and makes it very efficient and easy to use. Under the joint marketing agreement NewsLink products will be marketed to Xantic customers and Xantic services to NewsLink customers.

In addition to the daily electronic newspaper, Newslink also provides a complimentary CD every quarter which contains: Marine Safety News, Crosswords, Word Jumbles, Impressions, Movie Reviews, Music Reviews, Travelogue, A Smile a Day, CBT, R U Game?

News is the second content service to be added to the Xantic portfolio. In May the company announced the launch of a data delivery service for electronic chart updates which was developed in partnership with leading chart distributor, Marine Press of Canada. This service allows e-mail delivery of large amounts of hydrographic data (such as Notices to Mariners) in extremely compact files.

Comments George Hoyt, NewsLink CEO: "We at NewsLink are delighted to be associated with Xantic. Co-operations like this are the way forward for companies like NewsLink".

Adds Kevin Garner, Xantic Innovations Manager for content: "This agreement with NewsLink is a very exciting development. It is in line with our strategy of developing content and adding to the services which can be accessed via Xantic. We see real synergies in working with NewsLink and aim to jointly develop other services for the market. Having signed agreements with Marine Press of Canada and NewsLink, we are in the process now talking to providers of a number of different content services."

ila

FILIPINO ASSOCIATION FOR MARINERS' EMPLOYMENT, INC. (FAME)

MR. GEORGE HOYT
NewsLink Services Limited
Suite 21,
Helios Court 221 Christ,
Haggipavlou Street
P. O. Box 3627 3317
Limassol Cyprus

Dear George,

The Filipino Association for Mariners Employment is pleased with the recent developments in NewsLink, especially the complimentary CDs. The four (4) page newspaper is a vital link to home and the CDs an important tool for the seafarers to enhance their English language skills. The crosswords puzzles, word jumbles and NewsLink CBTs (Computer Based Training) are very helpful for the seafarers to become familiar with marine technology and to learn more about computers and software.

F. A. M. E. is pleased to endorsed NewsLink. We will recommend NewsLink to our membership and look forward to new developments from NewsLink that will help increase the quality of life of seafarers.

Very truly yours,

VICENTE F. ALDANESE, JR.
President.

May 2001

AS THE DRIVE TO maintain quality crew continues, electronic information services such as NewsLink's are becoming increasingly attractive to shipmanagers and shipowners.

Improvements in communications technology allow for increased social communications for seafarers, but electronic information services enable even closer and more regular contact with home. One provider of such services is a company called NewsLink.

NewsLink was launched in 1997 as the "only all-English daily electronic crew newspaper dedicated to bringing good news from home". It has since grown into an organization that delivers 17 different versions of the publication to seafarers around the world.

The subscription-based HTML file is compressed into 14KB per day and sent via the ships' communications equipment containing main national news, regional news, information about marine safety, international news and sports news. In the near future, NewsLink will be introducing a text-only edition of the newspaper weighing 8KB and catering for vessels with Inmarsat mini -M equipment.

The subscription to the daily newspaper also includes a quarterly CD magazine adding an interesting mix of information and entertainment such as games, travelogues, music selections and movie reviews. The service offers versions for 17 countries so far, including the United Kingdom, Russia, India, Japan and China to name but a few, and NewsLink is hoping to extend its range even further in the future.

The staff at NewsLink is comprised of editors, IT support and administration and the company stresses that every employee "is a specialist in his or her field, ranging from ex-mariners, marine engineers, editors, linguists to computer specialists".
CEO George Hoyt adds: " We believe our seven years of work with the NewsLink project, plus more than 20 years in various positions within the shipping industry, put us in a unique position to know what the seafarers would like to have".

To cater for such interests even more, NewsLink is planning to publish a print magazine with CD that will incorporate the content of all daily NewsLink newspapers for that period. It also plans to include special features about developments within the maritime business.

On the website, daily updates are accessible and visitors can, aside from informing themselves about news from their own home countries, learn more about other regions, as well as about NewsLink itself. On the site, seafarers and shipowners can also find details about subscription fees, as well as register for a subscription online.
It is important for NewsLink to include international news in all their newspaper versions, and publishing in English throughout has the purpose of " raising the level of literacy and command over the English language". It is the language of the sea, after all, which is why earlier plans to publish in various languages were abandoned after a trial period.

With the electronic newspaper, the quarterly CD, and soon a monthly print magazine dedicated to the needs and interests of seafarers, NewsLink is hoping to change living and working at sea for the better and enable seafarers to maintain closer contact with their homes, no matter where their ship is sailing.

Dear George

Further to our discussions regarding the continued expansion of your services to personnel onboard ship. This can only be of benefit not only to the individual seafarer receiving news from his home region, but the competitive usage of standard Marine vocabulary in your quizzes etc. must prove of indeterminable positive benefit in improving communication and safety standards within our industry.

As you are aware a number of members of my Association are clients for your service and I am sure they will continue to be so for the continued future.

The International Ship Managers' Association is pleased to endorse NewsLink and to wish it continued success in its current and future ventures.

Your sincerely

Crews can get their home news delivered on board

AUGMENTING Cyprus' boast of being host to a well-rounded cluster of maritime companies and services is NewsLink Services of Limassol, a firm which offers an electronic newspaper aimed specafically at ship's crews.
The service was launched, experimentally at first, in the US by Honolulu resident George Hoyt, NewsLink's chief executive, and moved to Cyprus almost three years ago, although the first transmissions were handled from the group's Singapore offices.

The eastern Mediterranean island was chosen for its central location in relation to mant of its prime markets as well as it's well-regarded telecommunications system and the availability of multilingual local staff.

NewsLink is transmitted daily, 365 days a year, to a subscription base of about 1,000 vessels trading worldwide, but as IT manager Nicos Christodoulou noted: "Ships are going in and out all the time."

It is supplied to subscribers in a compressed file format so that transmission of the four page document does not exceed 14 seconds, cutting satellite times and costs.

Aboard ship, the "newspaper" can be taken off the Internet or an off-line viewer which the IT department can provide free of charge.

A conscious choice was eventually made to produce NewsLink in English only, varying the contents of the daily edition to provide "news from home" to Indian, Filipino, British, Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Myanmar, Greek and Croatian seafarers.

The company claims the plurality of its editions gives it an advantage over one or two competitors, which have entered the crew newspaper field. Mr. Christodoulou says the aim is to boost the list of nationalities served to 20 by the end of this year.

Offices were recently opened in India and the Philippines reflecting the importance of the readership originating from those markets. The company also has associates in Latvia and Croatia.

"NewsLink provides daily news to relieve the isolation of crews at sea, and on the basis that happy seafarers are safe and efficient ones we feel it offers a lot to companies" says Mr. Christodoulou.
"It has an educational aspect as well, as reading it will improve multinationals crews' command of English."

"We do not censor our news," he added, putting his finger on a sensitive issue, which the company heeds.

"But our motto is to bring good news from home, so we do not provide too many details of anything which might distress people or affect morale.
Issues also contain safety measures and reminders of good seamanship, while the company has introduced an option for companies to personalize the newsletter with their own logos."

At present NewsLink costs about $1 a day for each ship and national edition, but larger companies may find it works out cheaper to take advantage of the flat annual subscription rate of $27,000 to cover the needs of the entire fleet. This would offer a significant saving, for example, to a company with 50 ships requiring different national editions on each vessel.

Despite the concentration of Shipmanagement firms operating from Cyprus the overwhelming majority of subscribing ships are at present managed from other shipping centres.