Mainstream media have turned to the web some time ago but more and more news sites are incorporating social media features like RSS feeds, blogs etc... into their websites.

Already in 2006, the Bivings Group started to index this movement when it launched a call for "newspaper research" which I eagerly answered at the time and started to create my own index of Belgian news sites... which I never finished.

Today this topic is active again thanks to the efforts of Joanna Geary in the UK who, on her turn, was heard by the good people from L'Observatoire Des Medias who are now trying to index as much as media websites as possible in Europe.

This time I'll try to get my 20 something colleagues from Leads United to split up the Belgian online news ecosystem so that we can all add at least 1 site to the index... Should work and not take that much time I guess.

The launch of the new website of cafebabel.com today is showing the way...

Here's a short extract from their press release:

Cafebabel.com in figures:

• 300, 000 unique visitors per month (source: Google Analytics)
• 6 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish
• 350 journalists and 700 translators in 26 local editing teams in Europe
• 70 European blogs
• 4, 000 subscribers to the community
• 11 full time employees and 3 interns
• Created in 2001 by Erasmus students, cafebabel.com is an independent media edited by the Babel International association.