• Encouraging early commercial results

The AFP-Relaxnews newswire boasts a broad international presence in a dozen countries across four continents from Canada to Cambodia, as well as England, Belgium, France, Kenya, Lebanon, India and Malaysia among others.

Clients include media outlets like www.theindependent.co.uk in London, the free dailies AlBalad in Lebanon and Metro in Belgium, the MSN Canada and Yahoo Asia web portals, telecommunications operator Malaysia Telecom, TV channel like France 24 and brands like L’Oreal.

Geographical and sector-based meshing expected to open up new prospects in the months ahead.

The service will be launched today in the United States at the Online News Association Conference in San Francisco.

• Rich multimedia editorial content

Available by subscription through the online platform at www.afprelaxnews.com or via an XML feed, the product delivers content every week in English and French:

• 400 illustrated items covering well-being, house and home, entertainment and tourism
• a diary of 100 must-see events around the world
• ten slideshows and five video reports

New! The world leisure consumption barometers

The AFP-Relaxnews wire now offers an exclusive selection of barometers, including top trends on Twitter (five times weekly), the most downloaded iPhone applications on iTunes and room rates in 18 countries, compiled by www.hotels.com.

• An innovative, recognized platform

The AFP-Relaxnews editorial platform, developed from Nstein’s WCM software, allows for easy downloading of text, photos and videos, from the same support, a content-management breakthrough underscored by WCM’s inclusion in the Gartner Institute’s ‘Magic Quadrant’.

The platform also benefits from the support of France’s National Research Agency.

• Early media impact

The launch of AFP-Relaxnews worldwide received more than 500 mentions in the media, with dedicated items on the product in Europe and Asia (Italy’s RAI, Hong Kong TV, LCI in France...) and on the front page of The Correspondent newspaper in Hong Kong.

Goals in the months ahead

• To increase growth in the all digital outlets and continue to bring added value to traditional media aiming to produce leisure and entertainment content.
• To develop the service in other languages through local partnerships
• As ever, to become the reference for leisure news worldwide by optimizing subscribers’ impact as well as their time and money.

About AFP

AFP is an international news agency delivering fast, accurate, in-depth news from every corner of the world, covering wars and conflicts to politics, sport and entertainment, as well as the major developments in health, science and technology. With 2,900 journalists in 165 countries, AFP sends the news in video, text, photographs, graphics and a pre-packaged multimedia format to a broad range of clients: newspapers, national news wires, radio and television stations. Every day AFP files 5,000 text stories in six languages, 20 television news reports, up to 3,000 photographs, and 80 still and interactive graphics.

For more information about the AFP products and services consult www.afp.com

About Relaxnews

A member of the French Federation of News Agencies and of the International Press and Telecom Council (IPTC), Relaxnews is the first news agency to be dedicated to leisure news. Launched in 2006, the ‘relaxwire’ is the first newswire for leisure news. It joined in 2009 with AFP to launch the first wordwide news wire for leisure news, which benefits from technological and financial support of the ANR, the French national research and development agency.

Relaxnews has a network of correspondents around the world.

For more information about Relaxnews products and services, consult www.relaxnews.com

To try out the newswire

www.afprelaxnews.com

Username and password: relaxnews