A new daily newspaper in 5 cities across Canada with a online community promised too. “Dose will be everywhere you are and everywhere you need it to be: street corners, coffee shops, bus stops, campuses, retail shops as well as online and mobile. Because
UPDATE: Luke works at Dose. Read his post on the launch…
“Tomorrow will mark a new day in newspaper publishing in Canada. The company I have been working for Dose, launches with a circulation of 320,000 in 5 cities (Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, & Calgary) across Canada. We our careful to position ourselves as a FREE daily magazine with the content geared at an 18-34 demographic.
Its very interesting to be sitting here on the night before launch wondering how big this could actually get. Obviously with the weight of CanWest Mediaworks behind us, there is no worry about the need to actually cross into the black financially until at least the end of year two (I say that due to a public statement made by the company, so don’t read any stock tips into it). But who knows what the public’s reaction will be.”
UPDATE: Roland and Richard have been writing about Dose and their website. Here’s what they think.
Website Finally Appears and it Has Blogs with RSS
Congrats to Dose on launching their print and the Dose website and exceeding my low expectations of the Dose website. Kudos for: * Having a Vancouver specific Website. * Having Blogs one of which has RSS
Dose Vancouver’s First Issue: A Review
All told, the first issue (of the Vancouver edition at least) is 24 pages long, with a grand total of 3 pages worth of advertisements. In stark constrast to the two mainstream Vancouver daily newspapers, The Vancouver Sun and The Province, both of which featured large close-ups of the dead pope, on the cover of Dose are three twentysomethings: a Catholic in the main photo, and a Jew, a Muslim and an agnostic on the bottom row. (What, no apatheist?) The writing about the Pope celebrates his life and discusses some of the rituals of the Catholic church that follow his death. The other features were either funny or at least snappily-written, such as the advice to Prince William on whom he should really date and the “Munchies Madness”, which pitted junk food against each other à la the NCAA basketball tournament bracket. The “Who’s your hero?” section was interesting, though I think Paulina Gretzky is actually younger than the demographic the paper targets (which they mention in the slightly weird feature on another 17-year old, this time a high school football player with a few too many concussions). I note the absence of dumb comics designed to fill space.
Blogging Dose Vancouver Part 3 – My New Dose Blog
Kudos again to Dose for their online presence which is heads and shoulders above the web presence of Metro Vancouver and 24 Hours Vancouver.