hello can you assist me in contacting your cricket sports writer to let him know about my guesthous efacilities for the upcoming sri lankan tour to the west indie sin March? i am locate d5 minutes from the queens park oval and we provide free transport;sine we are so many thousands of miles away i am looking for your help through your cricket sportswriter thank you dhanraj

Kindly let me know why you dont provide a service for dialog customers>
Thank U

Dear Ms Mathim,

JNW would very much like to provide its news service to Dialog customers but JNW does not have an easy registration (eg text REG to 2233) and automatic billing arrangement with Dialog which will make it viable and feasible for us to do so.

We have requested for this from Dialog, and are awaiting a favorable response.

This is a very nice service to Mobitel customers..thanks for charges reduction to 30/=.But there is a problem, the alerts doesn’t receive at same time to all phones.Any way this service is better than Ada derana news alerts on dialog.

Thanks for reducing prices to Rs 30. But Ada Derana news are free of charge in Dialog and try to make your service also free. I think you wil not loose your revenue by making it free because the more users will register with your service and most of them will login to your service after every news alert.Lots of users are login in to your site is much better than few read your alert and ding notheng after that..

හිතවත් ප්රතිබා,

ඔබගේ මතයට බෙහෙවින් ස්තුතියි.

මෙම සේවය නොමිලේ ලබා දිමට අප කැමති වුවත්, උණුසුමි පුවත් කරණයේදි ඵ් සදහා විශාල මුදලක් වැය කිරිමට සිදුව ඇත. මෙි වන විට අප සමග 11 දෙනෙක්ගෙන් යුත් සේවක පිරිසක් සිටින අතර, ඔවුන් ගෙන් කිහිප දෙනෙක් නිදහස් මාධ්යවෙිදින් වන අතරම, තවත් පිරිසක් පුර්ණ කාලින මාධ්යවෙිදින් වෙි. දුරකථන සමාගමි වලටද කෙටි පණිවිඩ යැවිමෙදි ඔවුන්ටද වියදමක් දැරිමට සිදුව ඇත.
තවත් කරුණක් වන්නේ, ශ්රි ලංකාව තුල මාධ්යවෙදින් හට ගෙවන වැටුප් තලය යහපත් නොවිමයි. මෙමගින් අගතියට පත් වන්නේ මාධ්යවෙදින් පමනක්ම නොවන අතර පුවත් කියවන පාඨකයා හා සියඵම අංශ මෙමගින් බලපෑමකට යටත් වෙයි.
මෙම නිසා ලැබෙන ප්රථිඵලය වන්නේ ඉතා හොද දැනුමක් ඇති මාධ්යවෙදින් තමන්ගේ වෘත්තිය අතහැර දැමිම හෝ ඵසෙත් නැත්නමි විදේශගත විමය. බහුතරයක් මාධ්ය ආයතන ගැඹුරින් හා සියඵ අංශ ආවරණය වන පරිදි ප්රවෘත්ති කරණය කිරිම සදහා මුදල් ආයෝජනය කිරිම නොකරන බවද සදහන් කල යුතුය.
මාධ්යවෙදින් හට ලැබෙන ආදායම සෘජුවම ඔවුන්ගේ අතට පත් කිරිම මෙයට ඵක් විසදුමකි.
ජේ.ඵන්.ඩබිලිවි. ආයතනය පසුගිය මාස 22 ක කාල සිමාව පූරාවට කරන ලද මෙහෙයුමි වලදි අලාභයක් ලැබු අතර, මාධ්යවෙදින් සදහා ගෙවනු ලැබුවෙි ඉතා සුඵ වැටුපකි. නමුත් දැන් අප ආයතනයට ලැබෙන ආදායම සහ වියදම සම තත්වයකට පත්ව ඇත. ඉදිරි වසරක කාල සිමාව තුලදි ජේ.ඵන්.ඩබිලිවි. ආයතනය මාසිකව රු.2,50000 සිට රු.500000 ක ආදායමෙ වර්ධනයක් වුවහොත්, ඵමගින් අප ආයතනයේ සේවය කරන මාධ්යවෙිදින්ගේ වැටුප් වැඩි කිරිමට බලාපොරොත්තු වන්නෙමු.
ඩයලොග් සහ අද දෙරණ ආයතන විසින්ද මාසිකව රු.30 ක ගාස්තුවක් අය කිරිමට ඔවුන් සුදානමිව සිටින බවට ඔවුන් කර තිබෙන ප්රකාශයන්ගෙන් ගම්ය වෙි.
අපගේ වෙබි අඩවියට අවශ්ය තරමි ආදායමක් ලබා ගැනිම සදහා දැන්විමි ලබා ගැනිමට අවශ්ය නිළධාරින්ට ගෙවිය යුතු වැටුප් ගෙවිම අපහසුවක්ව තිබෙන අතර, විශාල සමාගමට විනා නව ආයතනයකට ඵවැනි පිරිවැයක් දැරිම අපහසු කටයුත්තකි.
තවද, ජේ.ඵන්.ඩබිලිවි. ආයතනය විසින් තම පාඨකයින් හට ඔවුන්ගේ අභිමතය පරිිදි දැන්විමි ලබා ගැනිමට හෝ නොගැනිමට අවශ්ය ස්වයං අයිතිය ලබා දිමට කැමති වෙිි.
ඉදිරියටත් මෙම කරුණ සමිබන්ධයෙන් ඔබ සැමදෙනාගේ අදහස් සහ යෝජනා අප සාදරයෙන් බලාපොරොත්තු වන්නෙමු.
ස්තුතියි,

Dear Prathibha,

Thank you very much for your comment. We would very much like to give the service free but unfortunately there is a large cost involved in generating breaking news. We currently have a group of 11 journalists both freelance and full-time. Telecom networks also incur a cost in sending SMS.

Another reason is that, journalism is unfortunately a badly paid profession in Sri Lanka and we believe this affects not just the journalists involved but also all other sector of the country that relies on news.

As a result talented journalists leave the profession or go abroad. Most news organizations also don’t allocate enough resources for news generation of sufficient depth and breadth.

A revenue model that sends income directly to the hands of journalists should help improve the situation.

JNW incurred a loss during the last 22 months of its operation, even though it made only small part-time payments to journalists, and now is close to a break-even position. JNW plans to expand contributions to journalists with a Rs250,000 to Rs500,000 increase in income per month expected over the coming year.

Dialog and Ada Derana also intends to charge Rs30 per month soon, from what they have announced.

To carry advertisements on our website on the scale we require, JNW will face significant costs for advertising executives, a revenue model that favors large companies and not new companies.

JNW also prefers to give readers the choice of whether they would like to receive advertising or not in the services they receive.

We welcome your continued comments and suggestions with regard to above matters.

Thanking you,

As a subscriber to both JNW and Ada Derana News Alerts, I feel that both services have their inherent pro’s and con’s.

First is the applicable charges. While JNW charges Rs. 30/-, Ada Derana news alerts are F.O.C. for the time beeing, although there’s speculation of Dialog planning to charge Rs. 30/- commecing next month.

Looking at the inception of mobile news alert services, where Dialog partnered with Reuters, and Mobitel with JNW, the initial charging scenario was that Dialog announced they were charging Rs. 30/- per month, while Mobitel priced the JNW service at Rs. 100.

Therefore, the reason to skim the price of JNW alerts down to Rs. 30 is merely a move to match Dialog’s pricing when they actually start charging for Ada Derana news. This move by mobitel to cut prices by 70% shows a clear admission by Mobitel that JNW news alerts do no channel any additional value to Customers in comparison with Dialog, as if this were the case, there would not have been a justifiable reason for such a price cut.

While welcoming the price cut by Mobitel, it is also noted that this measure gives us a clear insight into Mobitels demonstrated lack of finnesse in Strategic Business Management, where they simply copy the market leaders business strategy on most platforms when their own short term tactical ploys seem to fail.

However, JNW deserves credit for the prompt delivery of news alerts, and the level of journalistic excellence they have maintained, considering that their competitor “Ada Derana” is a fully fledged media house with an abundance of recources at their disposal.

On the same note however, it should be stressed that , Ada Derana, beeing an accredited media house with a growing audience, is under greater pressure to ensure the accuracy and credibility of their news alerts. In this department, there have been instances in the past when JNW has compromised on the accuracy of their news content, in their ahead to stay ahead in the race to get to the Customers mobile , First.

The biggest challenge for JNW however is not their journalistic prowess, but the strength of their business partners Mobitel, Tigo, Hutch and Suntel in comparison to Dialog which is the undisputed market leader with well over 50% market share in the mobile arena. Therefore, Dialog’s market strength, and the resources at its disposal to aggressively promote the service to its 4 Million plus Customer base is bound to be the deciding factor in the battle for supremacy in the mobile journalism industry in Sri lanka.

Dear Glen,

Thank you for your comments.

I would like to humbly disagree with some of your comments on Mobitel, as it was Mobitel that introduced SMS news to Sri Lanka and the public in June 2007 with JNW in the affordable format it is today.

It was an untested product and pricing, volume and demand were also unknown. Therefore Rs100 per month was mutually decided by JNW and Mobitel as an appropriate price as JNW had concerns about not devaluing the service.

As reporters we are grateful that Mobitel offered us a fair share of the revenue and supported us until the revenue was generated, as they appreciated the financial difficulties we faced, setting benchmarks for other operators and news providers as well.

Dialog launched with Reuters a month later. Dialog and JNW did have extended discussions on launching on Dialog, but at the time we didn’t agree on the terms, though we are hopeful we can now launch on Dialog fairly soon.

Reuters and Dialog was a good addition to the news space in Sri Lanka and further established the concept, and the joint advertising campaign by Derana and Dialog further popularized the service. While we don’t want to see mobile news become a free service, and have concerns that Dialog has not yet charged subscribers, Dialog and Derana have stated that they intend to charge, so that is fine by us.

Mobitel reduced price to Rs30 after we discussed Rs30 as the new price and Mobitel too realized that it was a feasible price. JNW also launched on Tigo and Suntel, and soon on Hutch, at Rs30.

As for inaccuracies in news, you are entitled to your opinion vis-a-vis Ada Derana or Reuters, but JNW has a very clear policy that it will carry an immediate “Correction” message whenever it makes an error and infact also encourages its readers to quickly notify us if they notice one.

From the feedback we have received so far JNW is seen as adhering to the highest standards of accuracy, and it may not be appropriate to discuss errors we have noticed by other news services at this point.

As for supremacy in the mobile news industry, JNW would simply like to offer a useful service to the public and to ensure that its staff get paid the best salaries possible so that it ensures their well being and commitment to improving their craft and skills, and so is not interested in competing with anyone.

JNW welcomes all competition as long as all journalists involved can be adequately compensated for the difficult work they do and competition does not lead to poor salaries to journalists and a lack of improvement in news services to the public.

Thanking you,

While agreeing with you on the fact that JNW does provide a quality service, and that Mobitel-JNW launched SMS news one month prior to Dialog-Reuters , the JNW-Mobitel news launch did not result in a hype or subscription of comparable terms to the reaction caused by the Dialog-Reuters breaking news launch.

I do not have statistics to prove my point, but it is my observation that the subscriber base for Ada Derana alerts is way higher than that for JNW. I came to this conclusion, merely by observation, as most people seem to be using/talking about Ada-Derana news alerts, and not many seem to know much about JNW. Besides I dont see JNW alerts through mobitel promoted as aggressively as Ada-Derana.

Competition is always healthy, and im sure that both Ada Derana and JNW will benefit from it, including the journalists involved, as well as the consumer who will be ensured of a fair price.

Regarding the decision by mobitel/tigo/hutch/suntel to offer the service at Rs. 30, while accepting that the amount seems just right, it still suggests that it would have been influenced by Dialog’s initial decision to price Reuters alerts at Rs. 30 per month.

I as a subscriber would hope that all alerts are free, but however I understand this is not realistic, so all in all, Rs. 30 is great, regardless of who charges it.

The other point I wish to highlight, hoping it would be taken in the light of constructive critisism, is the fact that JNW seems to be sending far too many news alerts , some of which are not important enough to qualify as “SMS breaking news content” in my humble opinion. Reuters used to do the same, if not worse, but Ada derana seems to be doing a very good job of sensing what is important to subscribers and ensuring they do not load the Customer with news alerts.

Many thanks for your comments Glen, yes on advertsing and creating consumer awareness on SMS News Derana and Dialog have done an excellent job while Mobitel also advertised via SMS and print to its customer base since the launch in June.
We will also take your comment on news volume seriously into consideration

I have a Mobitel connection.
I send SMS to regester by typing
REG & no as 2233.
Response SMS is “System Error “.
What is the reason for that ?.

Hi JNW,

I want to know, whether your service available to Dialog GSM Subscribers?

please give the Sinhala news alerts service to Mobitel Custormers, the lankapuwath Sinhala News Alerts on Mobitel is not efficient as JNW.
Thank you!

Deat JNW,
Welcome to JNW breaking news is now available at Dialog mobile!

Thank You,
KT.Sarangan
Colombo.