PARIS, France – Cafebabel.com, the first pan-European online newsmagazine, will develop new web 2.0 tools for its site and strength its business model to ensure long-term viability with a $250,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Entirely published in six languages-English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Polish-Cafebabel.com will use the new tools to help the users contribute editorial content and improve collaboration between volunteers and the site’s professional newsroom. Cafebabel.com will also develop and test a pan-European web business model with high-quality advertising and sponsorship opportunities for brands targeting an educated, cosmopolitan and youthful audience throughout Europe.

“Cafebabel.com shows the power of digital technology to start conversations,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “It engages young, multilingual, multicultural people in finding new solutions to old problems.”

“Being the first professional-amateur media platform in Europe, Cafebabel.com has a tremendous window of opportunity-but we need to update our tools by adapting social network philosophy to the journalism world,” says Adriano Farano, Editor and Executive Manager of Cafebabel.com. “We are proud to partner with the Knight Foundation to innovate in the field of journalism for the year 2009.”

“Cafebabel.com’s 350,000 monthly visitors are a very unique audience: young, speaking several languages, well-educated, and present in all major European markets,” explains Alexandre Heully, Director of communication at Cafebabel.com. “Our challenge for 2009 will be to monetize our online community and develop targeted advertising possibilities for our partners.”

A summary of the results of this partnership will be published by the end of January 2010.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation invests in journalism excellence worldwide and in the vitality of U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on projects with the potential to create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

Contacts for cafebabel.com:

• Alexandre Heully: heully[at]cafebabel.com, Director of communications
• Adriano Farano: farano[at]cafebabel.com& http://twitter.com/farano, Executive manager, Editor