STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Swedens Dagens Nyheter said Wednesday it had launched the worlds first "newspaper" telephone: a mobile phone offering the dailys subscribers direct and free access to its website.
"We want our readers to be able to follow the news even when theyre in places where they cannot lay their hands on a paper or (access the Internet on) a computer," Thorbjoern Larsson, Dagens Nyheter (DN) editor-in-chief and publisher, told AFP.
"This is yet another way of distributing the news," he added.
DN subscribers can purchase the Nokia 6120 third generation phone on the papers website, and by signing up for a 199-kronor (31-dollar, 21-euro) monthly call plan can freely surf the dailys website by simply hitting a special "DN" button.
Larsson said the offer was already proving popular.
"After we announced the launch this morning (Wednesday), we received so many calls that our switchboard broke down. Theres a lot of interest out there," he said.
While Sweden is generally considered technologically advanced, DN says the Scandinavian nation lies far behind countries like Japan and South Korea when it comes to the number of people who use mobile phones to surf the Internet.
"Many people (in Sweden) think its complicated (to Internet surf on their mobile phones) and they dont know how much it costs," the papers head of marketing Johan Othelius told DN.
"Now were removing that obstacle," he added.
