December 2009
15 posts
3 tags
SCMP cuts 30 editorial jobs
South China Morning Post, the English-language daily from Hong Kong, has reportedly cut 30 editorial jobs, apparently as part of a plan to restructure the company. According to the AFP, which cited an internal memo circulated among staff by the Post’s Editor-in-Chief Reginald Chua, the company wants to remove the reporting teams from the actual production of the paper. This would be the...
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Plug: Yahoo! Southeast Asia seeks finance producer
Ok, here’s one more job opening at Yahoo! Southeast Asia. I wanted to get this out the door before we head out for our holidays. We’re looking for a producer to edit and curate compelling stories for our Singapore version of Yahoo! Finance. The job is incredibly challenging: Identifying and delivering accurate, reliable and timely information to help our users make the best decisions...
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Plug: Yahoo! Southeast Asia seeks Singapore...
Here’s the another job I’m looking to fill at Yahoo!. We’re looking for a producer to curate and deliver the best stories on our Singapore front page. This is a high-profile role in guiding and engaging our audience through the most visible section of our Singapore property. This is a great job for journalists, but ultimately our best candidate must have strong writing skills...
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The 'now' revolution in 2010: My predictions
2009 was the year of the microblog (Twitter, Tumblr, Meme). What does 2010 have in store? Here are my predictions for “now” revolution in the Southeast Asian market for the coming year. 1. Professional content: Expect to see a push to cultivate and support a generation of professional bloggers in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia as the market for paid content connects with a...
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Plug: Yahoo! Southeast Asia seeks Country Editor...
This is by far the toughest position for me to fill as Managing Editor of Yahoo! Southeast Asia. After months of looking and countless interviews, I’m still finding it tough to check off all the boxes for this senior role. So I’m plugging this on my own blog; if you (or anyone you know) have the right skills for this fantastic role as Vietnam Country Editor, please drop me an email....
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Twitter now profitable thanks to deals with search...
Twitter could well be getting $25 million by allowing Google and Microsoft’s Bing to index its Tweets. Bloomberg BusinessWeek said in a report the multiyear deals mean Twitter is now profitable. Two unnamed sources told the magazine the company will be able to deliver a “small profit” for 2009 thanks in part to the agreements. Twitter has raised about $155 million since it was...
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Iran elections top Twitter's news trends of 2009
The Iranian election was not only the most closely followed news event on Twitter this year. It was also the first social news event ever. In Twitter’s final tally for the year, the terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were all in the top ten list of news events. Gaza was also right up there in third spot. The stats are further testimony to the power of social news to deliver updates from...
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Second telco in Indonesia adds Twitter's Text...
Twitter fans in Indonesia have more to be excited about. 3 Indonesia is the latest mobile operator to offer Twitter’s Text Messaging service (AXIS was the first). There are no additional fees for this. Users can also turn on text notifications for people they follow, as well as direct messages. There’s one added benefit: 3 is the first Indonesian carrier to support sending photos to...
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HuffPo's gamble with paid comments may backfire
The Huffington Post is treading into dangerous waters. The company, as part of a plan to double revenue next year, is allowing marketers the ability to inject their own paid comments among those from users. It will also place paid Tweets in live Twitter feeds. This is interesting at two levels. First, this is an important acknowledgement that the comments section of article pages is a prime spot...
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Odd ending: Friendster sold to Malaysia's MOL
Friendster’s long and colorful history just got a little more interesting. The company, one of the grand-daddys of the social media revolution, has been bought by Malaysia’s MOL Global, a unit of online payment provider MOL AccessPortal. There was no mention of price, but a Reuters report previously put the number at more than $100 million. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that...
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The 'Now' Revolution arrives at Google Search
This is the biggest shift in the “now” revolution for the search industry. Google first announced realtime search for its Finance product last week. And now, realtime results have been rolled out on the company’s flagship search product. This shouldn’t be a surprise since the company announced its partnership with Twitter and Facebook about a month ago. It is however a...
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Wire agencies -- it's time to really worry
They are coming for you. You, being the wire services that is. Google has taken a step forward with its Finance product, adding real-time news streams. That means you’ll be getting automatic updates on the market news page, without having to hit refresh. This sounds a little like the live feed on Facebook or Friendfeed. More significantly, this is clearly part of a move to bring Finance...
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Yahoo! plays its trump card, joins Facebook...
It’s always good to see giants playing nice. Yahoo! is the latest media company to join Facebook Connect, playing its best hand yet in its strategy to go “open.” Early disclosure: I work for Yahoo!. In a nutshell, this brings together two massive audiences: Yahoo!’s more than 500 million users worldwide and Facebook’s 350 million (give or take ten million!). ...
6 tags
Google to curb its free news service
Google has a new plan that will probably make Old Fox Rupert happy. Through Google’s “First Click Free” plan, publishers can now stop unrestricted access to their subscription sites. So if you click on more than five articles a day from a subscription site at Google News, you’ll hit their pay wall on your sixth click. This is clearly a compromise. Google still wants to be...
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Second take: Is AOL's algo editorial strategy...
I guess you can’t be too quick to say no to AOL’s rumored algorithm “robot” editorial strategy (covered in the previous post). TBI Research has put out an interesting report that says the plan could actually be quite “smart.” This is how TBI is looking at it: - This is all about Search in what is an increasingly fragmented content market; the move will pull in...
November 2009
13 posts
3 tags
The attack of the algo editors
If you thought the lines between advertising and journalism are blurred, you haven’t seen anything yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, AOL is putting together a new workflow that aims to cut costs by simply outsourcing editorial interest to algorithms. This is how it works: - The “algo editor” automatically assigns stories to freelancers through Seed.com based on Web...