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New Online Sources proves a bigger pull than traditional news papers

Here is an interesting pic gotten off Barry Ritholtz’s site. When we discussed SPH future and why the need to capture all other mediums where people heavily visited frequently, we did not discuss much about how successful were those AsiaOne.com and StraitsTimes.com ventures.

It would seem that the internet have given a rise to new media groups such as Gawker, Tech Meme and Engadget. Sites created by traditional sources such as New York Times and BBC were much smaller.

Remember that AOL acquired Engadget. They are not a traditional press source but still Gawker grew so strongly because blogs became really big as content providers.

However, ask a sample of your population and they will still say more visited traditional sources such as BBC and New York Times.

What I feel is that while what SPH is doing is good, they are not adding value to brands. capturing Hardwarezone is great but they are not building it up to become something that other non visitors will get interest in. This could be a potential minefield as it is easy for other better and similar content sources to develop.

[Hat Tip The Big Picture]

Kyith

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Paul

Friday 1st of April 2011

I think that when we see news of this sort, we need to also factor in cultural difference. Interestingly I keep hearing that people continue to buy Straits Times for the advertisements, the NTUC, Cold Storage, Sintel, Starhub etc. In Spore case, at least the jury is still out when online news will start to have an impact on SPH's bottomline.

SPH do have a few good websites that has many visitors - stomp, shareinvestor, hardwarezone to name a few.

Drizzt

Sunday 3rd of April 2011

Hi Paul,

Good Morning to you. The culture is definitely different in different country. That is one of my mistake as well. I thought its going to be hard from the onset for SPH.

I do applaud them for knuckling down and getting their strategy right thus far. Where they could go wrong is that after acquiring these new media not knowing how to develop them, thus killing them and letting new sites take the viewership. Have we see big developments in Hardwarezone and Shareinvestor?

Shareinvestor is really a good example. i have a feel that it is not getting the right exposure. I mean as a financial blogger it isn't one of the main sites that i go to so that says alot about it.

I do like the idea of STOMP though. You will observe alot of your friends talk about sending pics to STOMP for exposure.

Singapore Man of Leisure

Friday 1st of April 2011

I have a feeling traditional print or TV media were "forced" into new media reluctantly. Even if they have a presence, they are just playing catch-up.

Thanks for the enlightening post with the statistics! I guess it more a matter of WHEN.

It's a bit like comparing slow "tortoise" incumbants versus nimble "hare" challenges. Eg, Microsoft and Google. Out of nowhere Google emerged, and Microsoft is now desperately trying hard to find a foothold in the faster growing mobile market. In this context, is the PC platform the "old" media equivalent like in the print media?

One day, Google will become like Mircosoft and another smaller and more innovative company will emerge to challenge Google. We can also say the same with Nokia and smart phones - their strongest competitors today were not in the mobile phone business a few years ago....

Drizzt

Sunday 3rd of April 2011

Hi SMOL,

my observation of the tech world is that the incumbents normally want to protect their turf and because of that are not willing to go all out in certain areas. they do alot of seeding and sometimes their structure gets too hierarchical that it makes execution poor. Microsoft had that problem. not sure how it is now.

in some industry, the incumbents can never be rocked for a long time. I have a feeling print and press is one such industry. don't be surprise of a large merger.

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