Positioning itself as the first broadband Internet provider of
exclusively Chinese content, Hownew.com has kicked off its region-wide
launch in Hong Kong.
According to Hownew.com chief executive officer Linda Lau, the portal
was launched with the aim of building the largest database of broadband
specific, China-concept content.
"Say you come from Fujian province, living in Hong Kong, and you'd like
to know what's going on in your own province, at Hownew.com you can hear
what's happening locally on the TV channel, and on your local radio
station," she said.
Naming the site after the Chinese term for migrating birds, Ms Lau told
CReATION that the site had already accrued over 200 hours of Chinese TV
and radio programming.
And up to 10 categories of programme content and real-time broadcasting
were currently being supplied by 20 mainland television stations,
including CCTV4 and the Beijing Television Network, with radio content
by China Radio International.
Once all the relevant content had been aggregated, Ms Lau earmarked a
range of vertical lifestyle portals set for launch, covering food,
travel, health and medicine.
"They have the makings of good ecommerce portals and although we don't
intend on setting up online shops as such, our aim is to provide the
best impartial user information".
Beefed-up by strategic partner Softbank China Venture Capital, which is
investing US$26 million this year, the website's own production
and anchor staffers will also edit and repackage content, with
soon-to-be-available coverage to English-speaking users seeking
China-specific content.
Terming these broadcasting plans as "not so much TV broadcasting but
radio broadcasting with a viewcam", Ms Lau ruled-out lavish TV-style
production costs, stressing the onus on partnering with other media
owners for content production.
"If you take the content on our Chinese medicine portal - where we get
Chinese doctors to provide consultancies online - strictly-speaking you
could call that production, but we see it as adding value to our
existing content with a professional anchor".
Earmarking English content as potentially reliant on the site's
archives, Ms Lau said that boosted by broadband, Hownew.com aimed to
have 8,000 hours of archived programme content by year end.
"We are placing a lot of confidence in the development of broadband -
but if current research is anything to go by, come 2003, China will have
more than 20 per cent of the world's Internet users." With revenue
models "still being explored", Ms Lau said streaming commercials would
potentially garner revenues "10 times higher than just banner ads" and
was a format broadband lent itself to.
"Rather than just banner ads we're able to create film clip or passive
advertising - this is the medium for broadband."
