JMSC0007 - by Robin Pang

Some history and facts

First launched in 1996, scmp.com is the online face of South China Morning Post, a 104-year-old English newspaper in Hong Kong. It then changed to a registration-based web site in 2000 and later converted to a fully paid subscription access site in 2004. In May 2007, it re-launched with a new layout and enhanced multimedia contents. The site has then scooped the Best Media Site Award - Bronze in the Asia Interactive Awards 2007 organised by AdAsia magazine. And with its newly introduced podcast and vidcast programmes, it has also been awarded Best of Show in the 2007 Interactive and Direct Awards organised by the HK4As.

According to SCMP Group, scmp.com has 184,00 paid subscribers and 82,500 registered users, of which almost 80 per cent are degree holders. Moreover, 90 per cent of scmp.com’s users have an average monthly credit card spending of HK$9,950, which clearly belongs to the upper class in Hong Kong. On the web page, it also advertised scmp.com as “the most comprehensive news site on Greater China”.

Although scmp.com seems to have met the goal of integrating South China Morning Post with multimedia contents, it may still be far from reaching its potential as a dominant English media portal in Asia, given its rich history and resources. In this article, I will talk about the interface and contents of scmp.com. I will also compare it with www.nytimes.com, web site of the New York Times and discuss the controversial subscription-based versus free-contents issue.

Interface

Engineering of the interface of a web site is like desktop publishing of a newspaper. Without the constraint of paper, it can be made virtually in any forms, but with the same goal - to enhance the site’s readability and to be user-friendly. Many researches were done in web layout and even on types used for text online. For scmp.com, I would say it is the best designed web site of local media, but is far from international standard.

First, it doesn’t utilise space well. The upper part of the site’s front page is as important as the top fold of a newspaper. In that tiny space, - usually less than 1000 x 600 pixels - the most important information should be presented as clear as possible. However, if we compare the “upper fold” of scmp.com and nytimes.com, headlines in scmp.com can hardly stand out from the bulk of text. The top navigation bar also takes up too much space, leaving less for the contents.

Second, it’s hard to get information out. when I scroll down the page on scmp.com, there is too much white space in between headlines. This does not necessarily enhance readability; even worse, the enlarged column width makes it hard to read at a glance - that’s why a column in newspaper usually only fits 5 - 6 words. One bad thing for scmp.com’s layout is that it only displays excerpt and a small thumbnail of one top story in each section with others in headlines only. This is even less than what I can get from my RSS feed reader! This reduces its flexibility to include more details in one page and requires readers to spend a few more clicks to look for something they want. And clearly, a few more clicks in the Internet would mean a lot of effort to many.

Third, it’s not user friendly. I keep questioning why when I scrolled down the page to look for news in different sections, I cannot link directly to the section by clicking on the section name but have to scroll back to the top. This very example has illustrated how hard it is surfing around the site. Chris, a Hong Kong blogger, also echoed some of these.

Given that the new scmp.com has only been launched in less than a year, it may be unfair to compare it with nytimes.com. Still, I think there are a lot of things it can improve to enhance its readability, which will further draw more visitors to the site.

Contents

After the revamp, scmp.com has introduced many multimedia and interactive features to the site, including podcast, vidcast and online forums. This very much in line with what most leading online media are doing. Although it has its own multimedia team producing contents exclusively for scmp.com, it is still a subsidiary of the newspaper. Most of its contents are directly drawn from the paper and updated once a day. On the contrary, nytimes.com continuously posts new articles and amends those on breaking news.

One of the free contentsthat scmp.com offers, the SCMP investor relations also looks like a semi-finished product. Similar to market watch in nytimes.com, it aims to provide readers a one-stop solution in looking for details and recent news for any listed companies in Hong Kong stock exchange and in Shanghai stock exchange. But it misses out the most important part and what most people concern - the stock price. You have to search and click on a specific company to view a delayed quote, with no clue on the leading indexes of stock markets around the world or currencies and bond rates. This put it far behind yahoo.com.hk, which also provides profile with related news stories on listed companies.

I personally think the quality of the podcast and vidcast programmes are good. scmp.com is also the first mainstream media in Hong Kong engaging in multimedia contents production. But I would like to see it invests more to integrate its multimedia contents with its news articles. For example, a photo slide show worths a thousand words for some stories. Right now, scmp.com merely attaches a photo or two in each news article.

To my impression, scmp.com is trying hard to include every thing that is considered to be essential for a media portal site today. But in every corner, there is still much room for improvement. I think the major reason is that it lacks an economic drive. Since the online readership is low, there is not much economic incentive for SCMP to invest heavily in expanding its online services. But this is the tricky part. On the Internet, when you are not the best, people will simply opt for the best. So, does scmp.com have the potential to become the most prominent news portal in greater China?

Subscription-based vs free contents

Last year, New York Times company chairman Arthur Sulzberger in response to citizen journalism already admitted that traditional media have to make a step further - make use of the newly emerged tools - to weather new competition in the future. In Sep 2007, nytimes.com, in addition to its free access to recent news articles, decided to release its once subscription only contents. Rick Edmonds, a media and business analyst, said this would bring nytimes.com new advertising possibilities. Blogger Mark Evans even made an estimate on how much NYTimes is going to benefit.

The free contents model with online advertising seems to be the direction the relaunched scmp.com is heading to too. However, the management was skeptical about the feasibility and dare not switch its business model. In Sep 2007, Chris Axberg, then the online publisher for scmp.com resigned after disagreement with the management over making the online platform free to all users.

Some bloggers has been criticising this - here is one - because it simply deviates from the trend of web 2.0, in which online media will only be competitive if it can facilitate efficient information exchange.

Perhaps SCMP has yet faced the problem of declining readership and profits as many of its counterparts do. Indeed, as the leading English newspaper in Hong Kong, it is very profitable. As a result, instead of taking the chance to further exert its influence in Greater China, scmp.com decided to keep most its contents behind a paid wall and focused on its core readers - businessmen and expatriates in Hong Kong.

As a reader, I would very much like to see scmp.com to provide most of its contents for free. But as a journalism student in Hong Kong, I would see SCMP missed the chance to capture a wider market and become the leading media group in the Greater China region. As a matter of fact, it has already lost ground to China Daily, which provides contents for free and has a better web interface.

In the Internet age, one second behind may mean ten steps away.