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.

It is also difficult to sample opinions from the residents there. The residents at the Peak are hard to reach for two reasons:

First, residence at the Peak is of low density. Therefore, it covers a large area, but with only a few population. Second, most people living at the Peak are extremely wealthy. They own cars and hire maids and drivers. Many of them do not go on the street so often, or, if they shop themselves, they may prefer bigger supermarket at Admiralty or Central.

As a result, massive campaign on the street corner or public forum is not likely to be seen here. Both of these increase the difficulty of covering district and writing up an advancer story.

Still, we managed to approach some voters. Most of them showed little interest in the district council election and only very few could actually name the candidates or their political affiliation. One of them, Mrs. Hui said she would prefer the current councilor Mark Lin because he is supposed to be more experienced.

Click Mrs Hui excerpt to listen to the audio recording excerpt.

On the contrary to our expectation - we thought the statement made by Jame Tien (as in the previous post) might create some sparks on the election - residents at the Peak seem not to care much about the election. But we would still follow up on the situation and conduct more interviews with the residents there.

Seeking views from the other side, we have arranged an interview with Mr. Louis Leung, the independent candidate, on the coming Thursday. Although Mark Lin from the Liberal Party has turned down our invitation and Civic Party’s Tanya Chan has yet to replied to our message, hopefully we can know more about the election from Louis.

Photos of original size were also uploaded to the Flickr account of Momo’s and mine. To accompany with the photos. Click here for a brief audio guide:

Here is the excerpt of the interview: Interview Excerpt

In Siu Sai Wan district in which she lives, candidates for the district council election are beginning their publicity work. However, she found some of their policy agenda very limited to minor local issues only. She thought one of the reasons was the limitation of the district council’s power in taking an administrative role in many local affairs. She said she would like to see a more powerful district council.

For the updates on district council election, there were a total of 918 nominations received. And as I observed, many candidates have already started to publicize themselves in many ways. Posters of candidates can be seen in lift lobbies of public housing estates. I think as we are approaching the election day, we will learn more about the candidates running in our district and we will hear more buzz from the media too.

Background & Elements

What makes the race for the Peak constituency a hot race this year was a comment by legislator as well as chairman of the Liberal Party James Tien Pei-chun early this month following MTR Crop CEO Chow Chung-kong had nominated barrister Tanya Chan Shuk-chong of the Civic Party to run for the seat. James Tien said his party would “look closer” into the bills that MTR Crop is going to file to the Legislative Council in the future. Chow made an apology to James the day after. However, after this blunt comment on the suspicious exchange of political interest, James was under fire. He publicly apologised and took back his statement two days later.

The Peak constituency has long been captured by the Liberal Party and one of the candidates this year, Mark Lin, a lawyer, was the current district councilor seeking another term of office.

To complicate the matter, a third independent candidate Louis Leung Wing-on, who is an accountant, jointed the fight. However, it is believed that it will be a battle between Mark, an executive council member of Liberal Party, and Tanya, who is likely to run for the 2008 legco election.

Besides the controversial statement made by Tien, the race was also important in the sense that which party is able to solicit more support from the upper class population in Hong Kong. With the growing popularity of Tanya Chan, Civic Party may be able to challenge Liberal Party’s long claimed “good relationship” with the business sector.

Potential interviewee

Mark Lin, Tanya Chan, Louis Leung, political commentators and voters are all potential interviewees, who will be able to give us useful information in our story covering the election.

Photos 

For the advancer story, we would like to take pictures of the candidates carrying out their publicity campaign, particularly when they are delivering leaflet on the street as during which we can observe the response of the people. Moreover, depending on the policy agenda of the candidates, we may also want to shoot photos about relevant places in the district.

Here is the excerpt of the interview: Interview Excerpt

In Siu Sai Wan district in which she lives, candidates for the district council election are beginning their publicity work. However, she found some of their policy agenda very limited to minor local issues only. She thought one of the reasons was the limitation of the district council’s power in taking an administrative role in many local affairs. She said she would like to see a more powerful district council.

For the updates on district council election, there were a total of 918 nominations received. And as I observed, many candidates have already started to publicize themselves in many ways. Posters of candidates can be seen in lift lobbies of public housing estates. I think as we are approaching the election day, we will learn more about the candidates running in our district and we will hear more buzz from the media too.

They said the Urban Renewal Authority’s plan to bring down those historical buildings for redevelopment of high-rise towers would destroyed the unique culture among the community. However, today, the light in the street seems to be even dimmer with the demolition work beginning soon.

On the other hand, government official said they saw no reason why the redevelopment project should be halted and insisted that most of the residents moved out and accepted compensation voluntarily. Lam Chung-lun, Urban Renewal Authority’s managing director, said the protesters were mainly from outside the district. But critics also said it is a matter of concern to a larger community rather than one only to residents on the street because the redevelopment project affects the surrounding community and more important, it wipes out the history as well as the memory of people.

Although the opposing views is unlikely to be able to challenge the decision to redevelop the street, it would remain to be a hot topic in district council as many other redevelopment projects are being considered in the old district in Wanchai; for example, the Blue House, which is a few blocks away from Lee Tung Street.

Should memories give way to urban redevelopment? Or there could be a two-edge sword solution? All remain to be seen.

For the updates on DC election to be held next month, there were few news this week as nominations were still continuously being filed to the Electoral Affairs Commission.  The period ends on Oct 15.

The only news on the DC election is perhaps the announcement of involvement in the DC elections of different parties. DAB has revealed their plan to nominate 177 members to run for the coming election. Almost 46 per cent of the candidates have a bachelor degree or post-graduate degree, which may be the sign that the party has a significant presence among the university students as many suggest.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, said there will be 108 members running for the election, and they aim at getting 70 seats. The Civic Party also said 44 members will join the run. Frontiers will have 14 members running for the election.

Moreover, please note that Regina Ip is set to announce her candidacy for the coming Lego re-election, which may stir up debate on universal suffrage. This may affect DAB’s strategy in the coming election.

(Also on the stories ideas in the class wiki) From a local point of view, urban renewal and preservation of antiquities will also be a controversial issue, particularly in Central Western District where many of the local people are concerned about the policy of Urban Renewal Authourity. Many district councilors like Kam Nai Wai and Ada Wong have been fighting for long alongside with the local residents. Both topics may generate some interesting debates during the council election.

It’s not, however.

We are living in a world where information is so abundant that we never worry again missing a news story on the other end of the globe. But the hundreds news headlines in your RSS reader may only be duplicates of a news thread from a single source. And that’s why information is said to be exploding and indeed it grows exponentially that no one will be able to keep up with. Looking for something is now not a problem; distilling useful materials become the tough part.

Typing in “district council election” and “Hong Kong”, Google returned some seven hundreds results. Many of the top results are useful but far from adequate. They are the basics. What we need is probably something new and forward-looking. Looking towards those ranked most popular and relevant may not always satisfy a journalist’s voracious appetite.

Using RSS feeds to keep track of latest news is a good way to monitor the development of an event. Taking advantage of the power of social bookmarking is an efficient way to collect and gather information. On bookmarking and subscribing feeds related to the district council election 2007, I experienced how efficient it can be when we joint effort together. With the ‘jmschku’ tag in del.icio.us, not only did we able to know who bookmarked what, we also know how popular the bookmark is. This, at the same time, hints the relevance and usefulness of the web page.

To pull all the facts together and generate a meaningful picture of the event, however, we will need commentaries and views coming from mainstream media as well as experts and locals. Various perspectives from bloggers around the city therefore become a major source of information.

Technorati is useful in a sense that it helps linkup bloggers with different interest and somehow giving them creditability in the blognosphere. And the most interesting and fun thing is that blogs of similar categories are usually interconnected. Paying attention to comments on blog posts may sometimes lead to some commentaries of very good quality by another author. In the age of web 2.0, people are all trying their best to keep up with the ever-changing environment with more and more innovative methods and tools.

For example, I bookmarked EastSouthWestNorth, Civic Express and Interlocal, which contain a wide range of opinions in the perspective of different people. And from these sites I can gain access to more and more sources that probably help with my research.

After Anson Chan declared she will run for the Legco re-election, political debate has been heated up in Hong Kong. The tension between pro-democrats camp and pro-Beijing camp is again the focal point. Some said the pro-democrats camp hopes to take advantage of Anson Chan’s high profile running to further help them in the district council election. They also want to be in line with the public sentiment regarding the debate of universal suffrage.

Keeping up with the development of the Legco re-election and the escalating political debate is thus another angle to look at the upcoming district council election.