The Korea Times’ Web site has an ambitious dream of becoming an English Web portal that represents Korea, and through which Koreans can go global and foreigners can gain a deeper understanding of the country. |
By Sah Dong-seok
Staff Reporter
In this digital era, all businesses are contemplating ways to utilize high technology in an effort to expand their businesses. Media companies are no exception and The Korea Times is trying to emulate the success of advanced Internet companies.
The Times has been promoting its electronic version aggressively for more than 10 years and its endeavor has born fruits with the paper's Web site becoming a crucial means of communication both at home and abroad.
What is drawing attention is that its online market share of the local English newspaper industry surpassed 70 percent early this year and this trend has been kept since then.
Several factors are cited behind the newspaper's briskness in the cyber world. More than anything else, both qualitative and quantitative improvements of news content played a key role in attracting more visitors to the Times' Web site. The structural change in the online news section of the country's leading portal sites also affected the traffic hike.
With interest in English mounting domestically, the number of registered members reading the Times' Web site has reached more than 300,000 daily, a figure hard to achieve in a country where English is not spoken as a mother tongue. Of course, many of these members are foreigners who have a keen interest in Korea, one of the world's major economies.
The Korea Times, which celebrates its 59th anniversary on Nov. 1, has been keeping up with the times as its name indicates. The paper has been a mirror of the turbulent times of Korea, going through the difficult era of the 1950-53 Korean War, the 1997-98 financial crisis and last year's global financial turmoil. In this process, the Times has made all-out efforts to keep its readers familiar with the latest and in-depth news both offline and online although there is still much to be desired. A broad range of up-to-date news ― national, business, culture, sports, world and opinion ― is provided for online readers free of charge around the clock. More recently, the latest news section was established to enable readers to have a quick understanding of what's going in Korea as well as in the world.
High-tech tools are also being employed to help those who wish to learn English through newspapers. The text to speech (TTS) system was introduced of late to offer services in which English texts of news articles are converted into speech so that English learners can have listening practice. The system is now in its infant stage and more related learning tools such as speaking practice will be introduced.
In cooperation with Naver, the country's largest Internet portal, the Times will also showcase its sophisticated mobile newscast service that will be provided through mobile phones. This service will enable readers to gain access to news articles more easily and conveniently.
At the same time, the Times will try to enrich its Learning Times section to help readers, especially students, brush up on their English proficiency.
The Times' Web site has an ambitious dream of becoming an English Web portal that represents Korea through which Koreans can go global and foreigners gain a deeper understanding of Korea. To this end, it will have to upgrade its news reporting system in such a direction as to post news stories as quickly as possible and create a database that will store a wide range of information about Korea to provide one-stop services for foreigners who are not familiar with things Korean.
But a lot of challenges lie ahead for the Times' Web site. More than anything else, it will have to stand on its own by making more profits. Indeed, most media companies are racking their brains to set up a formula for Internet success. Yet at a time when free content is universal and online advertising is still weak, making readers pay could be one option. But this will not be easy, either.
sahds@koreatimes.co.kr
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yistory@koreatimes.co.kr
