60thAnni Korea Times mobile news going global
450,000 people visit KT website a day
By Kim Jong-chan
Now during the 21st-century digital era, a CEO in Seoul can reach the southeastern port city of Busan by airplane or high-speed train in the morning, meet buyers for consultations around lunchtime and return to his or her office in the afternoon.
On his way back to Seoul, he or she can receive calls or e-mails from other buyers at home and abroad via a smartphone such as Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy S, and stay connected with the news by using the mobile device.
The Korea Times, the oldest independent and most influential English daily in the country has served as Korea's bridge to the world since Nov. 1, 1950, and is offering a new way to access the news anytime, anywhere, under its “M initiative.”
Thousands of readers have already signed up for the new mobile version which is currently available on iPhones. Users are charged $1.99 per month or $20 for a year.
It will be also available on the Galaxy S and iPad tablet computer this month.
The Korea Times’ all-new news application delivers a wealth of content ― including national, business, technology, education, tourism, culture, arts, sports and entertainment news as well as opinion articles and in-depth features ― in an environment specially tailored to the mobile device.
Mobile news version
• iPhone users can download The Korea Times widget by downloading the application from the App Store. It can be found by typing Korea Times in the App Search table.
• It syncs and downloads the latest news by category directly to your device with related pictures.
The Korea Times will launch two more mobile services ― m.koreatimes.co.kr and a social network service (SNS) ― via Facebook and Twitter.
The newspaper will open Mobile Web (m.koreatimes.co.kr), also known as a full browsing service. Users can connect to the Mobile Web page via 3G handsets.
SNS to help facilitate two-way communications between readers and The Korea Times will be available from next month, following a one-month test-run.
In addition, the newspaper, beginning late this year, will offer a new mobile educational program to help readers improve their English proficiency via the Galaxy S, iPhone and tablet computers.
In particular, The Korea Times will provide content to the Korea Press Foundation’s “English Newspaper in Education (ENIE)” to help those who wish to learn English through English newspapers.
The paper has launched its “eBOOK” service in collaboration with the Kyobo Book Center in Seoul. Users are charged 7,000 won per month.
Kyobo, the country’s largest bookstore, currently has its e-book applications prepackaged in Samsung’s Galaxy series of smartphones and the partnership will extend to the upcoming Galaxy Tap tablet computer.
High-tech tools are also being employed to help those who wish to learn English through newspapers.
Under the TTS (text to speech) program, English text from news articles are converted into speech to help English learners practice their listening. Both male and female voices are available.
The Korea Times plans to introduce “Mobile TTS” this year.
Leader in English online market
The Korea Times has been promoting its electronic version aggressively since a decade ago and its endeavor has born fruits with the paper's website becoming a crucial means of communication both at home and abroad.
The number of registered members reading The Korea Times' website has reached 450,000 a day, a figure hard to achieve in a country where English is not spoken as a mother tongue. The figure represents a six-fold rise from 2007.
The paper has made all-out efforts to keep its readers, including foreigners, familiar with the latest and in-depth news both offline and online. A wide range of up-to-date news is provided for online readers free of charge around the clock.
The Korea Times’ online market share in the local English newspaper industry has soared sharply in recent years.
Both qualitative and quantitative improvements of news content, among others, have played a key role in attracting more visitors to the Times' website which has recently been renovated.
The latest news section enables readers to gain a quick understanding of what's going on in the country, which has become a donor country from an aid recipient and is set to host a summit of the Group of 20 (G20) in Seoul on Nov. 11 and 12.
The structural change in the online news section of the country's leading portal sites also affected the traffic hike.
Furthermore, in cooperation with Naver, the country's largest Internet portal, The Korea Times is offering a newscast service. This service enables readers to gain access to news articles more easily and conveniently.
Learning Times section
The Times will also enrich its Learning Times section to help readers, especially students, brush up on their English proficiency.
The paper will offer a one-month online video lecture, titled “Let’s Read English Newspapers,” for readers.
The 20-part lecture series features such topics as Olympic figure skating gold medalist Kim Yu-na; kimchi; the sinking of the South Korean Navy ship Cheonan in the West Sea last March, which according to a multinational probe was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine; Guus Hiddink of the Netherlands who led South Korea to the semi-finals of the 2002 FIFA Korea-Japan World Cup; and makgeolli, a traditional Korean rice wine, among others.
The Korea Times' website has the ambitious dream of becoming an English web portal that represents Korea, Asia’s fourth- largest economy, through which Koreans can go global and foreigners can increase their understanding of Korea and its people.
To this end, it will have to upgrade its news reporting system in such a way 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 a one-stop service for foreigners who are not familiar with things Korean.
Now available in all parts of the globe, The Korea Times’ website has a strong thread of continuity in Korea's economic development, keeping the foreign community involved in and informed about the rapid changes occurring in the country.
As a mirror of the times, The Korea Times will become the eyes, the ears and the window to a whole new world.