Ivy Wong
Preston Lau: Update on YouTube
Preston Lau, General Manager of Google in Hong Kong presented an update on YouTube at the Broadband World Forum Asia 2008.
- YouTube’s biggest categories: Humor (75%), Music (54%) News (46%). (I think these numbers add up to more than 100 percent because you can select more than one category per video.)
- Two thirds of Google traffic is non-US. Age distribution is fairly evenly, until 55 yrs old when use drops off.
- Only 50 percent of YouTube viewers watch to end of video.
- One third of people leaving a movie say they searched for the movie they just saw. 61 percent used Google and 60 percent said their decision was affected by what they found. (Presume this is a US Survey)
- One of Hong Kong’s most successful YouTube channels, run by TV station TVB, has built-in interactivity. Users request uploads of programs via video and receive responses from staff. TVB’s YouTube channel has become one of the top YouTube channels in Hong Kong. (Congrats to Ivy Wong!)
- Hong Kong, population roughly seven million, is one of the world’s top five in the world for YouTube - in absolute terms - for uploading and viewing videos.
- YouTube’s API has inspired a number of interesting features, including the Apple iPhone’s ability to browse YouTube’s video library and allowing gamers on Sony Playstation to share their in-game experiences. YouTube pets (pictured above) is another cool application of the YouTube API.
Preston faced repeated questions from the audience at Broadband World Forum to explain YouTube’s business model.
Questions included: How will YouTube make money? Since YouTube consumes so much bandwidth from ISPs and soon from mobile phone companies, shouldn’t YouTube pay its own way?
Preston gave a lengthy answer that did not appear to satisfy the audience.
A fellow panelist, Chris Lau of SmarTone-Vodafone, stepped in: “To answer your question: Nobody knows where the money will come from, but the money does have to come from somewhere.”
Another panelist, Jeffrey Soong of Broadband Network Systems offered an interesting riff about online advertising:
Advertisers are not yet spending the amounts that the digital world deserves, but when they do decide to spend, there are actually few places for them to go.
Even those agencies spending money online prefer to be associated with branded content, rather than the rough and tumble of user generated content.
One solution is the Mullet approach developed by MySpace: For the wary executives you make a sober opening page, like the short hair in the front of a Mullet haircut. In the back, you have the long hair where real users go.
Future of Media in Asia - blogosphere reacts
Thanks to the blogosphere, we have a full audio recording and blog reactions to last week’s sold out lunch on the Future of Media in Asia.
Audio blogger Matthew Driskill recorded a full version of the event on his blog, The View from Here
Why Newspapers can start Online TV
The event started with Felix Soh, director of the Singapore Straits Times’ Razor TV project, giving the first-ever public overview of soon-to-be-launched service.
Blogger Rebecca MacKinnon asked Felix Soh why it was that his newspaper, the Straits Times, is launching an online TV station rather than a Singapore TV station.
Mike Savage of Asia Media Journal blogged the response given by Ivy Wong, COO of tvb.com, the website of Hong Kong television giant TVB:
It’s easier for a publisher to jump into online TV, Wong explained, because there’s little danger of cannibalizing existing revenues. For a TV company, the shift is a little trickier – something that TVB for instance, as a dominant TV player, is still trying to figure out.
The challenge faced by existing media players as they adapt to the digital world was a theme that resonated throughout the lunch.
Financial Times’ “Third Way” for online charging
Angela Mackay, executive director of the Financial Times’ Asia operations who also sits on the FT board, spoke about the “third way” approach that the newspaper has taken with their website.
Instead of charging upfront, the ft.com incrementally asks for information once users start using the site regularly. If you are an FT addict, they will start to charge you.
Advertising’s Digital Divide
Any media company’s hopes for digital ad spend immediately making up for offline losses were dashed by Torie Henderson, Hong Kong Managing Director of OMD International. Torie said that while digital budgets are increasing, many advertising clients remain reluctant to commit huge portions of their budgets to online video and other innovative platforms.
Future Search Trends
Anna Chan, the head of search for Asia Pacific at Universal McCann, spoke about how search will be getting more all-encompassing, with images, text and video all mixed together. She also said that search-related advertising has been growing fast.
Many thanks to the Society of Publisher in Asia, Asia Digital Marketing Association and Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong for co-sponsoring this event.
Update: Matt Eaton wrote in Marketing wrote about the FT.com’s “third way” between offering a free website and charging.
Ivy Wong
Hong Kong Internet personality Ivy Wong was employee number 1 at Yahoo’s Hong Kong office in 1999.
The office was so small she did not at first believe it was the famed Yahoo of San Francisco.
From that 800-foot office in Sheung Wan, Yahoo Hong Kong has grown to more than 180 employees.
Ivy, however, left Yahoo in late 2007 to join TVB, a major private TV station, as COO of tvb.com.
Ivy Wong: 4 reasons Yahoo beats Google in Asia
Ivy Wong joined Yahoo in 1999 as Hong Kong employee number one. (The office was so small when she came to interview that at first she did not believe it was the famed Yahoo of San Francisco.)
From that 800-foot office in Sheung Wan, Yahoo Hong Kong has grown to more than 180 employees and an enviable market dominance in many countries in Asia, often thrashing Google. (Last I checked, Google in Hong Kong had a dozen people working out of a temporary office.)
How did Yahoo do it?
Having left Yahoo (She joined tvb.com as COO six months ago) Ivy spilled the beans:
1- Local People: Yahoo hires local people who know the culture, not technical experts from California.
2- Local News: Yahoo News in Hong Kong was developed in cooperation with local content providers.
3- Local Search: Yahoo Search has been highly localized so that - for example - when you search for “Cookies” in Hong Kong you find the girl band, not sweet biscuits.
4- Local Tools: Building off the centralized platform, Yahoo works to adapt services to different markets. In some markets blogging is more important, while in others they highlighted auctions or travel.
In sum, Yahoo localized and decentralized to conquer Hong Kong (and much of Asia’s) cyberspace.
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