Yahoo
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.
Paul Ginocchio: Should Newspapers and Dotcoms flirt or marry?
Spoke with Paul Ginocchio of Deutsche Bank, one of the few remaining newspaper stock analysts in the United States, about newspapers and dotcoms on the sidelines of IFRA’s Publish Asia 2008 conference in Macau.Newspapers have traditional strengths- Content: Highest quality and most robust local news and information (by far)- Brand: Almost always the strongest local media brand by a wide margin- Sales: Large local advertising sales force- Cash Flow: Legacy print business still produces cash flow that is significant compared to most online businessesbut also weaknesses.- National: Newspapers are local, which creates issues when bought nationally- Online Traffic: Not good at driving pageviews, industry struggling to create inventory- Technology: Much smaller IT staffs and less digital experience- Culture: Legacy monopoly print culture makes for slower change (US v. UK/Canada)An alliance with a pure online company could help a newspaper overcome some weaknesses- Partner with market leader- Better technology- Strong online brandbut also has inherent dangers for the newspaper.- Potentially diverging interests over time- Signifinant value accretes to online partners (brand building, consumer usage)- Relying on outside companyExamples of alliances:- HotJobs, Monster- Yahoo! Newspaper consortium: Ad platform- Google Print Ads- ZillowAlternately, purchasing a dotcom offers the newspaper some advantages- Total control- Most value accretes to owner- Owner gets product or services fully subsidized by other affiliatesbut full ownership can be onerous.- Clients have not long-term commitment to product, typical client/vendor relationship- Potentially harder to sell product, leading to lower network effectsExamples outright ownership:- Discovery Planet (Gannet’s white label local search business)- RealCities (ad platform/rep firm launched by Knight Ridder)- Town News (Website infrastructure outsourcing owned by Lee Enterprises)What guidelines for newspapers?- Newspapers should focus on what they do best and outsource or partner for the rest- Don’t try to compete via technology, win through brand and content- Local sales is a strength, national sales and self-service is likely a weaknessThe real danger for newspapers:- Building the brand and usage of your online partners (Zillow, HotJobs)- A newspaper’s legacy culture got in the way of partnerships for too long, ceding much of the first mover advantage to online pure-players.- Culture and language of old and new media companies are too wide to bridge.
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