Huffington Post to come to Japan in new deal with Asahi
Shimbun
http://japandailypress.com/huffington-post-to-come-to-japan-in-new-deal-with-asahi-shimbun-1419934/
Huffington Post, the news website owned by AOL, has just
announced its first expansion into Asia by forming a deal with one of Japan’s largest
newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun. The partnership will see the launch of a
Japanese-language website, and be jointly operated by the Huffington Post Media
Group and Asahi Shimbun Company. As of now, it appears the new publication will
simply be titled Huffington Post Japan.
Founder Arianna Huffington has said that as their first
expansion in Asia, HuffPost Japan
will be a great step forward to reaching new countries around the world. The
new move is a reflection of the publication’s commitment to having more voices
join the global conversation, she added. With its home in the U.S., Japan will be the Huffington Post’s
sixth foreign country to enter. International versions have already been
established in Canada, the U.K., France,
Spain, and Italy. The
Japanese edition has already begun recruiting a veteran editor-in-chief and
editorial team.
Huffington Post chief executive Jimmy Maymann comments that
the company will continue to aggressively expand overseas, with the intention
of being in a total of 15 countries within the next 18 months. As an internet
publication, the company relies on advertising on its websites. Maymann says to
continue their growth they need the international editions of Huffington Post
to match or better their U.S.
business. The U.S.
website currently gets around 50 million unique visitors per month, while the
overseas websites have a combined total of roughly 20 million. The chief
executive explains that they are not yet big enough to attract big-name global
advertisers.
[via The Guardian]