Going mobile with the news.

The Chinese government released its blue paper on the media industry, 2007 Report on the Development of China's Media Industry, recently. Summing up developments in 2006, China's publications industry came through challenging times through innovation - with the hard lesson learned that the application of new technologies is crucial for innovation to take place.

Crucially, digital newspapers gradually came of age. When the Internet version of newspapers was first introduced, it looked like galley proofs with no layout and did not suit conventional reading habits. Subsequent PDF versions had newspaper format but were still not easy to read.

In February 2006, the Zhejiang Ribao Newspaper Group and Peking University's Founder Group jointly launched digital versions for five newspapers after three years of research.

The visual interface of these digital newspapers makes reading easy. Readers can read these newspapers via digital networks without any trouble, the same way they read traditional newspapers.

In March 2006, Hefei Wanbao made use of USTC iFlytek's intelligent digital voice technology to create China's first talking newspaper. Readers only need to download the required software to "tune in" to newspapers of the Hefei Wanbao Newspaper Group via digital networks. They may choose to listen to the news in male or female voice, Putonghua or Cantonese. They can even choose their background music.

Then in August of that year, the Ningbo Ribao Newspaper Group launched the radio newspaper Ningbo Bobao, an interactive digital newspaper in multimedia format. Since then, Chinese newspapers have launched "mock PDF versions" one after the other, with technology approaching the world's most advanced standards for digital newspapers.

Last year also saw the rise of e-newspapers. While the digital newspapers of today have basically overcome the problem of reading the newspaper in the traditional way on the net, they still cannot be carried around and read at any time and in any place.

People were waiting for the development of an "electronic reader" to solve this problem. In April 2006 Jiefang Ribao announced its launch of the world's first e-newspaper based on electronic reader technology and offered it to 300 selected readers for trial.

However, the electronic reader is expensive (at Rmb5,000 per unit) and the cost is borne entirely by the newspaper group, so it's not seen as the best model.

The real breakthrough came from Guangdong. Through cooperation with a software company, the Guangzhou Ribao Group launched a mobile e-newspaper using Japanese technology at the end of last year.

What makes publishing this e-newspaper attractive is that the price of the electronic equipment is relatively cheap (at Rmb2,000 per unit). Investment in equipment is borne entirely by the provider and the software company. The Guangzhou Ribao Group doesn't have to bear any investment risk. This mobile electronic version of Guangzhou Ribao has a "circulation" of 20,000 copies per month.

Yet another development in 2006 was the rapid popularisation of mobile phone newspapers. Originated in Japan, mobile phone newspapers were introduced to China a few years ago.

Yangzi Wanbao launched China's first mobile phone newspaper in July 2001, but it was not very different from ordinary short messages. Mobile phone newspapers became truly popular following the popularisation of the multimedia messaging system (MMS), which makes it possible to read both text and graphics on the phone.

In July 2004, Zhongguo Funu Bao (China Women's News) cooperated with China Mobile to provide the first mobile phone version to MMS users. The number of mobile phone newspapers soared in 2006, involving over 10 central newspapers, over 40 mainstream local newspapers and more than 20 newspaper groups.

China's newspaper industry has for a while been lacklustre, with a decline in advertising growth. The plight of the newspaper advertising market has grown with time, while readership has also been shrinking. The downward market turn in recent years has aroused the concern of both the newspaper industry and the academic community. Fortunately, the industry has found the innovation needed to see it into a new, promising future.

from Wing Feng, Guangzhou Office

(Image courtesy of Xinhua News Agency)