Hong Kong is enjoying the rare luxury of a new print newspaper following a launch by a media entrepreneur with a reputation for using IT as an enabler.
Former Ming Pao chairman Yu Pun-hoi through WeMedia01 (HK) is the founder of HK01, which launched in March with a 100,000-copy initial print run following the January appearance of its website.
With a mission to "drive social change, restructure social values and drive media reform" the weekly newspaper is running up to 196 pages an edition in four sections, and includes two magazines, Being Local and Being Global. A women's magazine Being Ms, will appear monthly.
A wide range of digital offerings presents news, features, insights and analysis of issues, with the website reaching 300,000 page views in February plus a claimed more than 112,000 fans on Facebook. HK01 is also available on tablets and smartphones.
Publishing is based on WoodWing's Enterprise and Elvis DAM in an AWS environment, for which it is the first newspaper customer in Hong Kong and the first worldwide to run a truly multichannel newsroom based on the technology. The WoodWing solutions are used to create, manage and publish content in print and online, on tablets and for mobile as well as for social media.
Editor in chief Lung King Cheong says a flexible solution and dedicated partners were key requirements of the project: "HK01's high-quality content across multiple platforms enables us to highly engage with our audiences on a daily basis, and this goal led to high requirements for the production environment.
"We needed a flexible solution and dedicated partners to build the entire newsroom from scratch. WoodWing and its partners were on board from the very beginning and helped us substantially in maintaining our tight schedule."
Content for all channels is created from within Enterprise and its Content Station editorial management solution, with assets are managed and deployed via the Elvis DAM solution, with published editions automatically archived for later repurposing.
WoodWing Software chief executive Roel-Jan Mouw says the launch represents a special milestone for WoodWing: "HK01 is the first newspaper customer in Hong Kong China, and the first customer worldwide that runs a truly multichannel newsroom based on Enterprise and Elvis DAM in an AWS environment."
WoodWing's Digital Services division, based in Kuala Lumpur, provided comprehensive consulting and two partners - Kuala Lumpur-based Serioustec and GrandTech in Hong Kong - were involved in the project.
Serioustec managing director Bruce Persaud says the private cloud approach offers enormous advantages in terms of cost efficiency, scalability, availability and flexibility: "All reporters, editors and designers are connected from their desktops or mobile devices to WoodWing´s applications on AWS," he says.
GrandTech technical director Lok Wai Keung says WeMedia had an innovative multimedia concept for the content management and production workflows from which HK01 benefits: "We are glad to have been involved in that project from a very early stage all the way to the successful launch of HK01 in print, web and social media, as well as on tablets and mobile - all created within just six months."
A Wikipedia entry for Yu (60) recalls how he bought Ming Pao - still one of HK01's rivals with other local titles such as Apple Daily - in 1991 against competition from News Limited, and led its expansion into Canada where he had been an undergraduate.
He launched Xian Dai Daily in China in 1993, and then acquired weekly news magazine Yazhou Zhoukan from Time Warner.