EET Website - Roadblocks

Our systems

• Running– Main

website– Support

platforms• But have

no content to feed them

Podcast

Print archive

E-newslet

terSocial media

Syndication

Google News

Photo gallery

Main EET websitetheepochtimes.com

Our websites

• Our main website still brings in most readers…

CMS -> Web transition• Articles

– Posted on CMS (editors)

– From CMS to web (web eds)

• Problems– Long delays (few

web eds)– Increasing number

of reporters/ editors posting to CMS• No increase in

web eds

– Duplicate work; effort and time totally wasted

CMS EET website

Web Editors

Reporters/editors

Readers

Lifetime of a typical news story

We need to catch the story here if we want to get readers/traffic (which is what Project SOAR aims to do)

But because of • Workflow:• CMS/web

• Articles written for printwe usually publish here. No more interest, no readers.

Michael Jackson story

Recent example

• Story written on December 24th ; Published in print on Dec. 25th

• Published on website on Dec. 27th – 3 days after the story!!!

Time and effort

• We are getting more and more reporters (and editors?) posting to CMS– But their articles are not being read because being

published late.• Assume 1 article = 1 hour of effort– Our top 5 reporters write 1000 articles a year =

1000 hours of work– And no one to read them because we publish late!

Pageviews and revenue - lost

• Right now, our traffic– 1.2 million pageviews a month– $1600 + $250 = $1850 in affiliate ad revenue

(not counting in-house ads sold by staff)• SOAR articles get 5x – 10x regular web traffic– If we published all articles on time– 1.2M x 5 = 6 million pageviews a month– $1850 x 5 = $9250 in affiliate ad revenue

(without anyone selling ads!)

How to solve this

• Need more web editors– But no “added value,” they are only copy-pasting– No time to do anything else than check CMS– Might be the only way to currently solve problem

• Have one integrated system for print/web workflow– So all reporters/editors can post on website– Web editors only need to check and publish

• They can “add value” (pull quotes, multimedia, etc.) rather than just copy-paste and re-edit

How to solve this - II

• Improve workflow– Once reporters write an article: wait for editor?– Roles not clearly defined? Can web eds edit?

• Cover web/news 24x7– We need web editors who can cover 24x7– And reporters too

• Anything else?