‘Disintegrating’ and reconfiguring – where Bangkok delegates’ priorities lie

Apr 27, 2011 at 10:46 am by Staff


Even before the event’s official opening in Bangkok tomorrow morning, it’s clear where Publish Asia delegates’ priorities lie… some of them, at least (writes Peter Coleman).

In a trio of round-tables at the city’s Shangri-La hotel conference centre, production people were talking about retrofits and getting the most out of the press equipment they already have, while those in the editors’ and digital gatherings – who are seeing a greater share of investment cash – were discussing the relative merits of tablet platforms and operating systems.

Stig Nordqvist of organiser WAN-Ifra had the digital delegates corralled into groups to justify their preference for mobile publishing to Apple’s iPad, its Android rivals, or the ‘tablet agnostics’ who ticked all of the above.

And Johan Kremer, RIM Singapore’s regional head of alliances, had a shiny new toy (pictured) to show them, the seven-inch PlayBook – with its killer screen clarity – which the BlackBerry developer sees as complementary to its smartphones.

European guest speakers Julian Samble (the UK’s Telegraph Media Group) and Gregorz Piechota of Poland’s ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ were already cutting to the commercial priorities: Chatting on social media can be a way to draw audience to websites – and good for writers’ egos – “but I want them writing stories I can sell advertising on,” the TMG digital operations director says, “and it’s better to have five stories that are optimised than six that aren’t.”

‘Disintegrating’ is a term Piechota used a couple of times, but he was referring to the unbundling of content to create new vertically-orientated businesses – such as ‘sport’ and ‘business’ – rather than the state of the newspaper industry. The Polish publisher had taken a decision to ‘disintegrate’ after learning that its online users weren’t interested in the stories which were appearing in its newspapers. But, he says, “there isn’t a single answer: With politics, the vertical business approach is “painful”.

With such focus on digital, the production round-table discussed retrofits of control systems – often triggered by lack of spare parts – and press reconfiguration as a means of adding colour capacity without buying new kit.

Contributions came from control systems rivals Steve Kirk (ABB) and Frank Kalina (EAE) as well as ProImage’s Hanan Drory and WAN-Ifra’s Manfred Werfel.

Werfel and Nordqvist and just two in a raft of the organisers’ own European talent – as well and international and regional speakers – wheeled in for the two-day conference and associated events.

The conference opens tomorrow with CEO, advertising, newsroom and production streams, and includes the Asian Media Awards (Thursday), a limited briefing with Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva (who will also attend the presentation dinner) and a visit to the recently-re-equipped ‘Bangkok Post’ printing plant (Friday).
Sections: Newsmedia industry

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