creativeindustries.qut.com Cell Phone SMS News in Chinese Newspaper Groups: A Case Study of Yunnan Daily Press Group Liu Cheng & Axel Bruns Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology

creativeindustries.qut.com Mobile Telephony and Yndaily Continuing mobile boom in China: rapid growth in number of users, volume of messages, range of services but focus of studies largely on key areas (Shanghai, Beijing, etc.) dominated by China Mobile and China Unicom Yunnan Daily Press Group: key regional news organisation case study for developments in other regional areas SMS, WAP, MMS news services since 2002 overseen by Liu Cheng, vice-director of Yndaily information and network centre

creativeindustries.qut.com Rapid Growth in Users

creativeindustries.qut.com SMS Use in China SMS development initially slow: limitation to Latin script until 1997 thus absence of SMS value-added services China Monternet (Mobile+Internet) as first key service in 2001 Common value-added services today: Information, including news, weather, examinations, and English learning; Entertainment, including short message games, mobile phone pictures, ring tones downloads, jokes, and other entertainment participation; Communications, including mobile chat, and ; Commercial, including mobile phone stock trading and mobile phone banking; and Special services, including location-based services (similar to GPS) (China Mobile, 2006)

creativeindustries.qut.com The SMS Explosion

creativeindustries.qut.com Market Development

creativeindustries.qut.com The Mobile Services Downturn Problems with mobile services: unethical business practices until 2005 poor management, lack of regulation uninvited messages, inability to cancel illegal billing practices government intervention, some providers shut down also negative effect on legitimate providers still overall market growth, but notably slowed emergence of key market leaders / oligopolists

creativeindustries.qut.com Mobile News in Yunnan Province Established in 2002: joint venture between Yunnan Mobile and Yunnan Daily Press harnessing existing content from Yndaily publications cross-promotion through Yndaily and Yunnan Mobile products initial problem of technological limitations 70 Chinese characters per SMS message 2-5 messages per day requires tight editing growth and decline echoing market development New opportunities: MMS newspaper 3G services

creativeindustries.qut.com Key Strategies Yndailys key options for growing the market: Leveraging existing content sources building on established news brands Interactive options and participatory journalism user participation growing in spite of overall market downturn MMS Services overcoming character limitations, incorporating image, audio, video content 3G Services but problems with technology changeover and market oligopoly

creativeindustries.qut.com Convergence Opportunities Beyond mobile telephony: especially 3G devices no longer phones restructuring of Yndaily as multimedia group increasing focus on user involvement Towards new models growing focus on product R&D: e.g. through the China Digital Newspaper Lab but need for better and more streamlined government regulation threat of oligopoly led by China Mobile (especially in 3G market) need for further insights beyond the rapid growth in use