Thursday, December 26, 2013

Southeast Asia’s hottest hyperlocal news company

Coconuts focuses on hyperlocal news in Southeast Asian cities. While this could, in theory, mean covering events like the opening of a local photocopy shop that have no relevance outside of its immediate vicinity, Perry wants to find unusual happenings that can go viral globally. It does both original articles and content aggregation by scouring for stuff on social networks.
Given its hyperlocal coverage and business model, the site needs to expand rapidly, especially in the early stages. Coconuts wants to be a pioneer of sponsored content in Asia, which differs from advertorials in that publications take full control over content which sponsors pay a sum to be associated with. It’s something that Buzzfeed and Vice magazine have run with and are succeeding.
For the sums to work out, it needs lots of traffic. To do that, it must have boots on the ground in multiple cities to scour for content and capture readers.
While sponsored content is starting to get traction in the United States, it’s still new in Asia, which means Coconuts will have the arduous task of convincing brands about the concept. So far, the company hasone campaign going, and it’s hoping for more in the coming months.
It’s also gone into traditional banner ads and advertorials, and in the near future it could explore a classifieds section which charges for premium placing.

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