Dow Jones and SBIH formalise joint venture for a Japanese language news site

Posted by Christie Silk on June 25, 2009 at 4:40 PM

Dow Jones & Company and SBI Holdings, Inc. of Japan formalized their joint venture, Wall Street Journal Japan K.K., which will launch a Japanese-language business and financial news Web site later this year. The joint venture agreement was first announced on May 7.

Under a licensing arrangement between Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. and Dow Jones, the new site, carrying The Wall Street Journal brand, will primarily feature Japanese translations of content, including video and other multimedia, from all print and online editions of The Wall Street Journal and those of other Dow Jones publications. Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. also plans to develop mobile products and services in conjunction with the new site.

The new Japanese-language web site will be the second major Asian-language site operated under The Wall Street Journal brand in the region. The Journal's Chinese-language Web site, Chinese.WSJ.com, launched in 2002, has more than 500,000 registered users and is the only foreign Web site to rank (6th) in the top 10 business and finance sites in China.

Since News Corp. acquired Dow Jones in 2007, the company has invested in the Asia-Pacific marketplace with the expansion of news and editorial content, including the debut in September 2008 of WSJ., a new glossy lifestyle magazine distributed with all Asia editions of the paper; the redesign, unveiled in December 2008, of Chinese.WSJ.com, featuring
enriched content and new features; the launches in February 2009 of an expanded web site dedicated to content for Asia (asia.WSJ.com) and a homepage for India (india.WSJ.com), and the expansion of news teams in Hong Kong and New Delhi to manage and develop content for the site and homepage; and the regional introduction of WSJ Mobile Reader, a mobile application which can be downloaded for free and delivers content from WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com to most BlackBerry(r) smartphones.

Additionally, two key executives have been named to run Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. Yumiko Ono has been appointed managing editor of the new web site. Ryosuke Hayashi has been appointed as the joint venture's managing director with responsibility for day-to-day operations and commercial development.

Source: Wall Street Journal Asia Press Release