"En la red, la gente busca faros que le orienten"

No se pierdan la entrevista en rediff.com a Christine Brendle, managing director de Wall Street Journal Asia, porque da muchas pistas acerca de la visión que WSJ tiene de cuestiones actuales del periodismo como son la próxima competencia con los portales financieros, la integración de las versiones online e impresa, los esfuerzos por captar nuevos nichos de lectores y las oportunidades de los nuevos mercados asiáticos. Les paso algunas perlas:

Do you think the new rulers of the media will be Google or Yahoo and not old media players like your company Dow Jones or The New York Times?
I don't think so. When people get on Google or Yahoo or when they get on the Net, they need a beacon. They need to have guidance and Dow Jones and its brands like Far Eastern Economic Review, Wall Street Journal, Market Watch, Barron's they provide immediate information on what content people expect and the trust people have in this content.

Five years down the line, how many readers do you think will read the Wall Street Journal in newspaper format and how many online?
I am a great believer that print will not disappear. The two medium will continue to evolve and reinforce each other because there are times I am delighted to read the paper and there are times I am delighted to be able to consult it online. It just expands the experience you have with the franchise and the brand. Personally, I am convinced that ten years from now there will a great audience that will be consulting us online but I don't think this will make the print edition disappear.

[Respecto al dilema sobre el modelo pago-gratuito]:
Today we are the largest paid web site and from an advertising point of view it has been a winning strategy. It meant that people who were paying for our site had a relationship with the franchise and you have a qualified audience. You chose not to get clicks by chance but because people want to go to this site and get information. So as a strategy it has worked beautifully.