NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Wall Street Journal today launched expanded Web sites dedicated to content for Europe (http://europe.wsj.com) and Asia (http://asia.wsj.com) and debuted a new regional home page for India coverage (http://india.wsj.com). News teams in London, Hong Kong and New Delhi, India have been expanded to manage and develop content to provide users a more regionally relevant experience with streamlined navigation and added multimedia features.
HSBC Private Bank is the exclusive launch sponsor of both regional sites, with a high-impact campaign to run on the Europe and Asia home pages.
In conjunction with these efforts, the WSJ.com Mobile Reader -- a mobile application which delivers content from WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com to most BlackBerry(r) smartphones -- is now available in Europe and Asia, with specific regional content tabs and related markets settings.
"The two fundamental trends of our age -- globalization and digitization -- have created an extraordinary opportunity for people around the world to access the world's most trusted and insightful journalism," said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and Company and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.
Today's developments build upon WSJ.com's significant redesign in September 2008, which included a new site design, more impactful ad formats, and several new features for subscribers and added benefits for all users. In December 2008, the Journal's Chinese-language site (http://chinese.wsj.com) unveiled a new design, with enriched content and new features. Beginning today, the Europe and Asia sites now offer free to all users:
-- Easier navigation among all regional editions;
-- More local multimedia features, including video;
-- Regional Market Data Centers, including coverage of the U.K.,
Germany and France, as well as Hong Kong, China, Singapore,
Japan and India;
-- New topic pages for India, China and the U.K.;
-- "Weekend Journal" pages for Europe and Asia dedicated to
regional life and style issues such as food, travel and leisure;
-- Regional editions of WSJ.com's "Most Popular" feature, signaling
the most read and most frequently emailed items in Europe, Asia
or India.
Asia users who download the WSJ.com Mobile Reader (http://wsj.com/mobilereader) will be offered added relevant settings and features, including separate tabs for India and content in traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese, alongside existing tabs for What's News, Technology, Opinion, Columns and more. The customizable My Stocks tab allows users to add stocks of their choosing for easier updates as well as giving basic global stock exchange information. The WSJ.com Mobile Reader is free to download, while subscription content from WSJ.com is available for free for a limited time.
WSJ.com subscribers in Asia and Europe already receive exclusive access to several features that rolled out in September, including Journal Community, a new Management section and expanded What's News and Heard on the Street content. In addition, WSJ.com recently relaunched its Technology section with added columns, blogs and video features and added a Management 2.0 blog with expert Gary Hamel.
Those elements of the site available only to subscribers are marked with a "key" icon, though non-subscribers are able to access a preview of the content.
Neil McIntosh joined WSJ.com as editor in London in January and is spearheading the European site, while Tristan Leaver is general manager for The Wall Street Journal Digital Network in EMEA. Elana Beiser, based in Hong Kong, is editor of the site in Asia, and Delhi-based Anirban Roy is editor of the India home page. The site's business operation in Asia, including sales, advertising operations and product development, is headed by Olivier Legrand, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network's general manager in Asia.
About The Wall Street Journal Online
The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com, published by Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com), is the leading provider of business and financial news and analysis on the web with more than one million subscribers and 22 million visitors per month. Launched in 1996, WSJ.com is the flagship site of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and attracts a rapidly growing audience of industry leaders and influencers. The award-winning site provides in-depth business news and financial information 24 hours a day, including breaking business and technology news and analysis from around the world. It draws on the Dow Jones network of nearly 1,900 business and financial news staff -- the largest network of business and financial journalists in the world.
The Wall Street Journal "Online" logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2637