The MailOnline's website
Martin Clarke, the Daily Mail executive who runs MailOnline, says a tenth of the site’s UK traffic is generated by referrals from Facebook – and North Korean dictator Kim il Jong may be a fan too.
“The social networks are becoming increasingly important to us,” Clarke told delegates at the Society of Editors annual conference in Glasgow.
“If you want an engaging site, Facebook isn’t a threat or a parasite but a gigantic free marketing engine.”
Earlier this week the latest study from IAB Ireland showed that online advertising in Ireland rose by more than 12% in the first half of 2010 to almost €54 million, driven by a rise in the number of internet users.
Clarke revealed that only Google directs more UK traffic to MailOnline, and he urged newspapers to embrace social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter.
He also said he was “sceptical” about News International’s erection of paywalls around the Times, the Sunday Times and the News of the World’s online content, and its plans to charge for the Sun website.
Kim il Jong
Slide #20 from Martin Clarke's presentation - the Kim il Jong statistics
MailOnline is currently generating 12,000 comments a day, according to Clarke’s PowerPoint presentation. The site also claims 50 million unique users globally.
“Our overseas readers include, by the way, two in North Korea. Now I’m not saying Kim il Jong is a MailOnline fan, but tell me who else in North Korea has international internet access?
“And in case you’re wondering what our mystery reader in this rogue nuclear state is interested in, I can reveal that he’s a big fan of Lady Gaga. And, er, he wants to know about meteorites destroying the earth. Comforting, eh?
“Of course, if it isn’t the Dear Leader, I’ve probably just got someone shot. But there’s a serious point here. News is now a globalised market, largely brokered in English.”
Newspapers and the internet
Despite the rise of the internet, Clarke said he was optimistic about the future of newspapers. He said four out of 10 of the world’s biggest newspaper websites were British, and MailOnline’s website was the second biggest English-language newspaper site in the world after the New York Times.
“We’ve just got to stop whining. We have gone from a world where we could reach customers essentially once a day when they bought their paper, to one where we can be with them 24 hours a day.
“We’re on their desktop all day when they’re at work. We’re in their pocket and their handbag on their mobile phone or their iPad when they’re out and about.
“And pretty soon, when convergence between computers and TVs makes it as natural and easy to watch web video as it is to watch broadcast programmes, then we’ll be on their living room walls.
“How can anyone say that isn’t the most wonderful opportunity for our industry? Well apart from old Kim there – and he’s not that keen on a free press.”
