Wall Street Journal debuts Mobile Reader in Europe, Asia

The WSJ.com Mobile Reader -- a mobile application that delivers content from WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com to most BlackBerry smartphones -- is now available in Europe and Asia.

The Mobile Reader has specific regional content tabs and related markets settings. Several advertisers have served mobile advertising on one of the Wall Street Journal's mobile platforms, including Scottrade, Exxon and Lincoln.

"We reach and serve a global audience across multiple platforms, so bringing the Mobile Reader to Europe and Asia was a natural next step," said Gordon McLeod, president of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, New York.

"It's also important to serve those markets in a regionally relevant way, which is why, for instance, users in Asia can view articles, data and exchange feeds on the mobile reader in simplified or traditional Chinese, as well as English," he said.

"We have been extremely pleased with adoption in the U.S. thus far and we look forward to seeing how we can best serve our mobile audiences across the rest of the globe."

Asian consumers who download the WSJ.com Mobile Reader 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 and Columns.

The customizable My Stocks tab allows consumers 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.

The Wall Street Journal's news teams in London, Hong Kong and New Delhi, India, have been expanded to manage and develop content to provide consumers a more regionally relevant experience with streamlined navigation and added multimedia features.

In addition to the WSJ.com Mobile Reader, the Wall Street Journal has mobile versions for the WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, Barrons.com and AllThingsD.com sites. The newspaper also offers mobile email alerts.

The Wall Street Journal will launch its first iPhone application in the spring.

In conjunction with its mobile initiatives, the Wall Street Journal has launched expanded wired Web sites dedicated to content for Europe and Asia and debuted a new regional home page for India coverage.

HSBC Private Bank is the exclusive launch sponsor of both regional sites, with an advertising campaign to run on the Europe and Asia home pages.

The India's new dedicated home page is at http://india.wsj.com.

The two fundamental trends of our age -- globalization and digitization -- have created an extraordinary opportunity for people worldwide to access journalism via their mobile devices, according to the Wall Street Journal.

These announcements build upon WSJ.com's significant redesign in Sept. 2008, which included a new site design, more impactful ad formats and several new features for subscribers and added benefits for all users.

In Dec. 2008, the Wall Street Journal's Chinese-language site unveiled a new design, with enriched content and new features.

The Europe and Asia sites now offer various free features to all consumers, including easier navigation among all regional editions; more local multimedia features, including video; and Regional Market Data Centers, including coverage of Britain, Germany and France, as well as Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Japan and India.

Other free features include new topic pages for India, China and Britain; "Weekend Journal" pages for Europe and Asia dedicated to regional life and style issues such as food, travel and leisure; and regional editions of WSJ.com's "Most Popular" feature, signaling the most read and most frequently emailed items in Europe, Asia or India.

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 re-launched 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.

The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com, published by Dow Jones & Company, is a provider of business and financial news and analysis on the Web and mobile, 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.

The site provides 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, which the company claims is the largest network of business and financial journalists in the world.

"We are driven by meeting the information and business needs of our users," Mr. McLeod said.

"Expanding our mobile presence is a priority for us precisely because more of our users around the world are accessing our content, data and tools via the mobile Web and we need to be there for them," he said.