Huney Kong

Ground Up Your Media Huney Kong

There are a number of books on media innovation. Most of them are no more than theories or insights obtained from other books or ideas. What we need are not only insights but also the practices required to change news media in the real market.

In 2009 I founded the news media outlet Wikitree in Korea. Wikitree was designed as a social-network news service, although at that time, we had never even heard of the word 'social network.' It grew very fast after linking Twitter and Facebook to one of the most influential internet news services in Korea. As of now, its monthly pageview is over 220 million, according to Google Analytics.

I wrote the actual stories and insights longing for success in news media innovation. Hopefully, this book will help media workers for traditional newspapers or broadcasting services to overcome the obstacles that have held them back for so long.

[Table of Content]

1. Media is gone
- All the media walls are torn down
- Rising "smart readers"
- Everyone acts as the media in the era of social networks
- Perfect storm coming
- Create space for collective intelligence
2. What in the world is SNS?
- Media industry back to word-of-mouth era
- Highly networked society intertwined by smart devices
- Using social networks in the right way
- Pop idols bypass TV
- Girls' Generation in media
3. New Understandings
- News without a stream dies
- It's not "stock" but "flow"
- Cyber personality activates on social networks
- Truth in the hands of many
- Business opportunities created in "social ecology"
- Content should "flow" on social networks
- "Social ad" on "social stream"
- Something new to me is news to others
- Daily stories become news
- Readers consume fun and value
4. Transition to Social Media
- Anyone can see, hear, and do news
- Status of a journalist in the era of social networks
- A fierce battle for real-time news
- The emergence of MoneyToday
- Real-time internet newspapers become old media
- Whether it is "social media" or not
- New styles of news on social networks
- Content value goes beyond format
- Grab new opportunities on social networks
5. News media faces a sea change
- Media ownership is being open to individuals
- Twitter captures a photo of Haeundae fire scene
- Social news on KTX failure gets faster than internal report
- I don't want news; I want the whole statement
- Important news comes to readers
- Please forget about the papers!
- Broadcasting companies keep locking content
(More details coming at 'Look inside')

[About the Author]

Huney Kong

currently
- CEO / Publisher, Social News Co., Ltd / Wikitree, the most influential internet news service in Korea
- Adjunct Professor, Department of Media Arts & Sciences, Korea National Open University

former
- CEO, Nexus Investment Co., Ltd, KOSDAQ listed venture capital
- Chief Information Officer, MoneyToday, the first online financial news service in Korea
- Washington Correspondent, The Chunchu News Syndicate by the five major local newspapers in Korea
- Reporter, Editor-in-chief, The Kwangju Ilbo Daily News

academics
- Master of Information Management and Systems, School of Information, UC Berkeley
- Trained at Faculty of Journalism, Moscow National University
- Master of Politics, Department of International Relations, Seoul National University
- Bachelor of International Politics, Department of International Relations, Seoul National University

books
-Media Innovation and News Storytelling (2019)
- SNS Likes Stories (2017)
- Do Politics by Social Networks (2015)
- Watch, Listen, and Do News (2010)
- Digital News Handbook (2000)
All books above published in Korean