Surfing over lunch time brought me to a couple of interesting stories:

We’ve touched on creating a global presence but today’s Guardian story about WSJ expanding around the world puts some things into perspective for us as we have talked about some of these very issues already.

I’ve got to note a couple of things.

“To get people to pay for it you really have to be offering something that gives someone an edge,” [Alan Flitcroft, UK head of media at Ernst & Young] says. “Either it gives you an edge because you are getting it sooner than the rest of the world, or it has such a level of research or sensitivity that it gives you something you can’t get from surfing the web generally.”

We certainly don’t fit into the first category that Alan mentions above but I’d like to think we do the second point well.

And then this quote about China:

WSJ.com launched a Chinese language site in 2002 that now has more than 273,000 registered users and clocks up almost 3 million page views a month.

The numbers are probably right - I’m pretty sure, though, that it’s losing money. Maybe my colleagues in China might care to comment. FT.com’s Chinese language web site is also in the red.

Can’t help but dreaming that had this article been written six months later there would be mention of The Economist Group’s efforts.

The other question which has been nagging us is whether we should do something within the confines of The Economist Group or should we do something completely different. Maybe it’s not too late to get into the stem cell market.