(1888PressRelease)
August 28, 2008 - What do you do when you have a unique publication with outstanding content that is unable to generate enough subscribers to be financially viable?
You hire the top talent and you publish online.
SPIKE was just such a publication, an ambitious English-language satirical magazine launched into the predominantly Chinese-speaking market of Hong Kong in 2003. In spite of its hilarious and insightful content contributed by a team of leading journalists, SPIKE was never quite able to gain readership traction and folded in 2004.
Fast forward to the year 2008 where juggernaut website AsiaXPAT, with close to 500,000 visitors per month and a blue-chip list of advertisers that rivals any print publication, dominates the battle for the online eyeballs of English-speaking professionals and executives in Asia.
“It was a sad day when SPIKE went under because quality, English-language local magazine content is sorely lacking in Hong Kong and what remains in SPIKE’s wake are free nightlife listings publications. SPIKE would not have been out of place in any other major international city but perhaps because of the limited audience SPIKE was unable to survive in Hong Kong,” commented AsiaXPAT Founder Paul Luciw.
On the reasons for reviving some of the content from SPIKE, Luciw indicated was: “When we decided to launch a signature column on AsiaXPAT without question our first choice was former SPIKE editor Jon Marsh; Jon was one of the key creative forces behind some of the most entertaining columns on SPIKE and we expect that he will bring the same quality content to AsiaXPAT.”
Marsh’s bi-weekly column can be seen on the front page of all 14 AsiaXPAT city sites.
###
