AFP and SKorean partner launch ’news community’ website

AFPBB News (www.afpbb.co.kr) offers Korean-language content from AFP and local providers covering everything from business and politics to entertainment, fashion and sport. Kim Jong-Moon, CEO of Contents Link which operates the site, described it as the country's first to specialise in international news. "We plan to deliver a variety of fresh news items from around the world, including culture, lifestyle, entertainment, sports, economics and politics," he told the launch ceremony.

AFPBB News will also offer around 500 full-size photos a day.

AFP's managing director Jean-Pierre Vignolle said he hopes AFPBB News will grow into Korea's leading "news community" site featuring all the news agency's major products -- text, pictures, graphics, animation and video. "We also want it to evolve into the reference site in the Korean language for global and domestic news on politics, business, sports and lifestyle."

Vignolle said news agencies had traditionally operated as wholesale suppliers to newspapers and broadcasters, but technological leaps now allowed them to reach a variety of other users directly.

With the new website targeting netizens directly, he said, "we are creating, de facto, a news community, all in the Korean language.

"We hope it will become an exciting new medium to interest Koreans in news, both at home and abroad."

The Korean site is AFP's second such regional venture after AFPBB News launched in Japan in 2006. Leading shareholders in the Korean venture are local companies Solid Technologies and Softbank Ventures along with Hongkong-registered AFPBB Holdings.