Most media houses in #Bhutan are not participating in the big party

Many media houses in Bhutan have set up their own websites: BBS, Kuensel, Bhutan Today, Bhutan Observer, Business Bhutan, and The Bhutanese all run news websites (the last two, by the way, having the most user-friendly interfaces).

Obviously, media outlets want as much traffic as possible to their websites. This can be seen by the "visit our website" promotions in the local print and broadcast media. However, currently the private newspaper websites - as well as BBS - are missing out on millions of potential readers outside of Bhutan. Why? Two words: Google News. Launched exactly ten years ago, Google News aggregates news articles from more than 50,000 online sources, and automatically compiles a 'front page' every few minutes. Google News has become the de-facto news destination for millions of users around the world. Users visit Google News to check out the recent happenings around the world, then click on news articles which takes them to the source (the website of the media house that published the article).

Some staggering statistics: About 1,000,000,000 (one billion!) unique users visit Google News every week. And each month, indexed news websites receive more than 4 billion visits that originate from Google News, as well as from the automatic news links generated by Google Search.

Bhutan's private newspapers are currently not participating in this party. When you search for Bhutan on Google News, the only Bhutanese news source that currently comes up is Kuensel. The other websites - Business Bhutan, Bhutan Observer, BBS, etc. - are not showing any results. Why? They are not indexed by Google News.

The solution is quite simple. If you are the publisher or editor of a media house in Bhutan, read Getting into Google News, then fill the form. and expect a surge in international traffic. More information for publishers is available here.

Weather forecasts in the media: hot or cold?

Several local newspapers have weather forecasts in their online and print versions. While forecasts from different sources can differ (after all, these are uncertain forecasts), I found a few perplexing issues when examining forecasts from the two oldest papers: Kuensel and Bhutan Observer.

Kuensel takes a safety measure of giving high/low temperature and outlook forecasts only for "today". The first perplexing fact is the discrepancy between the print and online forecasts. Here's an example from today:

Kuensel's weather forecast. Left: print edition. Right: Kuenselonline.com (accessed 27 April, 2012, 4pm)

Turns out that the Kuensel website gets updated in the evening, so in fact their website does "back-casting" of yesterday's weather... The next strange discrepancy is between the names of the Dzongkhags as they appear in print and online (not to mention the different ordering). Third, I couldn't find the source for the forecasts. Where are they coming from? Finally, it would be helpful if the graphics in both modes used the same icons, order of columns, column names, and design.

Bhutan Observer has a Weekly Weather corner in its print and online editions. It offers more detail than Kuensel in terms of listing all the 20 Dzongkhags and provides forecasts for an entire week. However, unlike Kuensel which also reports high/low temperature forecasts, BO's graphic table tells us only the "outlook", that is, whether a day is likely to be of one of six types: mostly sunny skies, possibility of rain, cloudy, partly cloudy, partly sunny, or partly cloudy chances of snow/sleet. This choice of information is a bit unusual. I can see how it is useful for determining whether an umbrella, hat or boots are needed. It can also help guess the chances of flights landing in Paro.

And now to the data presentation: Is it easy to quickly figure out the weather information that a reader would be interested in? Here are some questions that a reader might ask:

Weekly corner from Bhutan Observer's website

1. What is the forecast for Tuesday in Chukha?
2. How many different weather outlooks across Bhutan in the coming week?
3. How many "partly sunny" days anywhere in Bhutan? (good for trekking?)

In trying to answer these questions you probably noticed a few challenges:

• Dzongkhag names are not listed alphabetically! With 20 names, searching for Chukha takes quite some time. 
• Distinguishing between the icon images is difficult because they seem similar. A simple trick that would have made it much easier on our eye is using different colours. On the website there is no reason to use greyscale. And if colour-printing is too expensive, then using a more distinctive greyscale can work.
• Given that there are only two different icons in this week's table, do we really need to see all six possibilities in the bottom legend? Removing unused icons from the legend would make the reader's task much easier.

Lastly, one should always ask about the data source. Here the source is listed clearly at the top as "Contributed by the Metrological Department of Bhutan". I suppose this is the Hydro-Meterological Services Division at the Department of Energy?

Opportunity to experiment

Kuensel's website has been down for a couple of days now... There are various interesting questions to ask about newspapers' online presence. One that is of special importance in Bhutan is the relation to print sales. After all, circulation seems to be the magic word for newspapers, in terms of ad revenues.

To look at the full half of the phop, this website blackout is an opportunity for Kuensel as well as for its competing newspapers to explore the effect of the online newspaper's availability on sales of print copies. This is what we statisticians call a "natural experiment".

Here are questions that I'd explore if I were Kuensel:

• How are sales of Kuensel's print version affected on the days when the website is down? (look at the numbers, but also take into account factors like day-of-week and past sales)
• How are sales affected after the website comes back up?
• How sensitive are my online readers to such blackouts? (a survey and forum would give some ideas)

As a competing newspaper, I'd ask the following:

• How are the sales of my print newspaper affected on days when kuenselonline.com is down? (maybe people who go rushing for a Kuensel copy already buy other papers at the same time)
• How is traffic to my own website affected on days when kuenselonline.com is down?

Tech news roundup

ThimphuTech's take on technology news from Bhutan's leading news sources.


Headline: High Speed Internet  (18/5/2011)
Summary: Now that almost 100% of gewogs in Bhutan have cellular coverage, focus is shifted to closing the broadband digital divide.
Our take: A fibre optic network providing high-speed Internet to all gewogs has enormous potential, from distance learning to tele-medicine. It can also enable IT-based businesses in remote areas helping to mitigate rural-urban migration. The question is, as always, how will the technology be used. Will the to-be-established community centres be used as learning centres, communication centres, or will they turn into video-game/Facebook parlours/?

Headline: BICMA facilities better internet services (21/5/2011)
Summary: Software offered by LIRNEasia that will measure your Internet connection's performance is available for free download at www.broadbandasia.info. Note: It was not easy to summarize this article, which has a rather misleading headline and some confusing technical information (e.g., the "speed of the internet" is not "300 millisecond return trip time")
Our take: With more and more users complaining about BT's internet speed, this is a good initiative. But what is one supposed to do with the test results? Feel free to share them with us!




Headline: BlackBerry refuses Bhutan (21/5/2011)
Summary: Research in Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the BlackBerry smartphone, is not going to install a BlackBerry server in Bhutan.
Our take: One can understand the business logic behind the decision by RIM, but this is bad news for the few locals who own the device - known also as the CrackBerry due to its addictive nature - and will not be able to use its more advanced features. BlackBerry-addicted visitors to Bhutan will also be disappointed.
Bonus: Jerry Sienfeld and the BlackBerry.

Headline: Pills for piracy (21/5/2011)


Summary: In an attempt to combat software piracy in Bhutan, an effort will be made to offer Microsoft products (especially MS Office) at reduced prices.
Our take: Good initiative! However, this will require more than a monetary discount. It is also about a change of mindset. But equally important: Why doesn't Microsoft provide free or almost-free software for schools, colleges and other educational and academic institutes in Bhutan, in the same way it does in other countries?