Mashable in Asia with Michael Kriak and Gwendolyn Regina

Michael Kriak & Gwendolyn Regina from Mashable joined us for a conversation on Mashable.com and its recent strategy on video & expansion to Asia. We discussed how Mashable has built out a global media platform with their proprietary technology and strong editorial team distributed across the world. Michael and Gwen also shared with us the interesting case studies and partnerships with Asia’s top social media platforms and its current footprint across Asia.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Introduction to Michael Kriak (@mkriak, LinkedIn), chief operating officer & chief financial officer of Mashable and Gwendolyn Regina (@gwendolynregina), director of strategy and business development, Asia Pacific
  • What brought Mike to Singapore? [1:11]
  • How did Gwen end up joining Mashable to set up their operations in Asia? [2:03]
  • How did Michael get started in his career and eventually come to Mashable? [2:57]
• Mashable and their footprint in Asia Pacific [4:06]
  • Introduction to Mashable [4:06]
    • What is the mission and vision of Mashable, founded by Pete Cashmore? [4:29] 
    • Mission: “a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe”. 45M monthly uniques, 28M social media followers & 7.5M shares per month. 
    • How does Mashable extend their mission through their proprietary technology, for example, Velocity with both its brand partners & editorial team as one of the world’s leading digital publishers? [6:58]
    • Velocity’s ability to track and monitor social media with multiple languages. [8:05]
    • How does Mashable create premium content for the digital generation? How does Mashable leverage the other social platforms to distribute and build out content, for example, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and YouTube? [8:43]
    • Does Mashable experiment their content distribution with social media platforms dominant in Asia, for example, messaging apps (Kakao Talk, Wechat, LINE), video streaming (Youku)?  [10:48]
    • Are there any interesting stories in Asia which has come out of Mashable? What kind of stories work in Asia? [11:30]
    • Example of LGBT articles that illuminate interesting cultural stories across Asia. [12:30]
    • How does cultural nuances factor into the stories which Mashable publishes? [14:48]
    • Recently, Mashable has shifted its major focus towards video, what is the line of thinking behind the video strategy? [15:45]
    • Can you talk about the thinking behind why Mashable decide to expand their footprint in Asia? [18:50]
    • What is the current footprint of Mashable in Asia? Where are the countries you have already started covering? [21:51]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.