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New Beijing Business Database Launched btmbeijing.com

A powerful new Web site is now available to serve the interests of Beijing's residents and the global business community.

Liu Kaiyang, editor-in-chief of all Beijing This Month Publications (BTMP) including Business Beijing magazine, said the development of BTMP's new Web site at http://www.btmbeijing.com was meant to promote Beijing as a tourism and investment destination and to inform the world about the vast cultural resources and investment opportunities available in the city.

"This Web site is going to be a valuable place for anyone thinking about visiting or doing business in Beijing," said Liu.

BTMP technical services director Simon Cousins said, "Beijing This Month Publications has a proud publishing tradition spanning the last ten years. Yet, for much of that time, the wealth of information generated by our writers and staff [prior to the current issue] has been generally unavailable or hard to find.

"Soon, all of our writing, data, and collected wisdom will be available with a few mouse clicks on a Web site that has been designed to allow people to 'drill down' to the data they want in a quick and reasonable way."

Cousins said BTMP adopted the "channel" concept in creating the new Web site.

"People can access the information they are looking for in many different ways. They can still find it based on the date of the hard-copy publication, but they can also find it with the title; the date of publication; by subject, such as 'Olympic economy'; by general topic; by 'most popular'; or by using our state-of-the art search engine that rivals any used anywhere."

Cousins said, "We specifically avoided the use of so-called 'shovelware,' that is, software used to just dump data onto a Web site in an unorganized way.

"That approach to building a Web site or database is basically useless for a visitor. We created our own software to upload our vast store of information in a way that takes the visitor into account.

"Everything here is accessible in three clicks or less; people can easily find the information that is interesting or useful to them." BTMP deputy editor-in-chief Zhang Wenzhou said, "We think this Web site will be of particular use to the business community."

Cousins said, "We regard the business community as a 'key' community, and we feel we've delivered on the challenge of providing a Web resource to a rich mine of information about Beijing and China.

"We are now able to offer a quantity of research materials that rival other depositories of information of interest to the international business community."

Offering several examples, Cousins continued, "If North American car dealers want to import Chinese vehicles or parts they can click on our Web site and within two clicks they can view our automotive business channel. We have a good depository concerning the auto industry in Beijing and China.

"If an Australian project management company wants to offer its services to Beijing's Olympic economy, our Olympic business channel is the world's best and most comprehensive store of information about the Beijing Olympic economy."

All of BTMP's publications for 2004, including Beijing This Month and Business Beijing magazines, as well as the Beijing Official Guide have been loaded onto the Web site. Other BTMP publications, including the last ten year's worth of BTMP writings and numerous photos are scheduled for uploading to the Web site within the next two months.

From a business perspective, particularly that of Web advertisers, Cousins said, "We've also designed a unique advertising platform to precisely target business and lifestyle audiences according to both the advertisers' and visitors' interest."

In addition, the Web site has been designed to provide relevant rather than irrelevant search results.

Zhang said, "We can know exactly what hours of the day and days of the week an advertisement can best reach a targeted audience. Our channels represent targeted readerships."

Cousins said, "We have the channels and we have a worldwide audience that our advertisers need, and none of this comes at the expense of our readers' reading experience. In fact, it will enhance their reading experience because the readers will see only the ads they want to see; the advertisers' ads will be seen by those they want to see them."

Liu said, "Take a look at btmbeijing.com and see what we can do for you."

Visit http://www.btmbeijing.com today.