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Japan’s social news aggregator for press Spectee announces Asian, US expansion

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Spectee, the startup behind the artificial intelligence(AI)-powered platform offering news materials based on social media analytics, announced today that it would start global expansion of Newsdeck, the company’s social news aggregation platform for the press. The expansion will be driven in cooperation with CBC, the company behind a globally-renowned cable TV system brand called Ganz, which participated in a series A round this July. Specifically, Spectee will set up a local subsidiary in Taiwan and Singapore respectively followed by commencing sales operations using CBC’s local sales offices. Regarding US market entry, the company will found a subsidiary there in fall for market research before starting sales operations leveraging CBC’s sales network in the US after next year. In Taiwan, there are more than several dozen satellite TV news channels catering overseas Chinese communities, such as FTV News, CTS News, CTi News, EBC News, NTDAPTV and TVBS. In Singapore, international TV broadcasters like BBC and CNBC have their regional broadcasting centers in addition to the existence of SPH Plug & Play, a media business-focused startup accelerator run by the parent company of Mediacorp, broadcasting international TV channel Channel NewsAsia. In these markets that contain…

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See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Spectee, the startup behind the artificial intelligence(AI)-powered platform offering news materials based on social media analytics, announced today that it would start global expansion of Newsdeck, the company’s social news aggregation platform for the press. The expansion will be driven in cooperation with CBC, the company behind a globally-renowned cable TV system brand called Ganz, which participated in a series A round this July.

Specifically, Spectee will set up a local subsidiary in Taiwan and Singapore respectively followed by commencing sales operations using CBC’s local sales offices. Regarding US market entry, the company will found a subsidiary there in fall for market research before starting sales operations leveraging CBC’s sales network in the US after next year.

In Taiwan, there are more than several dozen satellite TV news channels catering overseas Chinese communities, such as FTV News, CTS News, CTi News, EBC News, NTDAPTV and TVBS. In Singapore, international TV broadcasters like BBC and CNBC have their regional broadcasting centers in addition to the existence of SPH Plug & Play, a media business-focused startup accelerator run by the parent company of Mediacorp, broadcasting international TV channel Channel NewsAsia. In these markets that contain more potential clients than Japan, Spectee wants to launch full-scale sales operations leveraging local offices of its shareholder CBC.

In the US, nationwide TV news networks are mostly dominated by the existing Big Three comprising CBS, ABC and NBC… in addition to major satellite channels like CNN and Fox News. However, local TV stations - of which more than 2,000 stations are said to be in operation from coast to coast -can be targeted for Spectee as clients. In rural areas that even news agencies unlikely have coverage, local broadcasters which typically have less reporting resources can secure news images and materials by leveraging social media tools. Banjo, a US-based startup offering a service similar to Spectee’s Newsdeck, has been adopted at many local TV stations owned by Sinclair Digital Group. This is why the primary key for Spectee’s success in the US market will rely on what kind of additional values they can offer to such TV stations.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy