Alibaba enters the news business

We sometimes get asked whether companies like Alibaba are really media companies. We're convinced that they are and the overlap bewteen the sourcing/directory services they provide and a more traditional concept of media is clear to see in the latest Ali-innovation, Alibaba.com News. As you can see, though, it appears that the news values are more inspired by Rupert Murdoch than the Financial Times.

Click through; the 10 second tour is quite cool. Stories appear to be mainly sourced from Reuters, China Knowledge and Alibaba's own team (see the Computex Taipei report). There's some some interesting stuff there.

So, shame on you lads for the Sweet Bikini Show page. I have examined every single picture very carefully and still can't work out what value this will be to the world's B2B traders. The fact that the pictures are all 'branded' Taobao.com should give us a clue, but to what I'm not sure.