EPost to launch on July 14

If at first your dotcom venture does not succeed, try and try again. That's the philosophy of the head of Taiwan's first, and now extinct, online newspaper, the Tommorow Times (明日報).

After the February closure of the Web site, Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志) has bounced back to launch the online news service, ePost Inc (普司特).

Jan will serve as chairman of the company, which will offer five subscription-based online dailies, beginning July 14.

Jan's announcement came roughly four months and 10 days after he made public the closure of the Tomorrow Times, after incurring losses of NT$300 million amid the fallout of dotcoms.

The five new subscription-based online services are focused on venture capital, insurance, the communications industry, financial investment and biotechnology, Jan said, adding that ePost will be positioning itself as a "wireless content and service aggregator."

"Based on our experience in running the Tomorrow Times, we realized that Internet users today care more about content they want to read than how they access the information," Jan said.

"Therefore, ePost is looking to offer content and services via wireless gadgets including cell phones and PDAs in the future, not just through PCs," Jan said, who is also CEO of PC Home Publishing Group (網路家庭), which owns the venture.

While many Internet content providers (ICPs) and portal sites are facing the cruel reality of a market of free content and low interest in cyber advertisements, Jan said he expects 80 percent of the new online services' revenue will be generated from subscriptions, with the remaining 20 percent coming via selling content and online advertisements.

Jan hopes to garner around 15,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but editor in chief Amy Ho (何琦瑜) is not so optimistic, saying she expects the new paid service to attract 1,000 new subscribers for each paper by this year's end, citing the country's general gloomy economy.

Arthur Lee (李宏麟), president of ePost, said the company's goal is to be in the black and will maintain a total workforce of about 20 -- much less than the 280 staff employed at the Tomorrow Times. Lee said ePost has increased its paid-in capital from NT$199 million to NT$364 million from shareholders such as Taiwan Fixed Network (台灣固網), Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大) and Compal Electronics Corp (仁寶電子).