Talk:International Business Times

Reversion of edit

Thanks for removing my last edit. In retrospect, it was entirely inappropriate, as not a reliable source. Wont do that here again.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Who Owns This Paper, Really?

For some reason, it has struck me as an echo of FOX news, which I avoid because of its more extreme, known biases. If it's really serious about doing legitimate business, I'm also curious why its editorial board hasn't put up something on W'pedia themselves, by now. When I see articles in the Google news layout attributed to this paper, I avoid them as well. More info was what I was looking for in coming to this site, but I guess it will be necessary to look elsewhere--of course, maybe that's what they want to do, force you to look for them online directly. Oh, well...96.237.240.126 (talk) 02:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The paper is not owned by FOX News or News Corporation, but is its own business, as the article states. I hate to inform you, but the New York Times, CBS, and NPR have all been known to cite the Ibtimes, so you might be more hard-pressed to avoid them than you thought. That being said, Wikipedia is not a forum where the legitimacy or personal dislike for a source is discussed. This article certainly needs expansion and if you find useful information from reliable sources, do add it. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 02:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The International Business Times isn't exactly overflowing with transparency, is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.36.223.184 (talk) 14:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Once again, this is not the place to discuss this. However, no matter how many times you might want to speculate about conspiracies as to secret ownership, the Ibtimes is owned wholly by its board of directors. Business do not HAVE to be part of some huge media conglomerate. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 16:43, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, while the talk page is not a place to discuss their reliability, and the article absolutely cannot have mention of their reliability unless reliably sourced, WP DOES have a forum for discussing reliable sources, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. This news source has been cited hudreds of times on WP, and a discussion (which i started) on its reliability is ongoing at the Noticeboard here. If we hadnt used them as a source, the discussion there would be irrelevant. The fact that other news sources have used them doesnt automatically mean they are reliable, as their history is very recent and other media have been known to not check their sources properly (as do we sometimes). We could, however, add a line in the article such as "IBT has been cited by media outlet X in their reporting". that would be true, verifiable, neutral. I have not found any critique of them in any other media outlet, so we cant say anything about this issue in the article. I do think the fact that we know nothing about the board of directors, and that they seem to have no information on their editorial staff, is worth looking into, and would be important information to place in the article. News agencies are usually held to some standard of accountability by other news agencies and society.(mercurywoodrose)66.80.6.163 (talk) 15:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

And how on earth did you come to the conclusion that the issue of public accountability of private corporations define the existence of Wikipedia articles or not? You are essentially advocating that Wikipedia stop being neutral and start discriminating solely on the basis of corporate structure. That is unacceptable. The issue of "reliable sources" pertains to IBTimes' recognition in the eyes of mainstream media and other reliable information sources, it has nothing to do with whatever your company policy rant was all about. If you or others believe that Rupert Murdoch or whoever secretly owns IBTimes then it's up to you to get a reliable source and make the information available here. Loginnigol (talk) 11:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I think your comment is addressed more to a previous editors post. I am definitely not advocating we stop being neutral. I have no problem with people citing IBT, as long as the information cited appears to jibe with other news reports. This is something we do with all sources, compare and see if some sources are biased. I dont know if IBT is biased, and i have no evidence that it is. I agree that any speculation here about the owners of IBT needs reliable sources. In regards to "public accountability of private corporations", I also agree that doesnt "define" our articles. I wouldnt even consider putting in the article a line like "we dont know who they are". Im just saying that, since they are a news organization, and almost all news organizations DO hold themselves to some degree of public accountability (at least, respectable ones), adding information about who they are, and what if any editorial policies they follow, would help build the article, if we can find the information. if not, we dont add a section on it. any discussion of these issues, beyond adding factual information to the article, just needs to go to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, as i did.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:51, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

This isn't how Wikipedia works: "If it's really serious about doing legitimate business, I'm also curious why its editorial board hasn't put up something on W'pedia themselves, by now." It would be a conflict of interest for IBT's editorial board to contribute directly to the Wikipedia article about IBT. In fact, there would be something very wrong if IBT's editorial board were to do that! This is a current listing of IBT ownership, which is supported by the article: http://corp.ibt.com/about-team --FeralOink (talk) 14:05, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

PROBABLY STILL YET ANOTHER CIA FRONT COMPANY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.213.101.94 (talk) 03:01, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

There is a source for who owns IBT in the article itself. Here’s a link to the source. Nicmart (talk) 20:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Editorials and reportage issue

this story appears to completely blur reportage and editorializing. I believe that consensus on this science report is NOT that time travel will now be possible or that a pillar of physics is about to fall. the scientists that did the research didnt make these conclusions. I seriously question this sources reliability, and question their legitimacy as a target for news aggregators like google news. Im saying this to spur research into what has been reported on them. I dont have a source saying this aticle is biased, but I doubt it would fly as a source at the article on the experiment.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:05, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Highly promotional editing

The article is now written primarily as a promotional tool for the business. Somehow, i expected this. I will try to scale back the promotional language, and check the refs to make sure they are all neutral and reliable, or, if press releases or company sites, contain noncontroversial facts.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This page is not unambiguously promotional, because... (your reason here) --174.226.196.40 (talk) 01:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC) This page highlights the differences between IBT and other newspapers and also details the history of the company, including leadership and growth. I don't see this as out of character for this category of company, even when compared to the competitors in that space, Financial Times and Wall Sreet Journal. In fact entries for those publications include the same broad categories. Given the amount of content this company puts out, it's important to understand who this company is and this entry serves that purpose. If you feel otherwise perhaps you can try to edit it or revert it.

I see you removed some of the promotional content. I'll see what I can do for the rest. I agree it's notable, the problem is to write an acceptable article. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason to delete this page. If it has problems, let's fix them. IBT is a popular news source, shows up on Google News all the time. I created this page because I was curious about the company and couldn't find much information about it. I have no connections to IBT whatsoever. --N1ywb (talk) 21:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Background info

At least one person has raised questions about their business model, [1], though this may not be a reliable source.(mercurywoodrose)99.35.48.227 (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Ownership section

I have restored the sourced content that has now been deleted three times in five hours by the same user. It now merges my earlier text and the stronger source from Phil Bridger. I have included CT twice because there are two different articles which each provide relevant information, and (at least in my part of the world) they're not clearly linked to each other on CT's website. I will also try to introduce it into the lede, in due proportion. If you look at Washington Times, another general news source owned by a Korean religious leader, the majority of the lede is about that ownership. So I think that it deserves a mention a least. Matt's talk 15:43, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

RE: Will post some new thoughts later as I do have a daytime job... but as i said in my talk: RE: Sorry but I don't see that in your reference at all. The only reference is that Davis declined to join some group. It may very well be the case, I dont know. But that charge is pretty serious. We would need some stronger connection given that the company itself denies it. Also all of what Chua said was refuted by another investigation by CP itself, so its not clear that this is the case. I'm going back with WPP:SOAP. Let's talk here before editing again as if this is just a rogue theory, what you're doing is adding to that.

USA Today source on David Jang

this source states that controversial religious leader David Jang founded IBT. Now, this may be in dispute, but its a NOTABLE dispute. It can be added to the article now, and David Jang can be mentioned on the talk page to spur searches for more sourced information.(mercurywoodrose)99.14.218.50 (talk) 21:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

just noticed this had been removed. thats completely wrong. and the Christianity Today article is from a notable, somewhat reliable source. so this all needs to be put in, at least as notable controversy if not as stated fact. 99.14.218.50 (talk) 21:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

RE I am inclined to remove your post after reading the source. It doesn't say what you are claiming at all. It says some alumni founded it which doesn't connect with Jang at all. WP:NOTEVERYTHING Your logic is akin to saying Leland Stanford owns Google because Stanford alumn started Google. Wikipedia is not a WP:BATTLEGROUND. I'm not sure why the other editors here put up with the POV pushing. Its not a forum for such speculation. Also it's not a USAToday, but something USAToday syndicated. With such obvious mistakes how can one not see there is some agenda here aside from simply updating wikipedia.

The article certainly does connect the IBT with Jang: "For example, Cowley said Jang founded the Christian Post, the International Business Times and all the other companies that support the school", Cowley being Tom Cowley, a professor at Olivet University, which was founded by Jang. It's pretty obvious who is the one with an agenda here, which includes deleting and refactoring other people's talk page posts. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC) Phil Bridger (talk) 22:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok sorry I didn't see that one. But if you look at the next sentence it is refuted by representatives of that company. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.58.170.201 (talk) 23:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

No, the next sentence is about the Christian Post, not the International Business Times, and, anyway, doesn't contradict the claim that Jang was its founder, only saying that there are no official ties between Olivet University and the Christian Post. Having the same founder is not an official tie. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:26, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Not just business

All of a sudden I'm seeing news stories from IBT turn up "elsewhere on the web" bits and google etc (probably some good SEO going on). Should we alter the lead to reflect that it also does "ordinary" news as well as business news? Sophie means wisdom (talk) 19:21, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I would argue a lot of the articles are repetitive, not news worthy and just plainly false. Search "Google Nexus" with IBTimes, and you will see similar rumour articles repeating itself every 3-4 days, with a slight different title, and with blatantly false news. This is not characteristic of a news site, so I would argue this site should not be compared to other news sites. Jimmy Tseng (talk) 14:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

IBTimes is simply a clickbait site that will copy and republish stories as well as publish repeated smartphone and other electronics rumors. It is difficult to consider IBTimes a legitimate news website. Not sure where in the article this could be added. 2604:5500:2D:12FF:8C03:2344:7175:C360 (talk) 22:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Holy crap

Yes,this article is a mess and needs lots of work. IBT is probably notable, but this is a promotional piece, built up by editors who either have a COI or are otherwise credulous when reading IBT's self-reports.

That said, this piece is laughable:

"At least one article by IBT Media turned out to be not just inaccurate, but entirely fictional. The article had to do with a scientific time travel discovery. No other publication has reported this discovery, and in fact, several others have reported the opposite.

The first source is the IBT article in question, stating someone said time travel is possible. It does not say the article is "not just inaccurate, but entirely fictional". The second source is a NY Daily News article from three years earlier. Without looking at it, I know we have a problem. If the 2011 article says the 2014 article is inaccurate/entirely fictional, then time travel is possible.

Kidding aside, we probably have two newspapers reporting on two different studies that apparently had differing conclusions. From this, a Wikipedia editor seems to have synthesized up a storm.

If there are independent reliable sources that directly state that the IBT article was "entirely fictional", feel free to restore a neutrally worded statement to that effect, with a citation to that source. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:21, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

@DummerPhDv2.0: I would suggest looking here, as I have noticed a lot of what they do is promotional, and can easily be tracked since there are so few articles. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:06, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

One of world’s largest news sources?

The entry states: "IBT is one of the world's largest online news sources,” and offers a Mother Jones article as a source. The source that Mother Jones uses is the IBT media kit referred to just after the aforementioned quote. I don’t think a company’s media kit is a reputable source. In 2015, In March 2015 an IBT blog noted: SOCIAL MEDIA NOW DRIVES >30% OF ALL REFERRAL TRAFFIC.” In August 2016, Fortune reported, "According to those numbers, some of the largest news publishers on the web have seen significant declines in traffic from the giant social network. Among the biggest losers are Newsweek owner IBT Media, which saw its visits drop by 47% in the second quarter, and TheStreet.com, which saw a drop of 53%.” The media kit claim in this entry is PR flackery. Nicmart (talk) 19:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The source is not the IBT media kit, it actually says, IBT "become one of the world's largest online news sources, a network of websites whose media kit claims 40 million unique visitors each month." Articles in News magazines rarely have footnotes, we rely on the expertise of the writers. Your article in Fortune Magazine confirms that it is one "of the largest news publishers on the web." TFD (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Recent expansion

Overall, I reverted International Business Times because of the poor and promotional references, while at the same time well-referenced information was removed with a misleading edit summary International Business Times. Some of the material from the new "Growth" section may be worth mention, but please work from better references with clear edit summaries and smaller edits so the material can be easily reviewed by others. --Hipal (talk) 21:33, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. As I've explained in my talk the sources used were strong and the things you thought were deleted simply integrated into the news section. It would have been better to talked to me first or better, tried to have edited it yourself than to delete whole swathes of work. I will consider how to add the new information i found slowly so we can review and discuss, but if you wholesale reverse again we'll need to RfC — Preceding unsigned comment added by Selenocentric (talk • contribs) 03:06, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Let's see what we can do. I've copied the main content below: --Hipal (talk) 16:54, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Audience

International Business Times has a global audience of more than 55 million readers per month across all of its properties. The US website was ranked among the fastest growing online properties on the Internet in 2011 with 31% month-over-month growth and in 2015 with 38% month over month growth, according to web analytics firm Comscore. The US site ranked No. 2 for video views among business publications in 2011, just being Yahoo Finance. It is among the top 10 largest business sites globally.

The network, which runs across desktop, mobile and app platforms, reaches Corporates, 'C' level audiences, Entrepreneurs, General Managers along with professionals who reach out for curated content, enabling their growth in professional and personal world. The site reaches a disproportional amount of readers with high household income, with 42% of readers earning 100k+ in the United States. IBT also over indexes in Comscore ratings for readers with the highest levels of education.

IBT is part of the inaugural sites selected by readers of the Economist as part of their favorite destinations ranging from business to globalization to join the Economist Ideas People Media.

References

These look questionable across the board, which is why I reverted. --Hipal (talk) 16:56, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Growth

International Business Times is a privately held company started by Etienne Uzac and Johnathan Davis in 2006. The company is "boot-strapped" and the co-founders utilized personal savings, credit cards, and bank loans to start the company. The company has not taken money from outside investors.

IBTimes worked closely with California-based Olivet University in the early years and received technological support that allowed the company to scale. Davis learned of the technical capabilities of the university through his wife, Tracy Davis, who was the Academic Dean of Olivet. Davis himself was a director of the Olivet College of Journalism

As described by Dev Pragad: "Since 2006, the University developed various versions of digital publishing platform which IBT used to build and scale its digital media business. The University shared its proprietary technology solutions to assist in building out these platforms through multiple phases of research and development. IBT currently has royalty free use of the IP after completing licensing and R&D payments to the University."

The relationship has been likened to how universities like Stanford work with several Silicon Valley companies in its infancy, such as Google, Snapchat, Yahoo, SUN Microsystems, which derived its name from Stanford University Network, among 40,000 other companies.

The partnership led to the creation of IBT's digital publishing platform, which included the content management system, and ad server. Those systems were phased out late 2010 but Davis said it would continue to explore opportunities with the university just as it would with other organizations.

By 2010, IBT had 10 employees and revenue of roughly $2 million. IBTimes experienced rapid growth, particularly from 2010, as it began using metrics to help tailor coverage to what readers wanted. That sort of analysis helped traffic increase 1,200 percent in 2010. The company became profitable from 2010.

In August of 2011, IBTimes was ranked among the top 10 online growth properties in the United States by digital analytics company Comscore, growing 31 percent in one month.

They moved into the former Newsweek office building's fifth floor, in the Financial District, in July 2011. Reporting staff at the time of the move numbered 50.

By 2014 Mr. Davis said. Today, IBT has 240 employees and 40 million unique monthly visitors and posted revenue of about $21 million last year, largely from digital banner ads, and generated a profit of about $500,000.

In 2017 IBTimes reached over 50 million people per month.

References

At a glance, it appears we have sources here that we should be using. The presentation could use a lot of work. --Hipal (talk) 17:00, 15 April 2022 (UTC)