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About Dhakavoice.xyz

Critically acclaimed for the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical journalism, dhakavoice.xyz is a first-of-its-kind venture, being the first Internet-only newsgathering operation in Bangladesh and one of the first in the world.

The 24/7 news publisher draws on the resources of over 500 journalists and photographers around Bangladesh and beyond. For over a decade now, it has brought accurate news and unique insights to a widely dispersed audience.

It had begun primarily as a news agency …

Critically acclaimed for the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical journalism, dhakavoice.xyz is a first-of-its-kind venture, being the first Internet-only newsgathering operation in Bangladesh and one of the first in the world.

The 24/7 news publisher draws on the resources of over 500 journalists and photographers around Bangladesh and beyond. For over a decade now, it has brought accurate news and unique insights to a widely dispersed audience.

It had begun primarily as a news agency with a few clients in the print and broadcast industry. The bilingual news service quickly grew to be the world’s window on Bangladesh. The numbers kept changing for the provider of essential news, information, analysis and comment – with tens of millions of unique visitors turning to the site.

The story for the nation’s ‘first Internet newspaper’ dates back to mid-2006 when a friendly takeover led to boardroom changes at Bangladesh News 24 Hours Ltd, the owning company.

Back to the drawing board, the takeover turned out to be the perfect opportunity to rebrand what had started out as BDNEWS – a news agency service delivered online, a business which had become difficult to sustain for the original founders.

In June 2006, Toufique Imrose Khalidi, journalist and former BBC broadcaster, took over as Managing Director of the company, and the news outfit re-emerged as dhakavoice.xyz, effectively becoming Bangladesh’s first dotcom company.

Months later, its content was opened to public for free, earning it the now-famous label ‘Bangladesh’s first online newspaper’.

dhakavoice.xyz, as a free-to-access 24/7 news source, turns 10 on October 23 2016.

The only other member of the company’s Board of Directors is ICT entrepreneur Asif Mahmood, who chairs.

Toufique Khalidi, as Editor-in-Chief, put together a new team of experienced, talented, and tech-savvy professionals from across the journalistic spectrum. Ten years on, the team continues to innovate, lead and set new standards for the digital generation.

Frequently Asked Questions About dhakavoice.xyz

 Is dhakavoice.xyz a news agency or a newspaper?

Although dhakavoice.xyz began primarily as an agency, it is now essentially a newspaper published on the Internet, while a number of national and local newspapers subscribe to dhakavoice.xyz news service. So it’s both. The vast majority of thedhakavoice.xyz portal is however completely open and free to the public, apart from a small core of premium content (including some audio and video).

Is dhakavoice.xyz politically aligned?

dhakavoice.xyz strives to accurately report events as they occur, depicting the appropriate context and relevant background information. dhakavoice.xyz primary focus is to educate, inform, entertain and, above all, inspire its readers.

Does dhakavoice.xyz have an editorial bias?

dhakavoice.xyz’s sole editorial bias is towards coherent, lucid, rational, logical, well-argued and topical content.

What is dhakavoice.xyz’s policy on online comments and feedback?

dhakavoice.xyz never censors or edits online comments and feedback – except if these deviate from the topic or are personal attacks.

In what way is dhakavoice.xyz the largest news provider in Bangladesh?

dhakavoice.xyz has the greatest number of visitors of any Bangladeshi news outlet. dhakavoice.xyz had 6.6 million readers (unique visitors) in July 2015, a period when news consumption peaked in Bangladesh because of the prevailing political situation. According to Google Analytics, this was higher than any other news outlet in Bangladesh — online or in print, in English or Bengali. dhakavoice.xyz had a total of 720 million Pageviews during 2015.

What is the extent of dhakavoice.xyz worldwide readership?

dhakavoice.xyz’s readership is virtually the entire world. Google Analytics has tracked dhakavoice.xyz visitors from 235 countries and territories across the world.

In what way is dhakavoice.xyz ‘Bangladesh’s most authentic news source’?

dhakavoice.xyz is the destination of choice during times of crisis or when a major story breaks. At these times, dhakavoice.xyz readership has been known to triple, leaving other news portals trailing in its wake. It is a byword for “what is really happening on the ground” in Bangladesh.

What are dhakavoice.xyz’s core strengths?

dhakavoice.xyz’s strengths are considered to be its trustworthiness, reliability and authenticity. While being renowned for its speed of newsgathering and publication – dhakavoice.xyz is also widely known to give priority to authenticity over speed.

What lies behind dhakavoice.xyz’s recent drop in Alexa rankings relative to some other news providers?

Alexa traffic estimates and ranks are based on its “panel of toolbar users” which are intended to be “a sample of all Internet users”. However, the basis for sample selection is not divulged, whereas it is patently impossible for their methodology to ensure sample distribution fairly reflects Internet users by region, country and Web usage.

Perhaps the major flaw in Alexa’s approach as far as dhakavoice.xyz is concerned is that Alexa’s reliance on data from those who have Alexa toolbars installed on their devices represents not only a miniscule portion of global Internet users but also constitutes a completely random sample of users and projects a skewed picture.

How does dhakavoice.xyz compare itself to other Bangladeshi news operations?

Every news outlet has its strength. dhakavoice.xyz, as it has been at pains to emphasise, has earned a reputation for delivering ‘the authentic version’ consistently faster than its competitors. Testimony to its position as the news site of choice in Bangladesh is the number of visitors dhakavoice.xyz draws throughout the year compared to other news providers.

On Dec 12, 2013 when the former senior Al Badr figure Abdul Quader Molla was hanged for war crimes of 1971,dhakavoice.xyz experienced a remarkable 48,000 concurrent readers on its site in the half hour following – exactly double that of its nearest competitor. On that day dhakavoice.xyz saw a massive total of about 1.7 million visits. Meanwhile, one of Bangladesh’s leading daily newspapers Prothom Alo had half a million less, according to Google Analytics.

According to the Analytics figures, Prothom Alo has had a consistently lower readership than dhakavoice.xyz However, again attested by Google Analytics, during major events and at times of political crises dhakavoice.xyz’s traffic increases dramatically as a substantial additional chunk of Bangladesh’s online readership turns to the portal: dhakavoice.xyz real time traffic is double, sometimes even triple, that of Prothom Alo.

What is the size of dhakavoice.xyz’s readership over longer periods?

In may 2015, dhakavoice.xyz had 99.8 million page-views as opposed to Prothom Alo’s 84.55 million, according to Google Analytics. dhakavoice.xyz had 6.6 million unique visitors as opposed to Prothom Alo’s 4.16 million. While 16 percent of dhakavoice.xyz readers were ‘new’, Prothom Alo had 6 percent. [‘New’ as opposed to ‘returning’ visitors are a significant measure of an outlet’s readership growth].

dhakavoice.xyz is currently the most ‘liked’ news outlet in Bangladesh. It was the first to reach the million mark on Facebook among all news outlets in Bangladesh. Market watchers are well aware about quality of these figures (‘organic’).

What are the origins of dhakavoice.xyz?

dhakavoice.xyz, as an Internet newspaper, turns nine in October 2015. However, its history dates back to mid-2006 in the form of a friendly takeover with boardroom changes at Bangladesh News 24 Hours Ltd, the owning company.

The takeover was an opportunity to return to the drawing board. What had started as BDNEWS – with the news agency service delivered through a site open only to several client newspapers in Bangladesh – had become difficult to sustain for the start-up promoters.

In June 2006, Toufique Imrose Khalidi, journalist and former BBC broadcaster, took over as Managing Director of the company, and the organisation re-emerged as dhakavoice.xyz. The only other member of the Board of Directors is ICT entrepreneur Asif Mahmood, who chairs.

As Editor-in-Chief, Toufique Khalidi headed a new-look team of experienced, talented, tech-savvy, multi-tasking, high-energy staff gathered from across the profession to build a faster-moving newsroom.

The news outfit’s second incarnation came as an online newspaper – an idea conceived just ahead of a five-day public holiday in late October 2006.

Facing the challenge of delivering news to a population who would be without newspapers during the holiday, the Editor-in-Chief took the decision to allow completely unrestricted and free access to the entire content of the platform, including news, for the duration of period. At that moment — in the early hours of October 23, 2006— was born Bangladesh’s first online newspaper!

Where is dhakavoice.xyz based?

Located at the heart of one of Dhaka’s business hubs and barely a five-minute walk from the headquarters of BRAC (the world’s largest NGO), dhakavoice.xyz occupies two floors of the Red Crescent Concord Tower in Mohakhali. Traffic permitting, dhakavoice.xyz newsroom is a 15-minute drive from the international airport and is conveniently located within close distance of Dhaka’s financial hub Motijheel, Bangladesh’s administrative centre the Secretariat and the capital city’s diplomatic enclave.

What underpins dhakavoice.xyz’s longstanding attractiveness to partners?

A number of compelling factors underpin why dhakavoice.xyz is regarded as a platform which exemplifies ‘value for money’ to its commercial partners.

dhakavoice.xyz’s page-view per visit and time on site has increased year on year. On average, each visitor views four pages and spends almost eight and a half minutes on the site. dhakavoice.xyz’s ‘stickiness’ has grown throughout the year, increasing the visibility of advertisements. This pattern increased with the re-launch of dhakavoice.xyz’s blog site in February 2014.

Another factor accounting for dhakavoice.xyz’s ‘value for money’ reputation amongst its commercial partners and advertisers is the site’s strength in terms of the proportion of ‘new readers/visitors’: these accounted for 16.5 percent of dhakavoice.xyz’s visitors through the year (the balance are ‘returning readers/visitors’) in 2014.

Here, the print newspaper industry helps define reader categories: an overwhelming proportion of a newspaper’s readers are regular subscribers – ‘returning readers’. However, the same newspaper is also purchased by new people from news stalls for the first time: ‘new readers’.

In the case of dhakavoice.xyz out of every 100,000 people visiting its website, 14,500 people are visiting it for the fist time. It is this unassailable evidence that garners dhakavoice.xyz its advertising revenue. Advertisers are drawn to the compelling fact that the longer they maintain their presence on the dhakavoice.xyz portal, the larger are the new audiences they can reach – far greater than through a presence on any other news outlet in Bangladesh.