David Corbin · · 1 min readFormer Huffington Post editor-in-chief joins Japan’s SmartNews
A still from a current SmartNews advertisement.
Japan’s fledgling news app wars had a new development today when SmartNews announced it hired the former Chief Editor of Huffington Post Japan. Shigeki Matsuura was the first editor of Huffington Post’s Japanese brand, taking the role in 2013 until his sudden resignation in early September.
At SmartNews, Matsuura will hold the post of Media Communications Director so he will be involved involved in improving content and increasing user satisfaction. Matsuura has been dedicated to media his whole life and can count stints at Conde Nast Japan and Gree on his resume.
Matsuura’s joins SmartNews scarcely more than a month after the company added Rich Jaroslovsky, the architect and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online. Jaroslovsky remains based in San Francisco but he and Matsuura form an notable one-two punch of across the Pacific.
Their respective hirings indicate that SmartNews intends to become more than just a news curation app. Taking a cue from recent media darlings like BuzzFeed and Vice, the Japanese startup seems to have designs on becoming an honest-to-goodness media platform.
Editing by Josh Horwitz
(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
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