Six months ago this startup set out to change popular media in Taiwan. And it’s slowly happening.

Media might seem like one of the last industries an entrepreneur in Asia ought to enter.

For one thing, the continent has never been known for producing hard-hitting journalism. On the Reporters Without Borders 2013 Free Press Index, Taiwan and South Korea earn the highest rankings for Asian territories as they skim the edge of the top 50 (ranking at #47 and #50 respectively; Japan ranks at #53, Hong Kong at #58, Singapore at #149; the US sits at #33).

Meanwhile, options for monetization ought to make aspiring media titans shudder. Unless you’re certain your readers will cough up serious cash for Pulitzer-quality coverage, you better get ready for puppy slideshows-galore to keep advertisers happy.

On the other side of the coin, however, the media landscape in certain parts of Asia remains ripe for disruption. Most of the popular media outlets are owned by massive media conglomerates with obvious political biases. They target readership by nosediving after low-hanging fruit like celebrity gossip or food safety scandals. They’re in the dark ages in terms of online strategy. There is no Slate, no Huffington Post, no Quartz, no Buzzfeed. These are the sort of models that could potentially upend the status quo.

And it’s this sort of model that The News Lens, a startup based out of Taipei, aims to bring to Taiwan. And what started as a laughably idealistic idea for a startup – value-driven media on the Huffington Post model – is steadily seeping into the daily lives of connected Taiwanese adults.

“We’re actually doing this,” says Joey Chung, co-founder and CEO of the organization, during his second chat with Tech in Asia. “That’s one thing that I can say now that I couldn’t have said two months ago. This is actually happening.”

The News Lens staff poses for the camera at a reader meetup in Taipei

Entering the ecosystem of the everyday

There have been some cosmetic changes at the TNL headquarters which indicate the growth it’s seen since the team last spoke to Tech in Asia. Chung and Mario Yang, co-founder and editor-and chief, have moved out of their stodgy office space near Taipei 101 into a first-floor workspace on Yongji Street. Situated among clusters of cafes and cheap eats, it’s an environment that better suits the company’s young staff. In addition, its team has grown from 14 to 18 (including interns and part-timers) – more writers, more content.

The stats have also shot up. By the end of September 2013, just eight weeks after its official launch, the website had accumulated 620,000 monthly unique visitors. At the end of October it saw 1.1 million MUVs, and that number grew to 1.5 million in November. It’s global Alexa ranking has reached 27,000.

Chung and Yang’s vision always went beyond pageviews, however. The two wanted The News Lens to be on every screen in the hyper plugged-in city of Taipei; a breathing, non-intrusive presence in every young adult’s daily life. And they’ve gotten off to a solid start. One month ago they formed an agreement with local ad content provider C2, a company with with LCD screens installed in movie theaters, airports, food courts, and malls. Now, if you get out of subway at Taipei City Hall Station and head to Uni-President Mall upstairs, you can catch a glimpse of a one-minute video news segment produced by The News Lens, covering domestic, Asian, and international news. In addition to all of C2’s screens in Taipei, Chung and Yang have also placed their segments on screens in elevators and office buildings. Public buses should be on the way soon.

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