Track online favourites: with an original voice on the issues of the day, from back office operations to trade talks and ethical fashion, the magazine online offers content for a range of users.

• Author: Gaspar, Miklos

Trade law, trade talks and e-trade have consistently been the most popular sections in the online version of Trade Forum magazine. New favourites include trade-led poverty reduction and fashion, textiles and clothing. They have joined old favourite "how-to" articles for exporters as well as coverage of successful business models from least developed economies and market profiles.

The "all-time favourite" article online is "Value Chain Analysis: A Strategy to Increase Export Earnings", which originally appeared in our 1/2003 issue. This article has been viewed more than 30,000 times online.

Alternative angles

E-trade and e-business marketplaces were already a popular theme at the site's inception in 2000-2001, reflecting readers' appreciation of the hands-on, practical approach of Trade Forum during the dot-corn crash, when many in the business community lost interest in the Internet. The year 2000 marked the end of the "eyeballs" era, when fledgling online companies in both developed and developing countries were running unsustainable businesses with the single aim of increasing their audience--or "eyeballs", as they used to call it. When many trade magazines were discussing the end of the online era after the burst of the Internet bubble, Trade Forum's articles on "E-business Marketplaces: A Revolution in International Trade", "Reaping the Digital Dividend" and on ITC's e-trade strategy offered an alternative spin on events and proved popular with readers.

More recently, the popularity of fair trade is partly due to the coverage the issue has generated in the mainstream media and the awareness raised as a result. While fair trade is a trendy topic, the high amount of media coverage could also mean that content on a relatively small site such as ours could be overshadowed by other sources. However, ITC and Trade Forum provide a unique point of view in this debate. It represents the voice of the producers, rather than middle-class shoppers in the developed world, and this clearly attracts readers even in such a competitive media space.

The consistently high readership for trade talks is also due to the special angle TradeForum brings to the table in its coverage of the Doha round of world trade negotiations. The magazine focuses on practical issues and concerns of developing country producers and on helping them find their voice in shaping their governments' negotiating strategies. Furthermore, ITC's partnership with the World Trade Organization provides extra exposure to Trade Forum's Doha-related content.

Spanish vs. French vs. English

The role of business in the Doha round of trade negotiations has caught readers' attention in all three...