Traditional media is in the throes of transformation, seeking to diversify beyond legacy models and serve customers with an array of new products and services. At BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference, Gannett Digital Marketing Services President and CEO Vikram Sharma reintroduced the monolith as something much more – a full-fledged “digital marketing services company” buttressed …

In the loyalty space, we’re closely watching how major tech players are vertically integrating loyalty offerings into their SMB product suite. Google, Facebook and Amazon each have acquired loyalty startups and will likely make them part of their SMB suite. But how about media companies, which can add the power of their promotional reach?
Today, …

We’ve long known that coupons provide real traction for SMB advertising. Nothing beats a customer walking through the door with a coupon in hand. But a lot of SMB website publishers haven’t really focused on them.
DataSphere, on the other hand, has had a coupons product for some time. But it only recently has really …

Gannett has now publicly announced that it has expanded its DealChicken platform to 10 to 15 markets, and will be in 57 markets where it has newspapers and/or TV stations.
The company obviously enters a crowded marketplace, but will likely become an immediate contender for several reasons. These include the strength of its local media outlets, …

Gannett announced during its earnings call yesterday that it is now producing 264 hyperlocal neighborhood sites in 10 markets. This includes the recent addition of 30 hyperlocal neighborhoods in Sacramento. The hyperlocal neighborhoods, produced in conjunction with DataSphere, have put out 30,000 stories and attracted 1.9 million page views.
In addition to the hyperlocal news, Gannett …

When it was launched in 2004, Gannett’s Planet Discover was a pioneer in local search and later, the development of local online marketplaces. But it has lately had a lower profile, dating to a temporary mid-2007 mandate to focus on Gannett newspaper and broadcast properties. That mandate ended in mid-2008, and the company has since …

The future of city guides has been morphing beyond events and features. This was driven home today by the launch of Metromix Deals, a JV between Metromix, the 50+ site city guide chain co-owned by Gannett and Tribune, and Local Offer Network, which separately operates Deal Radar.
The effort is the latest “aggregator” to bundle …

The deal-a-day model thrives on the power of its e-mail list, sales channels, promotion, clever copywriting and vendor selection. Newspapers and TV stations should be especially well positioned to leverage these strengths, right? Many, in fact, are diving in to deal a day via partner relationships with Groupon and LivingSocial, or vendor relationships with the …

High school sports have been the centerpiece of many hyperlocal efforts. They bring to the table highly passionate fans, families and players in the hard-to-reach 12- to 17-year-old demo.
But the economics of school-by-school efforts don’t always work, whether for branding, region-wide advertisers and advertising sales, production needs, data and content acquisition, or site infrastructure. Just …

Gannett’s local newspapers and TV stations will begin selling Yahoo inventory, considerably boosting the size of Yahoo’s local sales efforts. The deal, which involves 81 newspaper organizations and seven of its 23 TV stations, is similar to the efforts of Yahoo’s 800-member Newspaper Consortium.
But Gannett, notably, is staying separate from the Consortium. In part, Gannett …

DataSphere, which creates hyperlocal blogs and sells advertising packages to small businesses on behalf of local broadcasters, will now do the same for Gannett Broadcasting,
The deal initially covers ten of Gannett Broadcasting’s 19 markets, including Atlanta, Washington D.C., Tampa, Buffalo, Sacramento, Grand Rapids, Little Rock, Portland, ME and Macon, GA. Gannett is keeping the …

Gannett has always seemed to be a likely directory player. In fact, the world’s largest newspaper publisher owns a small group of print directories. It also provides a white-labeled online directory product to its media properties.
But as directories, search and user-generated content have become more commingled, Gannett has gone a step further with the launch …

Monster Worldwide has bought HotJobs from Yahoo for $225 million. It will also be in charge of Yahoo’s recruitment content in North America for the next three years, bringing in perhaps another $100 million for the life of the deal from home page traffic, etc. As part of the deal, which closes in 3Q 2010, …