Online Technology February 2000
Thomson targeting online content syndication market
Staff Report
In a world filled with entertainment and wellness news, it's next to impossible for an individual newspaper to keep up and serve readers with a meaningful selection of national and international "light reading" on top of local news.
For the past eight years it has been Thomson Target Media's business to provide such resource-strapped publications with integrated print syndication services.
Coverstory and healthfile are TTM's two syndication packages, which take the burden off local editors and writers and let them seamlessly combine local coverage with syndicated stories, reviews and other editorial content from the world of fame and fitness.
Since it was first published in the Thunder Bay Ontario market in 1992, Coverstory has attracted a following of close to 100 publishing companies across North America that use the entertainment package either as a daily supplement or as a weekend section. Today Coverstory reaches more than 5 million readers each week.
Similarly, healthfile, which offers a dense package of health and wellness news targeted at women, has been picked up by more than 95 North American markets since it was launched in 1995. In all, it reaches more than 2.3 million households via local newspapers.
Based on this solid track record of providing local newspaper markets with a co-branded product that helps to increase readership and tap into new advertising revenues, TTM is now branching into the online content syndication market for entertainment and health and fitness. TTM has been providing a family and children product line for online use for a couple of years.
Since July -- and just a few months after announcing a merger with its sister company Thomson Interactive Media (TIM) -- TTM has been delivering its print-proven syndication services to online publications in a few test markets, including www.centralindiana.com and www.highdesert.com, two local portals created by groups of community online newspapers.
Through the merger, the two companies are able to provide local media companies with complete, interactive online packages of content and system tools, said Mara Perry, marketing manager of Entertainment Products. Since taking Coverstory and healthfile online, the new company has been working to add content and upgrade functionality.
For the near future, customers will see the addition of business directories, which will allow end users to track down businesses that provide services mentioned in Coverstory or healthfile, and open up even more advertising prospects for subscribers to the two products.
The new company is also establishing e-commerce options, such as Coverstory's partnership with Videoflicks.com, which allows end users to purchase videos at a newspaper's Web site.
Coverstory and healthfile are built to be integrated into a client's existing Web site, normally through the use of frames, explained TIM's Matt Goebel. The framing allows customers to maintain their own navigational structures and makes Coverstory and healthfile feel more like a part of a customer's Web site.
To offer Coverstory or healthfile on a local Web site, a customer has to have a framed page and adjust their navigation to include the addition. Since the products are hosted directly from TTM's facility in Chicago, no additional maintenance or infrastructure is required of the customer.
"The sites run at a top-of-the-line hosting facility at Exodus," Goebel said. "They are distributed using proprietary syndication tools and developed using a variety of tools like Dreamweaver, Flash and Cold Fusion."
Clients also have the option to develop local directories to related businesses using Thomson Interactive Media's Encore site builder tools. According to Perry, online versions of Coverstory and healthfile will be rolled out into many more markets in the coming months and the company's goal is to have 90 percent of their existing clients using their online products for entertainment and health and fitness by the end of 2000.
Taking the two syndication packages online was a logical step for the two companies as well as their customers, Perry said, "As newspapers build up local Web sites and community portals, they are becoming the leading source of local information on the Web. Our content helps make the local sites more robust and gives our media partners another way to generate revenues on the Internet."
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