Philadelphia Media Holdings this spring ushered in a redesigned Philly.com Web site as the publisher attempts to land a knockout punch against its local online competitors.

According to Philly.com President Eric Grilly, the competition is anyone vying for eyeballs or ad dollars, online and offline.

The redesign is part of PMH’s efforts to revitalize The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News through a number of initiatives designed to innovate and energize its advertiser and readership base (see Newspapers & Technology, April 2008).

The Clickability Inc.-anchored site, which debuted May 11, was 11 months in the making. PMH hired local firm Avenue A Razorfish Inc. to help the company conduct the market research necessary to better understand the needs of local users.

“We wanted to understand what (readers) were doing on the Web, how they were using it and how they were using our competitors,” Grilly said. “What we found is that 80 percent of our users can be broken down into three categories, foodies, planners and doers and sports enthusiasts.”