Gannett launches ContentOne hybrid site

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on January 6, 2009 at 5:33 PM

Gannett Co., Inc. unveiled its local/national Web hybrid ContentOne Tuesday, paidContent reported. The company's Chairman, President and CEO Craig Dubow announced the creation of ContentOne, based on the Web start-up model, on December 10, 2008, at the 36th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference in New York.

ContentOne will help develop and gather information more efficiently across Gannett's properties, and will showcase content as a company-side product, as well as putting Gannett properties in a position to become content creators for their own ad partners, Dubow said at the conference.

Gannett plans a digital push for 2009. "We must execute these plans, and we'll be ready when the economy returns," Dubow told conference attendees.

ContentOne will serve as a platform for Gannett's 85 local newspaper Web sites, as well as USA Today's site, paidContent reported.

According to a Gannett memo obtained by Jim Hopkins, who writes the Gannett Blog, ContentOne's debut has two top components:

The special inauguration Web site: The site will carry national ads, as well as content generated mostly by USA Today. Local newspapers will add the site to their own, and will ad local brand names, advertising and content, to make it look like their own site, all of which goes live Tuesday, the memo states. The sites will be linked by a global network that is offered to national advertisers, and "will be sold to advertisers based on the potential for more than 50 million uniques," the memo states. However, Hopkins points out that 50 million is "an ambitious target," as Gannett's combined uniques across all properties in September was 25.4 million.
Standalone print section: Corporate will produce the eight-page section to be inserted in newspapers on Sunday, Jan. 18, two days before the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. The "turn-key" section will be delivered to papers on Jan. 13, and papers will be allowed to publish the full section, or select parts of the section.

The memo points out that the presidential election on Jan. 20 is an opportunity for advertisers to place ads in the special section and "become part of history to brand themselves as a company looking to the future," Hopkins quotes the memo as saying.