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In something of an upset, Editor and Publisher named LATimes.com, the web site of the Los Angeles Times, the best web site for a newspaper with a circulation of more than 250,000. LATimes beat out the web sites of The Washington Post and The New York Times for the honor, bestowed at the 2002 EPpy Awards. USAToday.com was lauded for having the best-designed web site, as well as the best online business section. Another two-award winner was the Topeka Capital-Journal, which was recognized for having the best overall internet site for a newspaper with a circulation of 50,000 to 99,999, in addition to getting an award for best special section concerning news or events. The Tribune-Review.com of Greensburg, Pa., was lauded for having the best web site in the 100,000 to 250,000 category, and the Athens Banner Herald of Athens, Ga., had the best web site for a daily paper with a circulation of less than 50,000.
Ooooops, CNN forgets to pay German site fee
CNN’s German-language-news web site, CNN.de, went off-line for two days starting on Friday. Usually when a major web property goes down, the blackout can be blamed on either an attack or financial cutbacks. But the real explanation is a bit simpler. CNN didn’t quite get around to paying the $51.06, or 58 euro, fee to keep it registered and running. Denic, which is the agency in charge of domain names in Germany, says it wasn’t going to give CNN any special treatment: If payment was late, payment was late, meaning that the site would go dark. The fee has been paid and the site is back up. CNN isn’t saying why it neglected to pay when it was supposed to.
Yahoo gives FTD ad room to bloom
While it searches for additional revenue streams to supplement its shrunken ad proceeds, Yahoo has made itself open to specialized advertising promotions on its home page. The latest example is a blinking ad for online florist FTD.com, which eventually converts to a sidebar banner on the right side of the site. The promotion for a 10 percent discount on roses was also linked to a survey gauging users' reaction to the ad. Yahoo officials insist this type of dominating ad presence is not in the cards as a permanent fixture, saying that the FTD ad was only up for a day. The leading portal has provided two other advertisers with ample room for their marketing ploys in the last year. Ford Motor Co. drew attention to its new Explorer by letting a flock of animated blackbirds loose across the screen. Pizza Hut hoped to tantalize web users with a floating pizza.
Longtime free site Netsurfer starts charging
Well, at least it’s still in business: Relatively venerable web site Netsurfer Digest says it will begin charging for subscriptions. The site got its start as a free newsletter back in 1994, before the internet caught on in such a big way. Netsurfer Digest specializes in pointing out useful, notable and unusual web sites, and was one of the first businesses to do so. But the advertising sales recession has hit Netsurfer Digest especially hard. According to a report in CNET News, the site brought in $200 a month in ad revenue, despite serving about a million banners each month. The site refuses to adopt more obtrusive and arguably more effective ad formats such as pop-ups. A year’s subscription to Netsurfer’s three weekly compilations of cool internet links, namely Netsurfer Digest, Netsurfer Science and Netsurfer Education, will cost $20.
Economy.com thrives amid recession
According to a report in Reuters, at least one aspect of the economy is thriving: That would be Economy.com, a private online consultancy that offers hard numbers on the state of industry and the state of the union. As monetary gloom has mounted, traffic to the site has increased, and many people are paying for the $159 annual subscriptions it offers to its site Dismal.com, which has been around since 1997. The site’s proprietors told Reuters that a lot of its visitors log in from Wall Street companies such as Goldman Sachs. The company was founded back in 1980 by University of Pennsylvania economists, and it began charging for access last fall. The timing was good because the economy was in the throes of a post-Sept. 11 malaise, on top of the recession. The site expected to attract maybe 500 to 1,000 subscribers, and it expected that process to take two years. But it already has 2,000 paying subscribers.
February 12, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
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