By: Dave Astor Copley News Service is launching a new download Web site on Aug. 5.
It even includes an "Editors Challenge" daily trivia game featuring prizes such as "Copley cash" good toward the online purchase of syndicated content.
The site (
http://www.copleynews.com) offers about 80 columns a week as well as the work of nine editorial cartoonists and four comic-strip creators. There are also 26 special packages a year, editorials, photos, graphics, caricatures, and more. Content will change every day, and new stories from Copley news bureaus will appear several times a day.
"Editors can find content on the site in one of two ways," said Copley Editorial Director Glenda Winders. "They can go directly to the customized downloads form and select exactly what they want, or, if they want to browse, they can use one of the advanced search forms."
Two months after the new site debuts, Copley will no longer distribute copy and photos via postal mail. Copley is hoping the weekly and small-daily newspapers still receiving content that way will switch to the download method.
The syndicate has about 1,500 regular clients, including large and small print newspapers, online newspapers, and non-newspaper Web sites. Copley's site can also be used by one-shot subscribers -- such as, say, a dental publication that sees a dental-related cartoon it wants to buy and reprint.
Systems Web Coordinator Chris Rowe has been among those at Copley working to set up the download site. One thing he did as part of this process was study the sites of other major syndicates.
No staffers are being laid off as the download site debuts. Winders noted that about a half-dozen mailroom and photo-lab employees -- some of whom have been with Copley for many years -- were retrained as Web technicians.
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