KNIGHT RIDDER'S NEW WEB STRATEGY DESIGNED TO DRAW ADS

By: Karim Mostafa Newspaper Sites Will Roll Into Regional Portals





As KnightRidder.com integrates Mercury Center into BayArea.com next Tuesday, it signals a new strategy for the Real Cities network. For several years, the San Jose, Calif.-based company has invested heavily in building separate regional sites from its newspaper sites in 34 cities.



Now beginning with the flagship in tech capital San Jose, Knight Ridder is moving those newspapers sites into its regional portal sites - in an effort to increase traffic and draw advertising dollars. The nation's second-largest newspaper owner hopes to attract more national advertising by creating a more coherently packaged network, said Bob Ryan, vice president and general manager of site operations for KnightRidder.com.



All of Mercury Center's content, including each day's San Jose Mercury News and the popular SiliconValley.com, will be integrated into BayArea.com, the company said. The site is also introducing a new sports channel covering San Francisco sports.


"We're taking the next step in moving our site well beyond a newspaper site," said Ryan, who is a former director of Mercury Center. The newspaper brand will remain clear and defined in its own channel on BayArea.com, he said. BayArea.com was introduced to the San Francisco area as a regional portal in May 1999, when the company purchased the URL from a Santa Clara company. Besides the Mercury News, Knight Ridder's other area paper, the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, contributes.



Earlier this year, the print version of the Mercury News started an expansion plan by adding San Francisco news coverage and delivery. "Our evolving into BayArea.com is consistent with Mercury News' attempts to become a regional newspaper," Ryan said. However, he added that Mercury Center's integration into BayArea.com was not dependent on the print version's strategy.


Eventually, KnightRidder.com intends to apply the same strategy to all 34 of its regional and newspaper sites, but a time-frame for implementing the changes has not been set.


As for non-Knight Ridder Web sites that have joined the Real Cities network, Ryan said the new strategy does not impact them. Participating sites owned by Belo, E.W. Scripps Co., Macromedia Inc., and Blade Communications will continue to receive the support KnightRidder.com has offered them, he said.



"Our strategy ultimately is to move all of our city sites and our portal platforms to a common technical platform," Ryan said. To do that, KnightRidder.com is developing a technology strategy that consists of a variety of purchased services and home-grown solutions. "No single turn-key provider can provide what we're trying to build," he said.







Karim Mostafa (kmostafa@editorandpublisher.com) is associate editor for E&P Online.







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