Posts Tagged ‘Gannett’

Spring Partners Launches the Wedding Planner springpad

by Jeff J  on Jun 16 2009

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Free and Easy to Use Online Wedding Planner Helps Brides Plan the Perfect Wedding

Spring Partners today announced a new, free online wedding organizer to help brides plan and manage their entire wedding experience. The Wedding Planner springpad is designed for brides and their families who are increasingly using online resources to collect, plan, manage and share information about their big day.

The Wedding Planner provides features to suit today’s busy, online bride – from guest list integration with Facebook to local vendor resources – and allows couples to easily plan and manage their entire wedding in one convenient place.

Some of the Wedding Planner highlights include:

Ideas and inspiration – clip, save and share ideas from the web
Checklists – flexible task and shopping lists come pre-filled to help get started
Guests – create or import invite list, track RSVPs and gifts
Seating – build and manage seating chart and meal selections
Vendors – select and manage local vendors
Budget – easily track vendor quotes, expenses and payments

Spring Partners recently completed a successful pilot launch of the wedding planner – the DerbyCityBride.com Wedding Planner – partnering with Gannett’s Louisville Courier-Journal and Williams-Sonoma to help Louisville couples plan and manage their weddings.

“Our readers view us as a trusted resource for wedding planning in the Louisville and Southern Indiana area and we are always looking for ways to make that experience even better,” said Elaine Huot, VP Digital Media/Marketing, of the Courier-Journal. “We think our readers will find the Wedding Planner springpad to be a useful addition to DerbyCityBride.com’s already popular  wedding news, photo galleries and access to creative ideas and recommendations.”

“springpad is a personal organizer that makes it easy to collect, organize, plan and share life’s tasks and events,” said Jeff Janer, CEO of Spring Partners. “The Wedding Planner springpad is a great way to help take the stress out of organizing by giving brides a single place to plan for the big day from start to finish.

Other free springpads include a weekly meal planner and a date night planner, among others.  In addition, springpad makes it easy for people to create their own springpads and share them with their friends and the springpad community.

Posted in Our Partners, Using Springpad

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Spring Partners introduces the springpad for publishers program

by Jeff J  on Apr 21 2009

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Gannett Co., Inc. launches Louisville’s DerbyCityBride.com Wedding Planner springpad

Spring Partners today announced the springpad for publishers co-branding program to give publishers a new communications channel to attract and engage readers. Co-branded springpads make publisher and advertiser content and offers portable and useful, extending the publishers’ brand into their readers’ daily activity, event and project planning.

Gannett’s first co-branded springpad, the Derby City Bride Wedding Planner, is a free online notebook to help Louisville brides plan and manage their entire wedding experience.

“Our readers view us as a trusted resource for wedding planning in the Louisville and Southern Indiana area and we are always looking for ways to make that experience even better,” said Elaine Huot, VP Digital Media/Marketing, of the Courier-Journal. “We think our readers will find the Wedding Planner springpad to be a useful addition to DerbyCityBride.com’s already popular  wedding news, photo galleries and access to creative ideas and recommendations.”

The Wedding Planner springpad is designed for brides and their families who are increasingly using online resources to plan, manage and share information about their big day. Some of the Wedding Planner highlights include:

Ideas and inspiration – clip, save and share ideas from the web
Checklists – flexible task and shopping lists come pre-filled to help get you started
Guests – create or import your invite list (it’s integrated with Facebook), track RSVPs and gifts
Seating – build and manage your seating chart and meal selections
Vendors – select and manage your vendors
Budget – easily track vendor quotes, expenses and payments

The Derby City Bride Wedding Planner is the result of a partnership between Gannett and Spring Partners. “springpads are free online notebooks that help people organize, share and tackle life’s tasks and events,” said Jeff Janer, CEO of Spring Partners. “We believe our program will give both advertisers and publishers a new way to connect with their audiences and create on-going, high value revenue opportunities.”

“Our partnership allows us to combine our local market expertise, knowledge of our readers and our advertisers’ interests with the innovative approach Spring Partners has developed  to change how interactive media is offered and monetized online,” said Michael Maness, VP of Design and Innovation at Gannett. “The springpad platform promises to help our readers manage their daily lives, while at the same time providing marketers with innovative advertising opportunities and measurable results.”

Over the coming months, Spring Partners and Gannett will introduce new springpads for a variety of life events. Other springpads available for customized co-branding include a weekly meal planner, an activity planner for home or travel and a memory keeper, among others.  In addition, springpad makes it easy for people to create their own springpads and share them with their friends and the springpad community.

Posted in Our Partners

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springpad launches a wedding planner with DerbyCityBride.com

by katin  on Apr 13 2009

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On April 2nd, DerbyCityBride.com (part of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY) launched a local wedding planning tool for its readers.  Williams-Sonoma hosted this very special event for area brides, which included a selection of local wedding vendors, refreshments, product demonstrations & also provided brides the opportunity to create a bridal registry.

As you can see from the video below, a good time was had by all!

Check out more photos from the event.

If you’re planning a wedding in the Louisville area, signup for the DerbyCityBride Wedding Planner today!

The DerbyCityBride.com wedding is the result of a partnership between Spring Partners and Gannett, helping to extend the relationship that local publishers have with their readers.  The launch event brought together the power of the springpad tool, the local market reach of The Courier-Journal, the wedding expertise of many of the paper’s advertisers, and the bridal resources of Williams-Sonoma.

Posted in Using Springpad

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Newspaper online monetization will rely on advertising

by Jeff J  on Apr 13 2009

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With declining ad revenues, dropping circulation and the shrinking – and in some cases – even elimination of print versions, publishers are under increased pressure to monetize their online properties. In particular, newspaper publishers are scrambling for new sources of revenue as the economy has only hastened the need for dramatic change.

In the last week alone, the Associated Press announced an initiative to track down copyright violators on the Internet (to divert traffic from Web sites that don’t properly license news content) and the media rehashed discussions about charging for online subscriptions or micropayments for individual articles.

While a silver bullet solution is unlikely; one thing is certain: advertising will play a major role in supporting the emerging business model. And, it won’t be untargeted display advertising whose return and impressions can only be measured by eyeballs. As Eric Schmidt said last week in a speech at the Newspaper Association of America’s annual convention: “the important thing here is that advertising that is useful is going to work.”

We agree; and have been working to make advertising useful for our publisher and advertising partners. In partnership with Gannett, we recently launched the Derby City Bride Wedding Planner springpad – a free online, interactive notebook to help Louisville brides plan and manage their entire wedding experience. Michael Maness, VP of Design and Innovation at Gannett said:

Our partnership allows us to combine our local market expertise, knowledge of our readers and our advertisers’ interests with the innovative approach Spring Partners has developed  to change how interactive media is offered and monetized online. The springpad platform promises to help our readers manage their daily lives, while at the same time providing marketers with innovative advertising opportunities and measurable results.

Over the coming months, Spring Partners and Gannett will introduce new springpads for a variety of life events.

Interested in learning more?  Contact me (jjaner at springpartners dot com).

Posted in Under the Hood

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How mass media is using bloggers to reach readers

by katin  on Oct 09 2008

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Chris Anderson recently talked about how a passionate amateur almost always beats a bored professional:

They choose to spend their time on what they do, and they go exactly where their passions, interests, knowledge and personality takes them–no further. If they lose interest they move on and are replaced by someone bursting with fresh energy. Self-selection ensures engagement.

When I attended BlogHer over the summer, I discovered some pretty awesome amateur writers in the form of bloggers. They write on topics ranging from health to food to politics to parenting, and sometimes go on an entertaining rant or two. And, I am embarrassed to admit that prior to discovering the large world of bloggers, my main online sources were limited mostly to CNN for news, AOL for celeb gossip & Epicurious for recipes. But, I am proud to say that I am not likely to ever go back.

So, yes, I agree with Chris. Passion is the secret ingredient that makes online content great, it’s the je ne sais quoi that ropes in the reader & commits him or her for life.  A few examples:  Vegan Yum Yum’ recent post on food photography for bloggers, The Simple Dollar’s post about what he learned as a first time home buyer and ten simple ways to live a less stressful life from zenhabits.

But, don’t just take it from me. Every media company under the sun is working to harness the passion of bloggers. Real Simple has put their Simply Stated blogs front and center, CNN is looking to the public to write the news through iReport, Martha Stewart has her own set of blogs in addition to a circle of featured bloggers who are part of her ad network, and even USA Today has members of its staff writing content in the form of blogs.

So, does the increasingly blurry line between media conglomerates & independent bloggers really benefit the reader? The answer is yes, in the sense that media companies are trying new ways to engage with their readers. And a double yes, in the sense that amateurs are now being legitimized by media companies and sponsors alike, and in turn discovered by more and more committed readers like me.

Posted in Under the Hood

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Gannett Goes National with Local MomsLikeMe.com Sites

by Jeff J  on Aug 19 2008

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Great post from Cory Bergman of Lost Remote about Gannett’s launch last week of the MomsLikeMe.com network – a collection of local sites across the country for moms to interact with each other.

What’s also interesting – as Silicon Alley points out – is that Gannett is leveraging its cross-channel media ownership, including television web properties in Cleveland and Denver, to promote the network.

Above and beyond capitalizing on the growth and popularity of social media, it’s good to see Gannett trying new approaches to reversing the decline in media company readership and ad revenues. As we mentioned in a previous post, launching deeply interactive properties like MomsLikeMe.com decentralizes and extends distribution of Gannett’s core assets and promotes new forms of engagement with their brand.

Posted in Under the Hood

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