1997-98
ASNE New Media Project
I’ll love you, come rain or come
shine.
Even before New Jersey Online and Advance
Publications Internet created the Yuckiest Site on the Internet, they started
RainOrShine (http://www.rainorshine.com),
a weather site that has gained content through two alliances and traffic
through other alliances.
Not-so stormy weather.
The idea behind the weather site was very simple: Unlike TV weathercasters
who blather on about barometers, this site would get right to the point
everyone waits for -- the five-day forecast. But others could give you
the forecast; this site needed other content and personality as well.
So Advance Internet met with the Old Farmer's Almanac, which was just
beginning to work on its online strategy. The Almanac contributed daily
content: answers to a question of the day, this day in weather history,
long-range forecasts, and more. NJO worked with one weather supplier and
later switched to AccuWeather, which provided a feed of forecasts and other
weather data for hundreds of cities worldwide. NJO contributed the design,
programming and hosting.
The arrangement among the players: revenue sharing. Of course, this
being the Web, there wasn't much revenue to speak of at first. But none
of the players had to do a great deal to keep the site alive; it was fully
automated.
Building the relationship.
NJO set out to build traffic. RainOrShine became the weather service
of Advance Internet's other local sites (Michigan Live - http://www.mlive.com;
Cleveland Live - www.cleveland.com;
Alabama Live - http://www.al.com;
OregonLive - http://www.oregonlive.com;
NOLaLive - http://www.nolalive.com;
MassLive - http://www.masslive.com;
Syracuse Online - http://www.syracuse.com).
The company's syndication and content production subsidiary, Journal Square
Interactive, also retained someone to syndicate the site to other local
services, which include the Los Angeles Times and Nando, with a straightforward
deal: The sites get the content for free (after nominal set-up fees) and
Journal Square keeps an ad availability on every page served, while the
papers' sites also kept an ad availability.
A big boost for traffic came when AT&T's WorldNet chose RainOrShine
as its official weather service. So what began as a first learning experience
on the Web for Advance Internet has turned into a popular site that now
attracts traffic at a rate of up to 5 million page views a month -- traffic
that is now bringing in sufficient revenue to share.
And another lesson.
The key lesson is that most any institution wants to control its fate
on the Web, especially until we all learn what the Web can bring any of
us in terms of revenue and relationships. In the weather service, on the
other hand, all the players -- AccuWeather, the Old Farmer's Almanac, WorldNet,
the LA Times, and Nando -- all have their own independent and Web lives;
the weather deal merely brought each additional content or promotion or
an advertising and revenue opportunity.
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