Gotta hand it to the fast growing DataSphere. The online solutions vendor recently closed deals with LocalTV LLC, Raycom and others. Could their offerings threaten WorldNow, Triton, and Emmis Interactive? Better yet, could their business model even hurt the local media partners they’re teaming up with?
Recently funded by Fisher Communications, DataSphere clearly saw local media still struggling with turning a web profit. (even after all these years)
Combine that with viewers and advertisers losing interest in typical local news sites, and ever lower cpm’s….. general managers everywhere are scrambling to keep corporate off their a** and to quickly accomplish the following:
- Have a half-decent website at the lowest possible cost
- Populate it with news, content & info, at the lowest possible cost
- Hit their new, mandatory web budget at the lowest possible cost
- Get it all done while not screwing up the primary business
DataSphere to the rescue. Here’s the deal: We’ll turn on a whole bunch of ez-to-operate neighborhood blogs for ya, then have our call centers auto-dial the local businesses in your town, close lot’s of deals, rinse, repeat. How’s that sound? Oh, we almost forgot. We’ll take a ridiculously high percentage of the deal and we’ll have a primary contact with the client too. But hey, just sit there and promote it. No need to lift a finger. Cool?
DataSphere Technologies, Inc. (http://www.DataSphere.com) is a Software as a Service (SaaS) Web technology and hyper-local ad sales company focused on generating online profits for media companies. DataSphere offers a range of turnkey solutions to rapidly improve site monetization and experience with minimal investment of time and money
I like that last line; “minimal investment of time and money”
As a local media manager, you’ll love how this easily puts web revenue on the books. But in reality, you did a deal with the devil. You just handed over the most valuable part of your business (realtionship with local advertiser) to an outside technology company/middle man.
Just for kicks, ask the Newspaper publisher in town how that deal with Yahoo has been working out for them.
