10 Leading—Edge Innovators

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, July 1, 2000 by Jane E. Zarem

Another service the site offers is The Beat, where the editors publish daily news directly from major industry trade shows and conferences that they're covering for the magazine. The stories, as well as NewsNow articles, are archived and searchable, making them excellent research tools for both readers and staffers.

The Job Zone area serves a dual purpose of drawing site visitors and providing several thousand dollars per month in revenue from those who pay to post ads. "This industry has a lot of contract workers," says Meyers. "People who build networks, for example, often do it on a contract basis. They use Job Zone to find work, apply for a contract, work it, then go back and get another one." Reflecting the burgeoning economy and the opportunities in the telecommunications industry, first quarter 2000 revenues attributed to Job Zone have increased more than 20 percent over the comparable period last year, Internet-Telephony managers say.

The information posted on InternetTelephony.com is so consistently useful to its highly targeted audience that managers have little concern about viewers drifting off the site. The editors are, in fact, proactive in setting up links directly to the sites of companies that are covered. "It draws traffic," says Meyers, "and the hope is the visitors will also explore other areas of our site. We even give companies our logos (both internetTelephony.com and NewsNow) to use to enrich their sites and to spread our brand."

It seems to be working: "I'm getting a ton of requests for links," says Karen Murphy, Web editor.

www.prevention.com

Blending Edit and Interactivity

Prevention.com has found success taking features that appear in the magazine and "blowing them out online," says Sherri Rush, director of interactive media. For example, a recent magazine feature profiled the experience of five women who had undergone a weight loss and fitness program. "The before-and-after pictures were three months old when the magazine hit the newsstand," she explains. "The site posted updated photos, and each woman took part in a Web chat to share her story--what was easy or hard about the plan, how to stick with it, and so forth."

The site also features ongoing Q&As with a panel of experts, interactive tools such as a calorie calculator, a recipe search tool, and a vitamin and herb finder to help people figure out what supplements may work best for them.

"We've got the right blend of editorial and interactivity," says Rush. And the numbers bear that out. Prevention.com--owned by Rodale Inc. and based in Emmaus, Pennsylvania--had 9.4 million page views in January, with 980,000 unique visitors. That's nearly double the 5 million page views tracked in June 1999. The most significant single effort fueling traffic growth in that six-month period was, perhaps, the rebranding of the site as Prevention.com. "Strong brands translate very well online. Prevention will be 50 years old this year, and the name has a lot of power and credibility. We were missing out by not getting that brand message across."