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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
AOL and Sears Launch Happy News GNN is designed to offer readers “pick-me-up” tales of inspiration, heroism, silver linings. “[It] addresses the fundamental human need for fulfillment and joy,” says Sears’ chief marketing officer Don Hamlem. Sears is the sole sponsor for the site, which bears its co-branding. The content of the site, developed by AOL, aligns with the Sears’ brand’s new tagline and PR effort, “Life. Well Spent.” GNN is more of a news aggregator than creator. Much of the material is coming from the AOL content machine that already exists, from CNN and wire services. Users can upload links to some of their most inspiring stories found around the Web. A previous version of GNN was on the Web during last holiday season, and the companies claim it attracted millions of unique users with an average visit time of 4 minutes. Part of AOL’s new content strategy is to develop scores of niche-focused blogs and vertical content sites that it can proliferate through search and viral distribution. Whether GNN is a brand vanity project for Sear or a genuine content project aimed at creating a new media brand is unclear. GNN links do not appear on the AOL main portal page, for instance, although an ad for it does appear on AOL’s news site. “Good news services” have appeared in various forms over the years in print and on TV as counterpoints to the drama-driven tone of mainstream news, and none in our memory has succeeded. And while this GNN idea seems similar it has the notable advantage of being digital. This is the kind of idea that may work best in a widget format that can be seeded at personal blogs or even at partner news sites. Good news as a destination concept seems like a stretch, but if the designers intend GNN to be an antidote or a counterpoint to the standard news, then why not put it in an appropriate format? Let it exist online as a burst of positivity that news organizations can integrate? Sears could use the news as a sponsored widget or as a rich media d element it could distribute to sites as a creative unit that is much more engaging to users and more valuable for branding than just another banner. Somewhere in here is the germ of an interesting idea. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
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