DEL.ICIO.USCNN, Weather Channel win on the Web
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
A peek inside the offices of two of Atlanta’s largest news organizations — CNN and the Weather Channel — is all you need to understand the growing importance of their Internet operations.
At CNN.com, reporters, writers, editors and producers fill two floors. Their sole job is to deliver news to the Web or to mobile devices — not TV.
RENEE' HANNANS HENRY/rhannans@ajc.com
Melissa Long anchors a segment of CNN.com, which has its own set of reporters and anchors that deliver streaming video clips to the Web.
RENEE' HANNANS HENRY/rhannans@ajc.com
Jill Cox-Cordova, a senior producer, in the control room at CNN.com. The online site started in 1996, basically as a mirror of the cable network. Two years ago, executives overhauled CNN.com and rebuilt it to compete against Yahoo, Google and YouTube.
Across town, the Weather Channel’s $400,000 high-definition screen has stolen the spotlight lately. But, arguably of equal importance, a staff of 200 at Weather Channel Interactive is constantly working to produce detailed maps for weather.com and send as many as 4,800 video clips a day to cellphones.
Each site was online in the mid-1990s and within the past two years has gone through a major redesign that included adding more local information and more multimedia elements such as video. Their future is built around the following things: a strong brand; interactive components such as maps and outlets for viewers to post their own information or opinion; and an expansive use of video.
Each company’s Web strategy has had a major impact on its business success and market value.
Redefining the game?
CNN’s cable network fights an ongoing battle against bitter rival Fox News Channel, which consistently ranks No. 1 in terms of number of viewers, according to Nielsen data.
But online, CNN has more to crow about.
More than 33 million people went to CNN.com in June and spent a total of 1.3 billion minutes trolling around the site, according to company data.
Nielsen Media Research has ranked CNN.com No. 1 in its “news and information” category for how long people spend on the Web site per visit — an average 29.3 minutes per person, according to CNN data from Nielsen.
The Web site has maintained that No. 1 spot in the news and information category for 11 months in a row, which company executives say helps make the entire CNN brand look good.
CNN.com executive Mitch Gelman doesn’t consider the Web site to have a fancy business strategy.
“It’s how can we be the place online that people go to find out what’s happening now,” said Gelman, CNN.com’s senior vice president and senior executive producer.
The site started in 1996 basically as a mirror of the cable network. It was before Yahoo, Google and YouTube gave anyone and everyone a place to get or post news, video and other information. Two years ago executives overhauled CNN.com and rebuilt it to compete against those sites and similar operations.
“It required us to say that even though we are a market leader, unless we continue to grow, unless we continue to evolve, that market is going to continue to change, and we may not be able to sustain the type of trajectory that we have,” Gelman said.
Changes included CNN.com’s own set of reporters and anchors that deliver streaming video to the Web; additional information connected with CNN’s special investigative reports that is not shown on the TV network; and iReport, which allows people to submit their own short news clips of things such as tornadoes.
“We have a gargantuan appetite to want it all,” said Susan Grant, executive vice president of CNN News Services. “This has been an opportunity for us to do journalism as a content company.”
Gem for the new owner
Though weather is a niche category, enough people check out weather.com each day to make the site competitive against the likes of Yahoo and others that can also tell you whether it’s going to rain tomorrow.
The number of people who went to weather.com at least once in June — 38.6 million — translates to a No. 3 ranking in Nielsen’s news and information category, according to Nielsen data supplied by the company.
And analysts say it was the Web site that helped increase the value of the Weather Channel, which NBC Universal said in July it would buy for a reported $3.5 billion.
“It’s an industry-defining domain,” said Dan Agronow, the chief technology officer for Weather Channel Interactive. “You want weather, you go to weather.com.”
The Weather Channel’s Web site was a pretty simple operation when it started 10 years ago. It gave basic information — temperature and a weekly forecast based on a ZIP code — and was supported by a technical staff that housed servers under their desks.
The site’s growth was buoyed by word of mouth and the Weather Channel’s partnerships with sites such as Yahoo, AOL and MySpace.com, said Joe Fiveash, the executive vice president and general manager for Weather Channel Interactive.
Fiveash said the challenge is to combine a rapid-changing technology, one that allows weather.com to provide hyperlocal information, with its interactive maps. However he said doing so is a necessity.
“People want better weather information, for their town, or let’s say if they are heading to the tennis court,” Fiveash said. “It doesn’t do me any good to just say it’s going to rain in Atlanta in the afternoon.”
Weather.com added interactive maps that let people zoom in on their neighborhood about a year ago. And new video clips are produced every 30 minutes for the top 100 cities in the United States and are sent to cellphones and other mobile devices.
“We believe the mobile Web is the best place to reach people,” said Louis Gump, the vice president for mobile at Weather Channel Interactive. “We can take a clip of (meteorologist Jim) Cantore in Tampa and have it out in minutes.”
CNN.COM
Web data for June 2008 (includes mobile, podcasting, online video)
• Web site: 1.5 billion page views
• CNN.com home page: 803 million page views
• Number of users: 33.9 million people who have come to the site at least once
• Total minutes: 1.3 billion
• Average time spent on Web site per visit: 29.3 minutes
Source: Nielsen Media Research supplied by CNN
WEATHER.COM
Web data for June 2008
• Web site: 1.13 billion page views
• Number of users: 38.6 million people who have come to the site at least once
• Average time spent on Web site per visit: 25 minutes
Source: Nielsen Media Research supplied by the Weather Channel
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