Gannett Buying ShopLocal Outright
We have learned that Gannett is acquiring the parts of ShopLocal that it doesn’t already own from partners Tribune and McClatchy. ShopLocal’s stated mission is “connecting advertisers and consumers, online and in-store.”
ShopLocal’s efforts generally center on localized circulars, targeted e-mails and “Smart Media,” which allows time-sensitive localized promotions to be inserted into other media sites on demand. The Chicago-based company was valued at $85 million in 2006.
The acquisition of ShopLocal is likely to elevate the role Gannett’s PointRoll plays with the Smart Media business. PointRoll initially partnered with ShopLocal for Smart Media. Recently, however, ShopLocal has been working more with DoubleClick. Since Google has purchased DoubleClick, PointRoll has been openly coveting DoubleClick’s employees and accounts. Gannett Interactive head Chris Saridakis was previously PointRoll’s head.
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Definitely a lot of moving parts.
I’m curious to see how the Yahoo deal folds into this.
Even more interesting will be how ShopLocal and its new directory deal with Localeze with the obvious attempt to get deeper local penetration. How does that mesh with the Planet Discover offerings?
It’ll be interesting to see how they integrate the technical teams and their systems. They already have a tremendous head start because they happen to use similar technology platforms and share some of the same mission-critical vendors!