MerchantCircle is joining the ranks of companies creating local and vertical content, including Demand Media, Associated Content, Examiner.com, AOL’s Seed and Patch, Perfect Market, Helium, Brafton Media and others. MerchantCircle’s new Local Content Studio is being led by Andy Halliday, who many of us remember as former head of e-commerce at Excite@Home and who has since been engaged in several entrepreneurial efforts.

The basic idea for MerchantCircle’s Local Content Studio, and the others, is to create optimized content that can be used to economically and efficiently spur local traffic to its directories and profiles, while driving ad impressions. Presumably, MerchantCircle will have an edge over rivals via 1.3 million SMBs that have claimed profiles on the service, covering 95 percent of U.S. communities.

The SMBs may be seeking to build attention for themselves (i.e., real estate agents), and/or earn awards or make a little cash — $1 or $2 per article. The cash can eventually add up: Some SMBs, in early testing, are already being sent checks for $300 and up.

The Studio, in fact, may be seen as an extension of MerchantCircle’s Answers division, launched last September, in which members are encouraged to provide their expertise on a wide range of subjects (where to fix, how to fix, etc.). Both efforts are part of a broader effort to broaden MerchantCircle’s identity and engagement with consumers and businesses beyond the core directory.

At the heart of the Studio is an online authoring and publishing system which can support thousands of simultaneous content development projects. The projects can be claimed by local merchant members or other writers remotely, submitted, reviewed for approval or corrections, and published to local and topical “Expert Pages.”

MerchantCircle VP Darren Waddell says the creation of the Studio does not alter the company’s extensive and successful relationship with Demand Media, which includes syndication of MC’s Answers, domain registration for MC members, and expert articles and other content to MC profiles for $9.95 per month, among other activities.

MerchantCircle’s efforts to launch more local content is not occurring in a vacuum. We have watched with interest as Yahoo has been developing local news and information via the hiring of writers in New York and San Francisco, and recruitment of writer/editors in San Jose, Chicago and Denver, per reporting in paidContent. Their written and edited material will likely be paired with material from Associated Content, which Yahoo purchased this spring. It represents a very different take from Patch.com, which is hiring journalists for hyperlocal reporting in up to 500 communities.

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Everyone is fighting for a better, more cost-efficient way of producing content for Web sites. But is the so-called “content mill” search optimized approach of a Demand Media, Associated Content or Examiner.com the only way to achieve this?

Whether you agree or disagree with the characterization of these companies (we largely disagree), alternatives are out there. One alternative is presented by Helium, a 29-person, Boston-based firm that brings in text articles from 160,000 writers and editors, filters it via peer review to let the best voices rise to the top, and allows media partners to generally choose from multiple entries for the best fit.

Helium was founded in October 2006 and has received $16 million in Series A funding. Most interesting to us, it is also 20 percent owned by mega publisher RR Donnelly. Indeed, RRD, with 1,200 sales reps, is its principal reseller to local media clients including TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, Yellow Pages and Web pure plays.

Using Helium, media partners can personalize the content for their own purposes.

One TV company we recently talked with said it liked Helium’s approach more than the others because it had confidence in the quality of the articles since they are refereed, and the company is able to let local reporters add their own touch to pieces that run on its Web sites. It isn’t so much about using outside content as “letting the company’s talent do more,” it said.

This company would be among Helium’s pay-by-the-article customers. The cost can range anywhere from $30 to $50 for general interest content, to up to $1,000 for a high-end medical specialty piece. There are also monthly plans. The company’s content is also distributed on its own ad-supported Web site, which receives 9 million page views per month, growing 5 percent to 7 percent per month.

President and CEO Mark Ranalli tells us that writers are paid on an algorithm based on a portion of ad revenues. The payment scheme is similar to that of Demand Media, Examiner.com or Associated Content. “Many, many writers receive from $5,000 to $10,000 a year,” he says — enough to be a good source of supplemental income. But that also does not differentiate the company. The difference, he contends, is that the content may be “reviewed better than professionally written material.”

“We are not oblivious to what the search engines are doing,” says Ranalli. “You want to be on Google at the end of the day.” And the other content creators may have been perfectly optimized for Google. But instead of producing articles specifically to top the search engine, Helium is bent on producing the best article. “That’s perfectly aligned with Google,” which really just wants to highlight the best content, he says.

The post Helium Provides 'Refereed' Content for Local Media appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Everyone is fighting for a better, more cost-efficient way of producing content for Web sites. But is the so-called “content mill” search optimized approach of a Demand Media, Associated Content or Examiner.com the only way to achieve this?

Whether you agree or disagree with the characterization of these companies (we largely disagree), alternatives are out there. One alternative is presented by Helium, a 29-person, Boston-based firm that brings in text articles from 160,000 writers and editors, filters it via peer review to let the best voices rise to the top, and allows media partners to generally choose from multiple entries for the best fit.

Helium was founded in October 2006 and has received $16 million in Series A funding. Most interesting to us, it is also 20 percent owned by mega publisher RR Donnelly. Indeed, RRD, with 1,200 sales reps, is its principal reseller to local media clients including TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, Yellow Pages and Web pure plays.

Using Helium, media partners can personalize the content for their own purposes.

One TV company we recently talked with said it liked Helium’s approach more than the others because it had confidence in the quality of the articles since they are refereed, and the company is able to let local reporters add their own touch to pieces that run on its Web sites. It isn’t so much about using outside content as “letting the company’s talent do more,” it said.

This company would be among Helium’s pay-by-the-article customers. The cost can range anywhere from $30 to $50 for general interest content, to up to $1,000 for a high-end medical specialty piece. There are also monthly plans. The company’s content is also distributed on its own ad-supported Web site, which receives 9 million page views per month, growing 5 percent to 7 percent per month.

President and CEO Mark Ranalli tells us that writers are paid on an algorithm based on a portion of ad revenues. The payment scheme is similar to that of Demand Media, Examiner.com or Associated Content. “Many, many writers receive from $5,000 to $10,000 a year,” he says — enough to be a good source of supplemental income. But that also does not differentiate the company. The difference, he contends, is that the content may be “reviewed better than professionally written material.”

“We are not oblivious to what the search engines are doing,” says Ranalli. “You want to be on Google at the end of the day.” And the other content creators may have been perfectly optimized for Google. But instead of producing articles specifically to top the search engine, Helium is bent on producing the best article. “That’s perfectly aligned with Google,” which really just wants to highlight the best content, he says.

The post Helium Provides ‘Refereed’ Content for Local Media appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Content creators that seek to optimize millions of pieces of content for contextual vertical advertising were on full display at Marketplaces 2010 today in San Diego.

Luke Beatty, founder and president of Associated Content, noted that his company was “the first crowd-sourced media platform” and now attracts 16 million unique visitors. Research done for the company shows that users were 125 percent more likely to discuss information that they found on Associated Content with others.

They also were 10 percent percent more likely to carry out additional research; 80 percent more likely to purchase a product or service from advertisers; 53 percent more likely to have people turn to them for advice or opinions; 43 percent more likely to have influence over friends and family; and 25 percent more likely to be trendsetters.

Beatty also noted that 17 percent of AC’s content is local oriented. “It is all about fragmented content,” he said. Short-tail news content doesn’t monetize on Web content. Long tail rules. Local is better being created by the social Web.

Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair said his company is even more focused on local. Blair spelled out a sponsorship model that allows advertisers to sponsor specific writers, or “examiners.” Rates range from $29 to $399. Advertising also accompanies 100,000 to 125,000 e-mails sent out to people who subscribe to specific examiners.

Perfect Market CSO Rob Barrett noted that his new company, which recently partnered with Tribune Co., has made it easier to monetize vertical content, which is earning $9 RPM, as opposed to 85 cents RPM earned from article pages gotten via search. Hard news stories don’t typically monetize very well.

We see which keywords have what CPM, he says. The Toyota recall has been a very effective keyword, for instance.

The post Marketplaces 2010: Content Creators See Enhanced Ad Value appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Demand Media, Associated Content and Examiner.com are each building up an arsenal of highly searchable “long tail” content. Now add Perfect Market to their ranks, a new company that seeks to provide the same “long tail” search optimized earnings capabilities to archival content from newspapers and other media.

The site just added a $6 million round lead by The Tribune Co. That adds to $15.6 million previously raised from Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners and IdeaLab — each of which is also participating in the new round. The site originated with IdeaLab.

The company also announced an executive team that includes President and CEO Julie Schoenfeld; Chief Revenue Officer Tim Ruder, a longtime exec at Washington Post.com; and Chief Strategy Officer Rob Barrett, who was previously executive VP for Tribune Interactive and head of LATimes.com.

UPDATED: CSO Rob Barrett will be joining Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair and Associated Content President Luke Beatty on our “aggregators” panel at Marketplaces 2010

The post Tribune Invests in Perfect Market, a Long Tail Content Site appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Demand Media is probably the biggest company in the space. But others include Examiner.com, which has a distinctly local/vertical tilt, and Associated Content.

Associated Content CEO Patrick Keane talked with us last week. Keane, a former analyst with Jupiter Communications who has since had major roles with Google and CBS, says the game is all about cost-effective, scalable content generation. “We want to own event content around where ads are found,” he says. The company can also develop content on a custom basis — something it has done for Reuters, Hachette as well as major advertisers, such as Procter & Gamble and Toyota.

Publishers — which Keane calls “the owners of audience” — can increasingly see the value of unique content creation assets, he says. AOL, for instance, owns less than 10 percent of its content. Yahoo’s percentage of ownership may not be much higher.

For such sites, local content is a key differentiator, especially since so much of it has a utility angle. “We see more and more contributors contributing content on a localized basis,” says Keane. Consequently, one of Associated Content’s big initiatives is to find, discern and empower contributors on the basis of local DNA.

Keane notes that Associated Content, which has 60 employees, has 350,000 contributors. Perhaps 40,000, for instance, are in the greater Boston area. They can submit restaurant reviews, local school reviews and other local content, he suggests. That would fit in with the identity of some of the contributors.

A third of the contributors are mercenary agents settling for the upfront, per article fee of $1.50 to $2.00, notes Keane. Another third are experts of some kind who want to have a professional voice about what they’ve done, such as an accountant in Phoenix. The remaining third are “social media Web freaks. They create community about what they write about.”

While Associated Content is a powerful site onto itself, ranked 39th overall by Quantcast, Keane emphasizes that it is not about “being monolithic with singular content. For us, we are 2 million destinations. It is about how people use content in certain way.”

True to his roots at Google — and investor Tim Armstrong’s roots at Google — Keane says much of the equation ultimately revolves around search. He notes that 80 percent to 85 percent of the site’s content is found via natural search. “We are about search effectiveness and having accountability to brand advertising. It is not about the best cordless drill. It is about people who are predisposed to buy the drill,” he says.

“We are increasingly a navigation hub,” Keane adds. “We’re playing in that world as opposed to super bowl ads.” Consequently, a major effort for the company is to achieve higher page rankings over time by incorporating lots of different kinds of content, including images, slide shows, video and real-time search.

Seventy percent of the company’s 2 million content pieces continue to be text-based, although that percentage might be slightly declining.Text indexes better through natural search and it is faster to render, says Keane.

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