Bill Volhein

Village Voice Media & XO Join in Partnership

money.cnn.com – XO Communications (OTCBB: XOHO) today announced that it has deployed a nationwide MPLS IP-VPN solution for Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC (VVMH), for the benefit of its operating companies that consist of 14 weekly newspapers and daily Web sites, including New York’s Village Voice, the LA Weekly, Denver’s Westword and the Phoenix New Times.

XO Communications is providing a fully managed MPLS-based wide area networking solution connecting the various locations of the operating companies across nine states, including a data center and VVMH corporate offices in Phoenix, Arizona. The XO MPLS IP-VPN solution provides VVMH and its operating companies with a secure, private IP network with Class of Service capabilities and high-speed Ethernet access to support optimal performance for delivery of digital media files and access to central applications. The XO solution also paves the way for VVMH and the operating companies’ eventual migration to Voice over IP (VoIP).
Read more @ money.cnn.com

Facebook Late to the Check In Game

This article is interesting, no matter how mislead. Will a FB checkin app get good traction out of the gate? Well, of course it will. FB has the biggest social pool to pull from, but lets not fool ourselves, FB has never been a geo-targeted application. Not to mention, several years late to the party. Good reading none the less.
buisnessinsider.com – One of New York’s hottest startups, Foursquare, is under heavy fire from more established Silicon Valley players.

A source briefed on the matter tells us Facebook is working on a feature that will allow users who access the network from mobile devices to “check-in” and broadcast their current location to all their friends.

Huge local business reviews site Yelp rolled out a similar “check-in” feature earlier this month.

Allowing users to “check-in” is Foursquare’s primary function.

Facebook, with its huge scale and wealth of engineering talent, could squash Foursquare. Mainly, that’s because like with Foursquare — and unlike with Yelp or Twitter — Facebook friends are your real friends. They are the kind of people you want to see that you’ve checked-in at a bar, and then meet you there.

We’d caution that this is a single source and that plans can always change. At a place like Facebook, lots of things are always being hacked together, but no one is ever quite sure what will make it as a full release product.

Read the rest at buisnessinsider.com.

Coca-Cola Social Media during Superbowl

adweek.com – Coca-Cola today launched a social media campaign on Facebook that teases its upcoming Super Bowl commercials while raising funds for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Through Coke’s Facebook fan page, members can send friends virtual gifts of Coke — a bottle image that appears on their profile pages and newsfeeds. In return, senders get 20-second previews of the new commercials the beverage giant plans to air during the Super Bowl. Coke donates $1 to the Boys & Girls Clubs for each gift sent. At noon on game day, Feb. 7, gift-givers will receive both full ads before they are revealed to the general public on the CBS broadcast that night.

“By using our Super Bowl ads to invite people to join us in supporting Boys & Girls Clubs, we’re going beyond simply airing great commercials on a terrific live television event,” said Katie Bayne, CMO of Coca-Cola North America. “We’re reminding people that whenever they enjoy a Coca-Cola, they play a role in helping us make a difference in the lives of others. By opening a Coke they create a happiness multiplier.”
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SF Guardian Lies Again

businessinsider.com – In a Bloomberg piece posted earlier today, reporters speculated that the Village Voice, a New York alternative newspaper, might face backruptcy court soon. Reporters spoke with lawyers from both sides of the court cases and added detailed analysis below a headline: “Village Voice May Face Forced Bankruptcy in Ad Fight.”

Michael Lacey, executive editor of Village Voice Media, just sent out a letter in response to reports that the paper was about to face bankruptcy court.

The false, inaccurate smear published by Bloomberg News regarding Village Voice Media litigation is outrageous. There is no bankruptcy proceeding against Village Voice Media or any of its publications nor are there legal grounds to bring one.
Read the full article at: businessinsider.com

Village Voice Media Shows the Industry How to Make Ad Revenue

Village Voice Media thinks it can teach others how to pull new sources of ad revenue.

Forbes.com – Jim Larkin, chief executive officer of the Village Voice Media publishing company, is baffled by other media companies these days.

Over the past year, news outlets have scurried to go local in hopes of pulling in new ad revenue from mom-and-pop shops that have traditionally turned only to the local Yellow Pages to place their ads. In September, ESPN launched ESPNBoston.com, and a Dallas site is in the works. Patch, a unit of AOL, rolled out in March of this year, attracting eyes and advertisers in communities where newspapers have scaled back or closed shop. The New York Times launched its own online version, “The Local,” in two Brooklyn neighborhoods, as well as in South Orange, Millburn and Maplewood, N.J. Local online ad spending is expected to reach $14.2 billion this year, up 12% over 2008, according to media analytics firm Borrell Associates.

Larkin’s view of the phenomenon: Well, duh. The 60-year-old Phoenix native and his long-time business partner Michael Lacey have spent almost 30 years building their own variety. It was called New Times Media until 2006, when the owners merged it with the New York weekly the Village Voice, (now Village Voice Media). It’s the publisher of 14 local publications, including the Houston Press, the LA Weekly, and of course the 54-year-old Village Voice.
Read more at forbes.com

Ruxton Becomes Voice Media Group

PHOENIX, AZ–(Marketwire – November 5, 2009) – Voice Media Group, the one-stop lifestyle agency formerly known as the Ruxton Group, launched today, giving national brands a unique, targeted advertising gateway to young, urban consumers. As part of the Village Voice Media Holdings LLC family of companies, Voice Media Group helps brands engage with an audience of active young adults in every major national market through integrated print, online, event and street team offerings. In turn, it gives its alternative publisher partners access to valuable national brand marketing dollars.
Voice Media Group’s national network of 50 alternative print publications and more than 100 digital publications and Web sites reaches more than eight million newspaper readers, and receives more than 25 million unique digital visitors per month. It offers brands a national footprint with hyper-local reach to target consumers by verticals, interests, demographics or a combination of the three. In addition, Voice Media Group streamlines the ad buying process — from inventory to creative to billing — so advertisers can easily take advantage of the company’s entire platform and services.
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