New Online Ad Platform Shown to Increase Local Ad Revenue
November 9, 2010 – PaperG and Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) today announced that they have struck a deal to deploy PaperG's popular Flyerboard ad platform across Lee's dozens of online news sites. The partnership allows Lee newspapers to offer an intuitive online display advertising solution specifically built to serve local businesses. This latest partnership gives PaperG's advertising technology an online presence with nearly every newspaper publishing company in the U.S.
"We are especially pleased to make Lee Enterprises our newest strategic partner for Flyerboard," said Victor Wong, PaperG co-founder and CEO. "Lee's 49 newspapers and its other media properties are among the most trusted news sources that serve the nation's key mid-sized markets."
To date more than 100 websites have successfully deployed Flyerboard, which took the popular concept of the cork bulletin board and repurposed it for the Web. It gives small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an easy, inexpensive and social media-enabled vehicle to promote themselves in their local communities. For many, Flyerboard marked their first foray into online advertising.
"Here at Lee, we've had terrific success at driving topline revenues with a complete suite of digital media products," noted Paul M. Farrell, Vice President, Sales & Marketing for Lee Enterprises. "Flyerboard is a natural for our company as it complements all that we offer and makes for a compelling and effective solution for our customers."
Flyerboard, launched in 2008, is now in use by the online media properties Boston.com and the New York Post, as well as by publishing giants Hearst Corporation, The New York Times Regional Media Group, the Tribune Company and McClatchy Company, among others.
PaperG was founded in 2007 when Yale University students teamed with Harvard University students to reinvent the relationship between local online publishers and the small and medium businesses they serve. CEO Victor Wong, a former economics major at Yale, was joined by Chief Operating Officer Roger Lee, an applied mathematics major at Harvard and former publisher of the Harvard Crimson, Chief Technology Officer Victor Cheng, a computer science major at Yale, Chief Financial Officer Ka Mo Lau, a former economics major from Yale, and VP Publishers Tyler Bosmeny, an applied mathematics major at Harvard.
PaperG has closed funding totaling over $1MM. Its advisory board includes John Kannapell (former head of AOL Search, Local & Maps), Stephen Taylor (former publisher of Boston.com), Mark Potts (founder of GrowthSpur, WashingtonPost Digital), Scott Symonds (Executive Media Director at AKQA), among others.
PaperG is based in San Francisco, CA.
Lee Enterprises is a leading provider of local news, information and advertising in primarily midsize markets, with 49 daily newspapers and a joint interest in four others, rapidly growing digital sites and 300 specialty publications in 23 states. Lee's newspapers have circulation of 1.4 million daily and 1.7 million Sunday, reaching nearly four million readers daily. Lee's digital sites attract more than 16 million unique visits monthly, and Lee's weekly publications have distribution of four million households. Lee's markets include St. Louis, Mo.; Lincoln, Neb.; Madison, Wis.; Davenport, Iowa; Billings, Mont.; Bloomington, Ill.; and Tucson, Ariz.
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