SDNN.com Investor and Interim Executive Editor Barbara Bry

Following my post last week detailing some of the juicy story lines at SDNN.com, as well as providing some web measurement data of different news sites, I received an invitation via blog comment from Barbara Bry, interim executive editor at the online start-up, to tour the newsroom.

Sure, why not? I admire entrepreneurs, especially ones who try to tackle the turbulent news media industry. In addition, I needed to complete my SDNN.com trilogy, this being my third post on the subject. It was also a chance to be on the other end of blogger relations.

Bry, who together with her husband Neil Senturia raised more than $1M for the venture, met me at the gates of the fortress-like compound of XETV-Channel 6 on Ronson Road, where SDNN.com is housed, just before lunch. She gave me a quick tour of SDNN.com’s 2o-person editorial and sales operations (all nice folks), and we headed to break room where we sat down for a 30-minute chat/interview.

She defused my first question — What the heck happened to Ron James?! — before it ever came out of my mouth, with the not surprising “can’t discuss because of legal reasons.” Not even a little? Nope. Are you moving on? No comment on that either. (An email to Ron James got the same reply). But clearly, SDNN.com is moving on without James, the organization’s executive editor who was suddenly removed from his position just days after the launch.

Bry was eager to detail some of the upcoming things SDNN.com has planned, as well as dispel some anonymous blog chatter that SDNN.com would go under on April 10. Users of the site can look forward to:

• The launch of a radio station in early May (AM 1700) that will feature a morning drive-time broadcast called “A Conversation with San Diego.” The show will be hosted by Joe Bauer (he of Hudson & Bauer fame) and will also be streamed live from the web site.
• The launch of new section fronts for sports, business, lifestyle, politics, etc. The first two sections, sports and lifestyle, will launch next week, followed by 2-3 new sections every week until there is about 30 sections overall.
• New advertising vehicles, including a business directory listing service that will feature hundreds if not thousands of local businesses for free. For a fee, businesses can choose to upgrade their listings. Newsletter sponsorships are also planned.

SDNN.com Home page

Bry says the response from advertisers so far has been good, with inventory sold out for the first five weeks. In spite of the economy, she believes online advertising will continue to grow — it’s why she and her husband decided to help bankroll the venture. “We believe in the future of online advertising,” she said. “The numbers read show online advertising continues to increase. More companies are spending a larger share of their ad budgets online.”

She declined to say what SDNN.com’s initial traffic goals were, but by the end of the year hopes to average at least 3M page views per month, which would put the operation at break even, based on corresponding ad sales. Asked what SDNN.com will need to do to be successful in the long run, Bry took a moment to think before responding simply:

“We have to produce quality content on a day in and day out basis, we have to update the site frequently … and we have to generate enough advertising revenue to pay everyone.”

She touted SDNN.com’s commitment to “hyper-local” coverage, including multimedia content, as a differentiator against SignOnSanDiego.com, the web site of the Union-Tribune, VoiceofSanDiego.org, NCTimes, and SDDT.com, otherwise known as San Diego Source (the county’s first online news operation).

“We think about our viewer as being interested in three different places: where they live, where they work, and where they play. So how can we make help them make decisions about each of those areas?” she said.“Where you live you might be interested in the quality of the schools. Where you play, you might want to know where to eat and who is giving out a coupon.”

Asked why she decided to tackle a news media venture as her sixth start-up venture, Bry brought up the analogy of the horse and buggy around the turn over the century. People still need to get around, she said, they just wanted to do it in a Ford. She believes it’s same with news – consumers are transitioning from print to online. “I really believe what we are doing here is the future of journalism,” she said, noting the multimedia, multitasking capabilities of her nine-person editorial staff.

Other interesting tidbits from the interview:

• In a moment of reflection, Bry talked about how hard it was to raise the $1M needed to fund the start up, which she termed the toughest of any venture she’s been involved with. The reason: during the first week of fundraising back in October, the stock market tanked.
• She said James approached her and her husband about the venture last fall — both Bry and Senturia had met James while hosting a show about entrepreneurs on SignOnSanDiego.com’s Internet radio show.
• The launch of SDNN.com was delayed in part because of an inadequate content management system that couldn’t scale and handle the multimedia demands of the new web site.
• She said new CTO and COO Kevin Hall, whom she knew from her days at ProFlowers.com, is now building proprietary technology on top of WordPress blog software. “Because of him, we now think of ourselves as a media and technology company,” she said.
• SDNN.com editorial contributors, which include many of the well-known former UT staffers, are getting paid a share of the ad revenues based on the number of page views they generate.
• On SDNN.com’s approach: “We are going to have a bit of an attitude. We need to be trustworthy and credible. At the same time there is a little bit of irreverence.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 8:46 pm and is filed under New media, San Diego, digital media, online news, public relations, social media, testing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.