Thursday, December 22, 2011

Report: Just two or three Metromixes 'doing well'

That's according to a story in today's edition of Riverfront Times, the alt-weekly in St. Louis, where the local Metromix site was among seven were recently shut down. Katie Maassen, associate producer of Metromix St. Louis and the site's only full-time staffer member told the paper: "There are 60 sites, and only two or three were doing well."

10 comments:

  1. With Moms Like Me gone, and Metromix shrinking, what's this mean for Jack Williams, president of Gannett Digital Ventures?

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  2. They're going to change the name to Gannett Digital Misadventures?

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  3. Another top down thing that failed miserably with a lack of investment. The suits trying to create something hip and cool.

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  4. Like everything else, done cheaply and poorly.

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  5. This is too soft porn compared to BNQT.

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  6. Another top down thing is right. Another thing done poorly and cheaply is right. And who ever thought that the Chicago Tribune's Metromix brand would ever resonate with people in Gannett's markets, particularly the small ones. Metro what?

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  7. Jim, I've never understood the top execs' fascination with Jack Williams. He for years bragged about how he had prevented Gannett from going online in a big way before the dot-com bubble burst, ignoring how that had put the company far, far behind on digital. Then he jumped into Moms and Metromix, thinking he understood digital when he simply did not. Also, he has hardly set the world afire with CareerBuilder or Cars.com. Why is he still there? He's the antithesis of the kind of visionary leader the company needs now, and has needed for the past decade.

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  8. Metromix was doomed from the start by both the buffoons at Gannett Digital who have absolutely no idea how anything online works and the fact that the affiliates actively resist any changes to their operations. It's a mutual path of lose-lose.

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  9. In these 60 sites, which of the "two or three were doing well?"

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  10. I echo everything 10:52 wrote.

    "The Jack Williams Touch" was the punchline to this joke ten years ago:

    If everything one touches turns to gold is called The Midas Touch, what is it called when everything you touch turns to shit.

    The fact that he's still pulling down large coin a decade later is no longer funny. It's just sad.

    I'm convinced that William's primary skill was keeping his nose firmly up Gary Watson' ass. With Watson gone lo these many years, Williams primary skill set has been transferred to someone else's posterior.

    Or someone else's anterior...

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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