The company said this morning it has paid an undisclosed amount for 10 Best, a site that offers travel advice for 235 major metropolitan areas comprised of nearly 3,000 individual cities worldwide.
The site will be part of the USA Today Travel Media Group. From the press release announcing the deal:
"The core of the site's uniqueness is its team of local travel experts: a well-traveled and well-educated group who are not only experts in their fields -- and their cities -- but discriminating in their tastes. These local experts live in the city they write about, so the content is constantly updated. In 2012, 10Best.com averaged more than 700,000 monthly unique visitors generating approximately 28 million pageviews."
For perspective, Gannett claims a combined U.S Internet audience of about 51 million monthly unique visitors across its various properties. I believe that figure includes the GCI-controlled employment site CareerBuilder.
The 10 Best purchase is the company's latest bid to bolster the newspaper's travel content with lower-cost news and information from outside sources. Much the same strategy is being used by the USA Today Sports Media Group.
"The core of the site's uniqueness is its team of local travel experts: a well-traveled and well-educated group who are not only experts in their fields -- and their cities -- but discriminating in their tastes. These local experts live in the city they write about, so the content is constantly updated. In 2012, 10Best.com averaged more than 700,000 monthly unique visitors generating approximately 28 million pageviews."
For perspective, Gannett claims a combined U.S Internet audience of about 51 million monthly unique visitors across its various properties. I believe that figure includes the GCI-controlled employment site CareerBuilder.
The 10 Best purchase is the company's latest bid to bolster the newspaper's travel content with lower-cost news and information from outside sources. Much the same strategy is being used by the USA Today Sports Media Group.
I was going to suggest that the money might be better spent on TripAdvisor. Then I checked ownership. TripAdvisor is owned by Expedia. Expedia (EXPE) has a market cap of $8.6 billion, or just about TWICE that of GCI.
ReplyDeleteWhich again shows that Wall Street values print at dead ZERO when combined with other (TV for example) assets. Now you know why Scripps and News Corp split their companies.
Here's a fascinating valuation metric: Expedia has assets of $686,000 per employee. Gannett's assets: $206,000 per employee.
Here's an insightful read on the deal. Sounds like it won't be the golden egg USAT is seeking:
ReplyDeletehttp://skift.com/2013/01/15/as-travora-shuts-down-usa-today-acquires-some-content-pieces/
Looks like USAT is bottom-feeding once again.
ReplyDeleteSome Phoenix content was 2-3 months old... you can't get hits with that kind of garbage.
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked! People here don't think it's a good deal. One would think posters here never think the company does anything right. Of course the stock is over 19 bucks. I guess you all are a lot smarter than investors.
ReplyDeleteWiser about this company, yes.
DeleteSince I remember it trading in the $80s, yeah, uh, whoopdeefriggin'do, 19 bucks.
DeleteAnd the net was in its infancy. Times changed. Stock was less than $2 and now ten times that. Bugs you, huh???
DeleteUh, no, the "net" was not in its "infancy" when the stock was at $2.
Delete2:30 p.m. here. Sometimes Gannett does things right, but recent decisions and acquisitions are questionable given the decimation of its own information-gathering, content-producing ability. 10Best is a content farm that depends on free-lancers to compile lists or quickie coming-events features and hotel/restaurant pr pieces. Travora budgeted $300 a month for content from each city in its list. Now, if Gannett maintains the string of freelancers, it could be a good deal to drive traffic. But I doubt the penny-pinchers at corporate are willing to invest much. If 10Best couldn't generate enough revenue to survive on its own, what's USAT's plan?
ReplyDeleteI can almost certainly assure each and everyone of you that the recent stock run-up had nothing to do with the acquisition of 10Best.com.
ReplyDeleteGannett continues to make low-risk acquisitions because they are cheap, below the radar, and their failure won't create much of a stir. This company continues to suffer from a lack of balls!
I completely agree. This is safe for Gannett. Safe as safe can get. Gannett will never take a big risk with anything. They are too scared of the unknown. And, this is exactly what separates them from other more innovative companies who succeed in developing disruptive products and services. You can't just nickle and dime your way into creating new and different revenue streams that deliver new and different customers. You have to make some big bets and take some big risks. The chances of the current Gannett Leadership Group/Team/Board(or whatever they call themselves these days) embracing this way of thinking are none to none (not even slim to none). Beancounters can't break themselves away from spreadsheets long enough to realize there is actually another side of their brain. It doesn't matter to them anyways. Most of them are approaching 60 if not there already. They will cash in soon and leave the good ol GCI to the rest of you to fix.
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