posted by Jeremy Snook
Michael Arrington posted news on TechCrunch that Gannett Co., mega newspaper corp, invested a rumored $8 million in family social networking site Cozi. Cozi’s feature set orients around family units, allowing shared calendars, reminders, and photo albums; they have tagged their tools as “the cure for famnesia” (catchy!).
Gannett will be syndicating their content to Cozi’s 600,000 registered users, with a focus on local content. This sounds a lot like the targeted ads of Gmail – “here are news items that make affect your plans this weekend.”
In light of Hanson’s report from his sit-down with the Seattle Times publishers, this sounds like a smart move on Gannett’s part. $8 million is pocket change for Web 2.0 acquisitions, and growing your readership by 2,000 users per day (Cozi’s claim) is a dream for a newspaper these days. Hopefully other traditional media outlets take note of this and factor it into their survival plans.
