4INFO, Gannett & the USA TODAY Partnership

This case study highlights that process that joined an offline/online corporation (Gannett) with a relatively new mobile search company (4INFO).

The Trial Run – September 2005
USA Today promoted 4INFO’s shortcode (44636) on the front of the sports and weather pages, to let their readers get instant mobile access to sports scores, fantasy sports stats, and weather updates. This is one of the largest distributions, in print, for a shortcode, due to the paper's 5.2 million reader circulation.

The Partnership – January 2006
Based on the success of the trial, Gannett, the US's largest newspaper group with 99 daily newspapers and a combined daily circulation of 7.6 million, announced a minority investment and marketing deal with 4INFO in early 2006.

The deal included placement in relevant sections of the USA TODAY such as Sports, Weather and Finance, to name a few. These placements advertised the ability to get real-time information for the respective 4INFO search categories via the shortcode, 44636. The workings of the deal included distribution across many of Gannett’s newspaper and broadcast companies for the term of 3 years.

The Placement – February 2006
4INFO's placements in the USA TODAY began in February of this year. They included a presence on the front page of Sports and Weather (examples attached), combined with placement in several pages of the Money section.

The Conclusion
Using January 2006 as a base metric, 4INFO has seen amazing growth in the services that are being promoted by USA TODAY. To the industry, this begins to validate the growth and potential of the mobile search industry as a viable channel for distributing information. The combination of these two companies rounds out the means by which a person gets the information they need on a daily basis. The USA TODAY is the preeminent source of information about the world, while 4INFO is the vehicle for delivery of real-time information specific to an individual's world. The information macrocosm has melded with the individual’s microcosm.





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