product interest - A cheaper “Celebrations” product
In performing sales calls for a real estate capability created for online newspapers, and talking with managing editors, ad sales people and random workers in small-to-mid-sized online newspapers in the mid-aughts, I found that add-on real estate capability software seemed to have reached its saturation point in the market I was directed to target.
Instead, online newspaper people told me they had no need or desire for any more real estate capability software.
What they would like instead was a less expensive alternative to the Legacy.com spinoff, Celebrations, which had begun to dominate the weddings & engagement announcements software niche.
After hearing this desire expressed repeatedly by newspapers with online presences as varied as the Santa Fe New Mexican and Gadsden (Alabama) Times, I derived a set of requirements, based on chats I’d had with personnel at these papers, for a product that could meet that challenge.
Challenge
Create a web capability for online newspapers that can be offered as a software-as-a-service, centrally-administered product
Create this product as a more interesting and content-rich feature in an online newspaper that the newspaper might not have sufficient in-house resources to develop or maintain.
Offer online newspaper audiences the opportunity to create their own content for both public and limited consumption. (At the time, Facebook had yet to open its platform to non-Ivy League/non-college students: Facebook for the rest of us).