OC Register biz section embraces the web

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman takes a look at how the Orange County Register’s business section has embraced using the Internet to keep its readers in his Friday column.

Friedman interviewed business editor Glenn Hall, who came to the paper two years ago from Bloomberg News.

He wrote, “The secret to the OCR’s online success will hinge on how well it can present information about local real-estate trends, an obsession among the region’s residents.

“‘We want to provide exclusive content that you can’t get anywhere else,’ Hall said. ‘Real estate was an obvious area to tap into.’

“The OCR’s Jon Lansner started a real-estate blog about a year ago, and it has received an encouraging response. Hall pointed out that the blog has amassed about 40,000 page views a week, with 11,500 comments posted since its debut. The headline Thursday for the Lansner on Real Estate blog was an eye-catcher: ‘SoCal new-home market seen in short-lived, severe disruption.’

“‘Jon’s own words are only a fraction of the content on that blog,’ Hall said. ‘This interactivity is very important. These aren’t passive readers.’ He added that the current challenge was to ‘monetize these clicks. We haven’t figured it our yet.’

“The paper launched a blog earlier this week called Mortgage Insider, by Mathew Padilla. It is off to a strong start: ‘We had 2,182 page views in the first morning (Monday) and 7,000, in total, by Wednesday,’ according to Hall.”

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