Fisher Communications Delivers New Hyper-Local Search
Fisher Communications Implements New Hyper-Local Online Search; Technology From DataSphere Powers TV and Radio Web Sites
SEATTLE – April 17, 2009 – Fisher Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSCI) today announced that it has launched a new search and discovery experience designed to allow consumers to find local news and information most relevant to them, while also providing targeted advertising opportunities for local businesses.
Based on the new Search and Discovery for Media service by DataSphere (http://www.datasphere.com/), a Software as a Service (SaaS) Web technology company, Fisher’s sites will provide visitors with the ability to easily search across real-time video, audio and text articles. Within this universal set of content, visitors can then drill down into specific local areas such as counties, cities and neighborhoods, and search across categories such as local celebrities, sports leagues and local, national and world leaders. Local businesses will be able to use this advanced traffic segmentation to effectively target consumers most likely to be interested in their products and services, and achieve the highest return on their marketing dollars.
“This is a tremendous step forward in our objective to build a world class online experience to complement our position as one of the region’s leading broadcasters,” said Rob Dunlop, Fisher's senior vice president operations. “DataSphere’s Search and Discovery service allows us to effectively expose our full catalog of content and attract the attention of visitors interested in very targeted local information. This in turn provides the perfect opportunity for our advertisers to deliver messages that are relevant and effective in driving new business.”
The new search service is now powering Fisher’s Seattle flagship KOMONews.com Web site (http://www.komonews.com/) and will soon be launched across 13 additional Fisher sites including KATU.com (Portland, Oregon), BakersfieldNow.com (Bakersfield, California) and STAR1015.com (Seattle).
“Fisher Communications and DataSphere share a common vision to make investments in quality content generate an appropriate level of return,” said Satbir Khanuja, CEO of DataSphere. “By making it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for and leading them toward other topics likely to be of interest, we can create an environment where content is able to attract more targeted and valuable traffic.”
Search and Discovery for Media, part of the recently launched DataSphere Web Suite, enables Web sites to overhaul their current search and discovery capabilities by injecting a new state of the art search result page and set of search “widgets” into an existing Web site, thereby providing rapid and substantial improvements in site visitor experience while avoiding the disruption and risks associated with an entire site changeover.
About Fisher Communications
Fisher Communications, Inc. is a Seattle-based communications company that owns and operates 13 full power television stations (including a 50%-owned television station), 7 low power television stations and 8 radio stations in the Western United States. The Company owns and operates Fisher Pathways, a satellite and fiber transmission provider; and Fisher Plaza, a media, telecommunications, and data center facility located near downtown Seattle. For more information about Fisher Communications, Inc., go to www.fsci.com.
About DataSphere
DataSphere Technologies, Inc. (http://www.datasphere.com/) is a Software as a Service (SaaS) Web technology company. The DataSphere Web Suite offers a comprehensive site creation, hosting and management solution for rich data catalogs that gives Web site owners access to a range of best in class capabilities for automatically attracting traffic from across the Web and delivering an outstanding in-site experience. In addition to powering its own market-leading websites (http://www.resortscape.com/) and LandWatch.com (http://www.landwatch.com/), DataSphere powers Web site experiences for more than 50 other leading companies, including Time Warner Inc., Meredith Corporation, Readers Digest Association Inc., Fisher Communications, Inc. and Hanley Wood, LLC.