The Guardian’s local pilots have this week installed the self-serve advertising system, Addiply giving the service an important boost as it looks to become part of the answer to monetisation of online news. Two ad slots went live on Guardian Leeds yesterday with two each appearing on the Edinburgh and Cardiff sites today.
When the Guardian Media Group sold it’s regional business to Trinity Mirror in February it demonstrated, along with the launch of Guardian Local, that it may be approaching local media in a different way to current regional media businesses. The addition of Addiply, then, suggests that they see the self-serve ad system being one of the answers to monetisation at the local level.
Interestingly, the ads are placed in a slot titled “Noticeboard” which suggests a much more ‘community notices’ feel to it rather than straight advertising, and may even pander more to local authorities rather than businesses. This matches the other community features with the sites which incorporate tools like FixMyStreet and WriteToThem.
That gives fuel to the fire for Addiply who now have over 50 sites in their network of local sites, including grass-roots sites like Greener Leith and WV11 alongside Trinity Mirror’s Journal Live network. Rick Waghorn, the entrepreneur behind Addiply told Journalism.co.uk, “Addiply is still in its infancy, but is very much part of this age of experimentation.”
And as Rick looks to add more local community sites to the network to help them become what he calls ‘not-for-loss‘, the addition of the Guardian sites is a big thumbs up for the system and definitely food for thought for other hyperlocals.
