Salon.com (Nasdaq: SALN), (http://www.salon.com), one of the Internet's premier media companies, announced today the launch of Salon Business, a site dedicated to reporting on business and finance, and Salon Shop, a shopping and e-commerce gateway. Additionally, Salon.com implemented a network-wide redesign that includes expanded broadband integration, new site navigation and new placement opportunities for Salon.com's advertisers and sponsors.
Salon Business features daily commentary and reporting on business and personal finance with an emphasis on the information industries -- entertainment, media, broadcasting, technology, publishing, fashion and advertising. The site is edited by Andrew Essex, who has covered entertainment and media for Entertainment Weekly, the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications. Diane Seo, formerly of the Los Angeles Times and Foxnews.com, has joined Salon Business as senior editor. The site features Salon.com staff writer Eric Boehlert on the music and TV industries; staff writer Craig Offman on book publishing; media columnist Sean Elder; finance columnist Steven Bodow; advertising columnist Ruth Shalit; and Hollywood columnist Gregg Kilday.
"There's a huge appetite for business and financial coverage online. Salon Business will offer more colorful and critical journalism than can be found elsewhere," said David Talbot, Salon.com's chairman and editor in chief.
Salon Shop, a new e-commerce gateway, is a site for finding the best products on the Web. The site showcases Salon.com staff reviews and recommendations on books, movies, food and wine, fashion, technology and more. It also features information on the latest products from Salon.com's 14 affiliated merchants and partners, and offers special discounts to Salon.com users.
Says Salon.com's CEO and president Michael O'Donnell, "During the last two Christmas seasons, we featured a Holiday Gift Guide and secured numerous e-commerce merchants and promotional partners. With trustworthy recommendations from our great editorial staff, we've created a valuable year-round resource for Salon.com users."
Other editorial additions include the launch of Salon Sex, featuring articles about sex and romance by writers with a penchant for honesty and literary flair. The site includes a bi-monthly column by Salon.com columnist Virginia Vitzthum, "Naked World," a daily news feature by Jack Boulware; and a regular column on the week's sexiest movies. Salon Sex will be edited by Karen Croft, former editor of Salon Health & Body.
Also new is a bi-monthly sports column by Allen Barra, currently a columnist with the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Edition. Barra's new column, which debuted this month in Salon News, will alternate with additional sports commentary by Salon.com staff writers Gary Kamiya and Gary Kaufman.
Other features of the network-wide redesign include new, more highly visible placement for Salon.com sponsors on Salon.com's site home pages and article pages. The redesign will also more fully integrate multimedia into the site by allowing Salon to showcase its audio and video content, including the spoken word and audio literature offerings of the recently acquired MP3Lit.com.
Also new is Salon's Article Finder, offering users a new, improved site search. A major upgrade of Salon.com's proprietary software will allow Salon.com to respond more quickly to breaking news stories, and to move further toward round-the-clock publishing in the coming weeks. Coming soon is the Salon Directory, a new approach to organizing a five-year trove of thousands of articles by topic, offering hundreds of directory pages accessible from every page on the Salon site.
Says O'Donnell, "These major enhancements of the Salon.com network will further secure our position as one of the leading destinations on the Internet as well as showcase our new broadband assets, such as our newly acquired audio service, MP3Lit.com."
ABOUT SALON.COM:
Salon.com (http://www.salon.com; AOL Keyword: Salon), founded in 1995 by David Talbot, is an Internet media company that produces a network of 12 award-winning, original content sites, maintains Salon Shop, an e-commerce gateway, and hosts two communities -- Table Talk and The WELL. In May 2000, Salon acquired MP3Lit.com, the pioneering Web site offering quality spoken word and audio literature recordings in MP3 and Real Audio formats. Salon.com currently has relationships with more than 325 advertisers including industry leaders such as IBM, Lexus, Microsoft, EDS, Virgin Megastore Online and Intel. In December 1999, Salon.com announced a content and equity agreement with Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation and NBC. Strategic distribution partners include America Online (AOL), Lycos, Go.com, AltaVista, Reuters, CNN.com and CNet as well as wireless innovators AvantGo and Rocket eBooks. Salon.com content is also syndicated to print publications through United Features Syndicate. The site had 3.4 million unique visitors in December 1999.
SOURCE Salon.com
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