Much has been written about Politico.com, especially what happens to a 100-employee political Web site after the election is over, particularly when that site's most important source of revenue is a print edition few people read.
Today we learned that Politico is launching an ad network powered by Adify, which standard operating procedure for vertical Web sites looking to sell more ad inventory than what their own traffic stats would allow. More intriguing: the network of 30-odd news outlets, including newspaper and local TV sites, will be allowed to pick up Politico.com DC coverage for both their print and online editions.
Among the first papers to sign on: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, owned by Adify's new parent company, Cox Enterprises.
This could make Politico.com a de-facto DC bureau for a lot of publications that can no longer afford their DC coverage, and it could provide added incentive for some of them to drop the AP. Think of it: rather than pay a huge coop fee for AP content, they instead get paid a cut of some ad inventory they didn't have to sell on their own.
The added bonus is Politico's content will probably be better than what they were getting from the AP, or that their own bureaus produced. For Politico, this new business is at least part of the answer to what it does after November 4. The company says it just broke the 7 million monthly unique user mark, which is impressive, but the site's biggest challenge is not how well it covers the next 60 days, but what it does when the biggest story--it's only story--is over.
See Also:
Big, Ailing Newspaper Bails On Associated Press
The AP's Biggest Problem Isn't Bloggers. It's Its Own Newspapers
Cox Buys Ad Network Adify For $300 Million
