Monday, July 17, 2006

Times-Tribune biz page blows the publishers

A story (two, in fact) about a new service that is coincidentally owned by the Scranton Times-Tribune: "When mWIRE launches Monday, consumers will be able to call an automated telephone service, leave a message of what they want and how much they will pay, and several merchants may call back with offers.

“This service turns the Yellow Pages on its head,” said Matthew Haggerty, mWIRE project manager for Scranton-based Times-Shamrock. “Here, all you have to do is make one phone call and let the merchants compete for your business.”

Jesus. And people wonder why the Lynetts have a bad journalism reputation with some people.

Here´s the sidebar to this fine business journalism:

  • Local search´s launch part of broader trend
  • 6 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Let me tell you, thats exactly wqhat i want to do.

    Call, wait and then buy something without seeing it.

    Anonymous said...

    I think the way it work is:

    You call and tellt hem what you want. You're supposed to know what it is.

    They call back with merchants who are willing to sell for the price YOU quote.

    Seems like a pretty good service to me.

    Anonymous said...

    It most definitely is a good service. Papers that use a similar system have made money on it. Most papers will be doing this soon. That company will announce several partnerships with major newspaper companies in the future. The TL gets beat again, but this time the losses could be financial and not to the ego.

    Anonymous said...

    Haggerty's mother is a Lynett. you don't think that had anything to do with the puff piece do you?
    also, the ME of the TT, Banana Boat Larry, would dress down any other reporter or editor who would allow such a report to appear. they're nothing by hypocrits.

    Anonymous said...

    I´ll be interested to try this service out in practice. But I´ve got to be honest with you, if I want, say, a big-screen TV, I´m going to go to Circuit City or Best Buy and not play phone-tag games where I call some call center and ´bid´ a low price or something. Hokey.

    Anonymous said...

    Haggerty was operating out of an office in the Times Tribune newsroom while he worked on this venture. And no matter what his last name is, he's a "Lynett."

    I've never seen a newspaper that uses its newshole to promote the owners' business interests like the Times Tribune. That's why the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the TL owners is so hypocritical.

    Anyway, the phone-tag aspect of this sounds pretty clunky. Couldn't you register and get bids online instead? I don't want to be getting phone calls at home from Louie DeNaples.