Well, as of an hour or two ago, LA.com appears to have finally launched.
Or at least they removed the "public preview" tag from their home page, where it had rested for nearly a month after the LA Business Journal ran an article in which the editorial directors promised an imminent launch of their style-heavy, cash-rich travel/entertainment portal for young women.
Two weeks after their glitzy launch party at Perino's, a bug or two still mars the mix - the word "null" appears in a restaurant menu pulldown, and delivers this not-too-helpful page - usually the sign of not-too-careful database management. And the stylesheet still hasn't settled down to fewer than five or six colors and two or three styles of link on certain pages.
But those are tiny blemishes on an otherwise well-constructed portal: Their listings look bang-on for their target audience's sweet spot (a front-and-center tout for an upcoming nouveau burlesque show by the Velvet Hammer leads the Nightlife page).
And they've secured some more solid-looking sponsorships and partnerships - national/regional concerns such as SBC/Dish Network and Von's (Shop Online!) share space in the fat 300x250-pixel box on the home page, while the Loew's hotel chain, Nokia, Western Union and a Clippers fundraiser game blink and strobe for your attention in smaller slices inside.
They've partnered with Worldwide Travel Exchange as their booking engine for airlines, hotels and car rentals.
Their booking engine for tourist destinations such as Disneyland seems linked to services provided by the rather peculiar-looking ToursandShows.com, which has only a stripped-down home page pointing to much more full-featured tour-booking sites such as AllLosAngelesTours.com.
Their restaurant listings are beefy enough for launch, (708 total as of this writing) though rather slim and uppercrusty, compared with Zagat . There are only 17 in the East Valley (which includes, somewhat bewilderingly, Studio City) and all of six in the "east of L.A." section, which seems to encompass the 760 area code and KooKooRoo of Torrance.
Maybe that means east of West L.A. For instance, the vast Asian smorgasbord that is Monterey Park seems to be of no interest to LA.com's target audience.
As noted here before, it's still not clear whether a portal this narrowly focused can succeed in the long run, even with the internet economy showing signs of recovery (venture cap firms are spending big in Silicon Valley once again, sowing the seeds for dot-bomb 2.0, according to WIRED). But the editors have focused quite a bit of talent and energy on giving it what looks like the best shot possible of steaming out of pure-risk territory, and it'll be quite interesting to watch.
So far, though, parents/investors Gannett and Media News Group haven't sprung for much in the way of marketing to give this venture a push beyond periodic "mentions" that can be heard between programming slots on KCRW (these were going for the tiny sum of $400 each, last time I priced them a couple of years ago).
Expect the blitz to begin any second.
Posted by: mack_reed on Monday, April 05, 2004 - 12:10 AM
