© Jerimiah B. Brown

Acorn Update

AnnArbor.com meets, beats expectations.

by Vickie Elmer

posted 10/13/2009

In August, its first full month online, AnnArbor.com drew 129,000 unique visitors, according to Nielsen. The audience-tracking firm says that readers devoted an average of 17.5 minutes a day to reading the online replacement for the Ann Arbor News--more than viewers spent with the web version of the New York Times, but less than the average for the online Detroit Free Press.

"We're well ahead of expectations in terms of traffic on the site and in response to online advertising," says Tony Dearing, AnnArbor.com's chief content officer. "We're pretty much right on our projections for overall revenue and circulation for the print newspaper." Mark Bishar, vice president at Big George's, likes the lower ad rates and the response he got from the appliance store's first print and online ad campaign. And George Davis, general manager of the Howard Cooper auto dealerships, says he's "happy with the way they're reacting, improving, and changing." The first of two major updates is scheduled to roll out this month.   

[Originally published in October, 2009.]