Going Vertical March 25, 1999 I was reading stories for Today's Links this morning and I was on News.Com when I noticed a new sidebar in an article. The story was about online travel agencies looking to book more cruises and tours. News.Com has regularly attached sidebars into their articles with links to expanded coverage in a special report and stock quotes for companies mentioned in the article. But this sidebar pointed to other travel related subsites on the CNET network. Ranging from a top 10 list of gadgets for your trip to a message board to talk about travel sites.

Even if I connect the dots in Halsey Minor's vertical plans for CNET, I don't see the connection between a News.Com story about online travel agencies looking to sell more cruises and tours with any desire to visit a spoke of travel related subsites. From Interactive Week: "CNet shifts its focus away from being a publisher that survives on advertising; it is turning into a content aggregator, aiming to take a more active role in linking buyers and sellers." It will be interesting to see how News.Com handles the insertion of these sidebars. Even beyond any advertising/editorial questions, but how relevant the sidebar is to the story.

Related links [1] Net travel agents aim at tourist packages; News.Com [2] Major Maneuvers At Minor's Cnet; Interactive Week [3] Cnet Tiptoes Into E-Commerce, But Can It Avoid Amazonian Mistakes?; SF Chronicle [4] Forbes Plays Both Sides of Ad-Edit Blur; Industry Standard [5] Solution to Portal Envy: Go Vertical; Steve Outing on Editor & Publisher [6] 'What Has This Got To Do With News?'; Steve Outing on Editor & Publisher