AAN News

Village Voice Media's Bill Jensen Departs to Buzz Media

Village Voice Media director of new media Bill Jensen is leaving for Buzz Media in Los Angeles, where he will become the vice president/general manager for music. (FULL STORY)
AAN  |  11-11-2011  2:32 pm  |  Industry News

Village Voice Media Releases "Best Of" App in Multiple Citiesnew

Village Voice Media has released a new iPhone app, "Best Of..." which allows users to find and "check in" to local businesses, bars and food joints by proximity and category in multiple cities.
TechCrunch  |  03-28-2011  4:28 pm  |  Industry News

Bill Jensen Talks iPad at SXSW Panelnew

"We're hoping you can lean back with this thing, curl up on the couch and take it into the bathroom and read it," the digital director for Village Voice Media Holdings said at Saturday's "iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators" session at SXSW. Jensen thinks the iPad will help publishers who value quality design and journalism, by giving them a more visual platform to work with than the general web. "It's going to bring back nice-looking design, and good-looking ads, too," he said.
Poynter Online  |  03-16-2010  11:40 am  |  Industry News

Will Alts Benefit if Dailies Go Behind Pay Walls Online?new

As daily newspaper publishers and even magazines continue to mull charging for content online, little has been written about how such a move would help or harm alt-weeklies. Village Voice Media new media director Bill Jensen, for one, says he's licking his chops. "We're praying for the day that [daily newspapers] go behind a pay wall," he tells Mediaweek. "That's good for us. We've always been free and we know free. We're not complaining about it."
Mediaweek  |  09-14-2009  9:49 am  |  Industry News

Creative Loafing, VVM Test the Local Ad Network Watersnew

New Media Hub reports that Creative Loafing has trained some reps to buy and resell ad networks for key local display advertisers. CL joins Village Voice Media, which launched its Voice Local Network in June, in selling local ad networks. VVM new media director Bill Jensen says the company's network focuses on advertisers that align with the papers' main areas of focus, which helps set it apart from other ad networks. "When you are looking for music or a restaurant, things that are at the core of our business, you are looking for a little bit more than text ads," Jensen says. "We have the best food critics in the world. Its different if you are looking for a plumber."
New Media Hub  |  07-20-2009  10:09 am  |  Industry News

AAN Elects New President, Fills Ten Board Seats

At the annual meeting of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies on Saturday, June 27, Willamette Week's Mark Zusman was elected the association's new president. He succeeds Metroland's Stephen Leon, who will take the advisory role of Immediate Past President. The membership voted on nine other board seats on Saturday, including two that were created just minutes earlier when AAN's bylaws were amended. (FULL STORY)
AAN News  |  07-01-2009  2:42 pm  |  Association News

Ten Candidates Running for Election to AAN Board of Directors

There will be up to ten board positions up for election at the annual meeting this Saturday in Tucson. So far, ten AAN members have thrown their hats into the ring for nine of the board spots; they tell us why they want to be on the board and what they think the most important issues facing the association are. (FULL STORY)
AAN News  |  06-22-2009  2:48 pm  |  Association News

40 Percent of VVM's Web Traffic Comes from its Blogsnew

Village Voice Media new media director Bill Jensen says 40 percent of the company's pageviews are coming from the blogs on the newspapers' sites, up from 20 percent a year ago. He also tells TechCrunch VVM is on track to bring in $20 million in online revenues this year, nearly double from 2008. This figure, however, still represents barely more than 10 percent of VVM's revenues.
TechCrunch  |  05-21-2009  8:28 am  |  Industry News

Village Voice Media Execs Talk Web Strategy

VVM's digital publishing strategy has been in the news quite a bit lately, whether it was the company's partnership with a social-networking site or its use of Digg to help drive traffic to its stories. Chief operating officer Scott Tobias and web and digital operations director Bill Jensen spoke with AAN News this week about where the paper is going with web publishing. They tell us that digital is a growth area for VVM, both in terms of pageviews and revenue, and they talk about new projects like geo-targeted ads and a national food website. (FULL STORY)
AAN News  |  02-10-2009  4:28 pm  |  Industry News

VVM's Digital Director Talks About How They've Approached the Webnew

In a video interview from last month's Digital Hollywood conference, Village Voice Media director of web and digital operations Bill Jensen tells Vator TV's Ezra Roizen about how VVM has stepped up its game online. "The key is ... we had to go daily," Jensen says. "That was the biggest challenge ... changing the culture to go from weekly to daily." He says that each VVM paper now has about 30 pieces of daily content going up on its site, in addition to the weekly content being created for the paper.
Vator TV  |  11-13-2008  1:06 pm  |  Industry News

Phoenix Media/Communications Restructures, Names New Boston Editornew

Bill Jensen (pictured) will take the reins at the Boston Phoenix as part of its parent company's effort to assemble a staff with the right "mix of experience and youth," the Boston Globe reports this morning. Jensen was hired as the Phoenix's associate editor last year. His predecessor, Peter Kadzis, says "Bill is the hip, happening guy" who will focus in part on pop culture. Kadzis had been editor for 16 years; he now will become executive editor for Phoenix Media, which owns a radio station and a mobile marketing firm in addition to the Phoenix weeklies in Boston, Portland (Maine) and Providence (R.I.). The company's multiple operations and ability to strategize marketing across platforms may be the key to its survival in the future, Vice President Brad Mindich tells the Globe.
The Boston Globe (reg. req.)  |  07-26-2006  6:19 am  |  Industry News

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