When it comes to the best of the online city directories, Seattle could lay claim to building the mold from which all other sites were cast. Before there was a definitive Web city guide of any kind, there was Seattle Sidewalk, Microsoft’s prototype of the quintessential city site. That mold was broken at the end of the millennium when Sidewalk was sold to Ticketmaster/ CitySearch. The heir apparent, SeattleInsider.com, has won over the native Northwesterner with a formula that combines extensive restaurant and event listings with free classified ads, discussion forums and tips on commuting, recreation, and literally hundreds of answers to the question “What should we do today?” Perhaps one of the brightest stars in parent company Cox Interactive Media’s constellation of online city portals, “SeattleInsider.com” is a “whole-in-one” Web destination with all this and more.
The savvy Tour Director of this virtual exploration into everything worth doing, playing, eating, buying or talking about in the Emerald City is Margot Sinclair Savell. As studio manager of Seattleinsider.com, Margot has found her way down the yellow brick road many times since she was a child growing up in Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle was a frequent and favorite getaway.
To take an insider’s look at SeattleInsider.com, we managed to get Margot to sit still long enough to take her mind off of the Mariner’s season and the city’s upcoming holiday events to show us around.
Seattle24x7: Margot, you grew up across the border in Vancouver, British Columbia, admiring Seattle from a distance. How did you come to live and work here?
Margot: My first online job was for America Online in 1995. At that time, I was telecommuting, so when I moved to the United States from Canada, it was pretty easy to continue that work. But I left AOL soon after moving to Portland, Oregon, where I launched the Website “KOIN.com,” a CBS television Web site operated by KOIN-TV and Internet Broadcasting Systems. I was the managing editor there. I always wanted to move to Seattle, because of the huge amount of time I spent here as a kid, and because of its similarity and proximity to my hometown of Vancouver, B.C. So when I was given a fabulous opportunity to join Cox Interactive Media and SeattleInsider.com, I grabbed it!
Seattle24x7: Cox Interactive Media, your parent company, has city sites across America. What can you tell us about Cox?
Margot: Cox Interactive Media operates a network of local city sites, including SeattleInsider.com, in U.S. markets reaching 30 percent of the total adult population and 44 percent of adult Internet users. The network consists of 20 local sites in the top U.S. markets. CIMedia is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, one of the nation’s leading media companies. In addition to CIMedia, major subsidiaries include Cox Newspapers, Cox Broadcasting, Cox Communications (cable and high-speed Internet access services), and Manheim Auctions, which operates auto auctions. Cox Enterprises also owns an equity stake in a range of Internet businesses, including AutoTrader.com, the world’s largest source of used car listings for dealers and consumers. Locally, SeattleInsider.com’s partner, KIRO-TV, is a Cox Broadcasting television station.
Seattle24x7: How do you work with KIRO-TV?
Margot: We get along very well with KIRO 7. We’re located in their building, we host and produce their Web site, and we have a great relationship. A handful of people at SeattleInsider.com, myself included, also worked at television stations during their careers — on the assignment desk, as managers, commentators and reporters. KIROTV.com is the best Cox-TV Website and we pride ourselves on maintaining that leadership.
Seattle24x7: What is your goal with SeatttleInsider.com?
Margot: SeattleInsider.com helps people who live and work in the local area find things to do and access local information quickly — restaurants, events, recreation ideas, free classifieds and message boards. SeattleInsider.com is really about the city, and the people who live and work here … a reliable information resource to help our users find what they’re looking for, close to home and work.
Seattle24x7: How is SeattleInsider.com set up internally?
Margot: We have in-house content producers, in addition to a hard-working sales team. We are very fortunate at SeattleInsider.com to have a core group of dedicated, creative producers who have been here 2-3 years. In the ever-changing world of the Internet, it’s pretty rare to have people who have stayed in one place that long. There’s some work contracted out but not a lot. We also encourage user submissions. And we have some network content, but we produce most of it in-house.
Seattle24x7: How do you breakdown the content by subject area?
Margot: We have producers who cover what we call “channels” like Restaurants, Events, Free Classifieds, Jobs, Sports and Recreation. The producers create the local content for those channels. For example, we have almost 2,000 restaurants in our database. We have thousands of things to do for people who live and work in Seattle. We have guides for everything from golfing, skiing, camping and hiking, to a neighborhood guide, a music guide, a nightlife guide, a beer and wine guide, a military guide, and a mall guide. In addition, most of our databases accept user submissions. We encourage people to tell us about what they’re doing, about their events, and to take advantage of the free publicity by submitting their events to our databases. They can also submit their local Web site to our search database, which contains more than 7,000 Seattle-area Web sites.
Seattle24x7: How often does content change? What is the cycle of infusing new content?
Margot: On average, our home page is updated one to two times a day. All our “channel fronts” are updated frequently, too. We have an Events calendar, which offers things to do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. We’re constantly updating the site.
Seattle24x7: How is the site being utilized?
Margot: People who live here use the site to find things to do, places to go, ways to sell their stuff in our free classifieds, search for local information, share their views with others who live here, and much more. As I mentioned earlier, we’re a reliable information resource to help users find what they’re looking for, close to home and work.
Seattle24x7: The most used sections of the site are what?
Margot: Events, restaurants and free classifieds, also jobs, local movie information and search. In our Autos channel, you’ll find live traffic reports and cams. But we’ve also gone a step further and used our technology to create a tool that allows you to define your commute, then pick the live traffic cams on your commute route and save it. You then can come back to the site every day and see the traffic along your personal commute route. Our message boards are very popular, too. We have message boards throughout the site so people can talk about everything from the Mariners, Huskies and Seahawks, to local politics to road rage to restaurant reviews, and more.
Seattle24x7: How do you view your competition?
Margot: Seattle has a lot of good Websites and I wouldn’t want to take away anything from any of them. They each do what they do well. Our goal is to be the best city site in Seattle, by helping users find what they’re looking for, close to home and work. But I wish the best to everybody in their Web site endeavors because a healthy Internet is good for all of us.
Seattle24x7: You mentioned your restaurant and events database. What other kind of data do you maintain?
Margot: Lots. If you want to find out what movies are playing in Bellevue or Edmonds, you can find it on SeattleInsider.com. If you want to sell some of your stuff around the house that you don’t use anymore, you can place a free ad in our Classifieds. If you’re looking for a bargain, you can buy stuff from our free Classifieds, too. We have a search database of more than 7,000 Seattle-area Web sites. You can check out information about Seattle neighborhoods — find out the crime rate, the schools available, bus routes and more. If someone is looking for health information, we have a massive health encyclopedia. You can find a nearby doctor, dentist, hospital or clinic from our databases. We have a jobs channel. We also provide live election results, and school closures, in conjunction with KIRO-TV. So at six in the morning, you can come to the Website and find out if your child’s school is closed or open. The general goal is to help people find things quickly and easily on a wide range of topics that really are for the people of Seattle.
Seattle24x7: Your discussion boards are also very active?
Margot: After the terrorist attacks, SeattleInsider.com helped get the word out to people about where to make donations, and where to give blood, along with other emergency information. But we also offered a place to talk about it, to share the pain and the horror, on our message boards. There was an outpouring of sympathy, grief and fear expressed on our boards, in the days after the attacks. We also have a very active Boeing discussion area. When there are layoffs at Boeing and people need a place to go vent about it, they come to our Website. Or they can get gardening tips or talk to a mechanic about car problems, or talk to other Seattleites about traffic jams. We have a list of message boards, which are very popular with our users. There’s lots to talk about in this city!
Seattle24x7: Do you perform usability studies?
Margot: We have an excellent network marketing department. There is constant research, along with analysis and usability studies, on a regular basis. If you remember what SeattleInsider.com looked like prior to February of this year, you’ll see some of the results of the superb marketing research done by Cox Interactive Media.
Seattle24x7: Is there a particular site feature, a hidden gem that you wished more people were aware of?
Margot: Our free classifieds section is an excellent feature, although it’s certainly not a hidden gem. But the concept of classified ads that are free is so different and new, that I would like even more people to know more about that feature. The other day, somebody called me up and said, “I was looking for a place to sell my boat, and I found it on SeattleInsider.com.” I was told the boat sold pretty quickly, and for a good deal. Another person sold her aquarium. Someone else bought her husband an anniversary ring in our free Classifieds. Our site is used to find roommates, buy ski equipment, swap tickets, sell computer equipment, buy and sell furniture, buy and sell pets, the list goes on and on. And best of all, it’s free. Why pay money to place an ad in a newspaper, when you can do it for free on SeattleInsider.com?
Seattle24x7: What’s on tap for the holidays?
Margot: All kinds of holiday events, 2,000 restaurants to choose from, a holiday movie guide, ski resort information, travel information like Snoqualmie Pass cams and road conditions, border cams, flight arrival and departure times, and ferry schedules, plus our mall guide, which will include holiday sales hours and directions. Hope it’s a safe and healthy holiday season for everybody!
Seattle24x7: Thanks, Margot, for the Insider’s look at SeattleInsider.com!
Larry Sivitz is the Managing Editor of Seattle24x7.
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