MPS’ endeavor

It took several companies to get the Chicago Tribune’s TribLocal civic journalism initiative off the ground.

Advanced Technical Solutions Inc. and Kodak are the two primary backers of the Microzone Publishing Solution software underpinning TribLocal, although Creative Circle Advertising Solutions and Bluefin LLC also played important roles.

“This is a product that allows a metropolitan paper to target advertising in its outlying regions and for advertisers there that wouldn’t see the benefit of advertising in the core product,” said Kevin Ward, global product manager, newspaper workflow for Kodak. “A local advertiser may be inclined to advertise in a microzone edition circulating in a neighborhood or specific region.”

MPS is sold under the Kodak brand and gives the vendor a chance to help newspapers move in a new direction to tap additional ad revenue streams.

“We saw an opportunity to help our customers increase their business, rather than forcing them to remove cost from an existing business,” Ward said.

MPS has three components, or portals: citizen journalism, advertising and content management. Each can be used together or function independently.

CCAS developed the citizen journalism portal, which allows registered users to submit stories, photographs and community event listings for use in print and online products.

“We built a community journalism product based on a lot of the same technology as the self-serve classifieds” software the firm offers, said CCAS President Sue Tremblay.

“It’s very easy for a user to submit a story or post a photo and we’ve taken the philosophy behind user-submitted content and matched it up with newspapers pushing out content.”

The CCAS app lets newspapers either standardize the Web sites with a common look and feel or customize them as desired.

Bluefin, meantime, helped build the Microzone ad portal, basing it on its self-service Community Marketplace software. The ad portal lets advertisers create and place ads, as well as manage and store the ads they create. It also lets advertisers pay for the ad space through a secure e-payments system.