July 13 , 2010

Canada.com launches all new Topics pages

Allows users to go more social, safely

Canada.com , Canada ’s leading general news and information source, launched topics pages allowing visitors to “go social” in a more managed and safe way.

The new topics pages aggregate content from a variety of sources, including the network of brands that contribute to the Canwest News Service. Beyond that, the topics pages include content – stories, photos and video – from top news and information sources across the Web, such as Wikipedia, as well as social commentary from blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

The collection of content, managed by professional journalists, gives users the opportunity to focus on subjects that matter – all in one place – and to contribute to the conversation when so inspired.

“In a more social way, topic pages give us the opportunity to engage with different audiences on specific subject matters that are important to them,” said Ray Philipose, Vice President, Strategy & Product Development, Canwest Digital Media. “By selecting topics based on what we see is important to Canadians, we are able to create more relevant and focused conversations making canada.com a more interesting destination for visitors.” 

The introduction of topics pages is part of the evolution of canada.com which also includes the introduction of celebrity bloggers such as notable chef Jamie Kennedy and news commentator Paul Jay of The Real News Network. Their distinctive voices will appear regularly throughout the site including on relevant topics pages.

For advertisers, topics pages deliver an engaged audience, through a professionally managed social environment – not a discussion board. “Advertisers will be able to access more social advertising opportunities with the confidence that they are reaching target audiences and generating return on investment,” Philipose said.

Topics pages sponsorship opportunities allow marketers to deeply integrate their brands or products where users are most engaged in relevant content areas.

Sponsorship opportunities include:

• Advertorial widget
• Homepage widget sponsorship
• Story widget sponsorship
• Topic page sponsorship

Marketing efforts for Topic Pages will be focused online (Facebook and others), where banner ads will deliver Topics contextually to those who have identified an interest in news, lifestyle or sports.