Hearst Gets into Web Aggregation with LMK.com

With media companies in all mediums struggling, it looks like at least some aren't blaming the Internet for their troubles and if they are they've realized that there's not that much they can do about it. In an “if you can't beat them, join them” move, media giant Hears is launching a new brand and it's not a newspaper or TV show, it's a website, LMK.com (as in “let me know”). But it gets even better as the site will feature little to no original content; it will instead be an aggregator of news and data surrounding certain topics.

The site will feature some 2.3 million pages filled with content from various sources like the AP or Getty for news and photos or even Wikipedia for general information. The topics will be diverse but centered on several common categories. Despite the lack of original content the site wants to stand out through its clean design and some additional features.

LMK.com will launch with pages for US college football teams but also for select players and or coaches. The section has been created with the help of former assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated Bob Roe who oversaw the creation of the pages. However, the human editor was brought in just for initial creation; part and the day-to-day content will be generated automatically with no human intervention or supervision.

The company hopes that the site will be able to bring in a significant amount of traffic mostly from search engines like Google and the pages will be getting some heavy SEO. LMK.com will be ad-supported for now but if the traffic numbers justify it it could introduce additional premium subscription-based services. Even with modest traffic numbers the site should pretty much pay for itself as operating costs are incredibly low and apparently it currently only has one employee. After the college football section is launched the site will introduce a reality TV one and then continue to add new topic categories every few weeks.