New Media - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 23:28 - 0 Comments

Interview With Mark Briggs CEO Serra Media

 

First, a little about the company:  Serra Media is a web technology company that’s taken a unique approach to web-based software for local publishers. We think it should be truly innovative, yet easy to use. It should be made for you and leverage the power of your brand in the local marketplace. And it should even be fun. It’s all about technology with style, plus world-class customer service. And it will help you grow audience and revenue, too.

Hyperlocal imagination. Hyperlocal innovation.

Newsgarden is our first product and it can revolutionize local news. It is a map-based web application that filters the location of recent news items, blog posts and other information available on the web down to the neighborhood level.

But it’s not just news on a map; it’s about building new communities online, with new content, in a way that integrates the journalism already being done. It allows a news publisher or local blogger to cover more news with less resources, creates a new market for advertising revenue and helps you move toward a future dominated by location-aware mobile devices

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With the above in mind, I wanted to learn more about Newsgarden so I met up with Serra Media CEO Mark Briggs.  Here’s what I found out.

RI - What is Newsgarden? It looks like a Google Maps Mashup.
MB - Newsgarden is our premier product offering and yes it can be described as a Google Maps mashup, however it is much more powerful than that.  Think of Newsgarden as a social mapping platform where geographically targeted content from news staff or readers is displayed in a familiar Google map.  The content can be in the form of stories, photos, links, video and really anything else where geographic context adds to the experience. Continue…