Leisure World-Wide Web

INDIANAPOLIS -- Information is money.

"We can't make money on-line -- who believes that?" asked Nanette Bisher, deputy editor of new media for Southern California's Orange County Register. "We haven't figured out the right way to make money on-line. We think too traditionally."

Traditional thinking led her paper to expect that residents of a retirement community in its area would not be interested in going on-line.

Wrong.

Leisure World, a gated retirement community of 30,000, is information hungry -- it's served by a weekly with 98 percent penetration, Bisher said.

Even so, the Register expected maybe 50 people would attend its first meeting about taking Leisure World on-line; 350 showed up.

Building on this immense interest, the paper created a protected community -- only residents get passwords -- and developed forms for users to fill out to list the activities put on by 600 clubs in nine clubhouses.

Members of the "very social" community "use this as a vehicle to get to know each other," Bisher said. "They put up personal pages so others can read who else lives there. They can go in and scan in a picture of themselves at Leisure World."

Popular features are a dining guide, which offers ad revenue possibilities, Bisher said. Now, residents "can download restaurant coupons, print 'em and use 'em."

Clearly, the web is not for the young alone.

-- PW

See also, News designers at the forefront of journalism trends and Making models for a living.

From THE COLE PAPERS, November 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.