Francesca (Fran) HauserGeneral ManagerPeople Group Digital
Fran Hauser, who joined Time Inc. in January 2003, is the New York-based General Manager of People Group Digital, overseeing all business, product development and production functions for People.com, TeenPeople.com and PeopleenEspanol.com. Previously, she was a VP in the Programming Group at AOL, where she ran AOL Teens. From 1998 to 2002, Hauser was at Moviefone and played a key role in its sale to AOL. Soon after, she became VP-GM of Moviefone and AOL Movies. Prior to joining Moviefone, Hauser had worked at Coca-Cola, Ernst & Young and PriceWaterhouse.
Q. What's the latest count on People.com's unique monthly visitors online?
A. In January, People.com reached 3.9 million unique users. The site generated 353 million page views, the highest for any entertainment news site, according to comScore Media Metrix, January 2007.
Q. What's the most heavily trafficked area at People.com?
A. Currently, the most heavily trafficked areas on People.com are News, both in the article and photo gallery format, and our Red Carpet season coverage, which went up just after the beginning of the year and will run through the Academy Awards.
Q. What are the two most popular stories or features on People.com right now? Undoubtedly, your Anna Nicole Smith coverage would be one? A. Yes, definitely, Anna Nicole Smith’s death was a big story for us and continues to be, since our users expect to return to the site for continuous updates. Today [February 15], four of the five most popular news stories on the site are related to Anna Nicole Smith. The current top feature on People.com is our ongoing Red Carpet season package. Our users know to come to People.com for up-to-the-minute coverage of all the major awards shows, including SAG, Golden Globes, Grammys and the Acedemy Awards, coming up on February 25.
Q. Looking back over the past six months, what would you say has been your "blockbuster" story in terms of generating the most traffic?
A. That “blockbuster” story is the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding. People.com featured extensive coverage of the events leading up to and during the wedding. With reporters live on the scene in Italy, People.com’s wedding blog offered a continuous stream of news and detail throughout the weekend. We experienced twice the normal traffic over that weekend and a single-day traffic high of 28.3 million page views on that Monday. We recently beat this record the day after the Golden Globes.
Q. Did you design your website based on traffic patterns or focus group input...or a little of both?
A. It’s definitely a little of both. We look at pathing and usage data and we also conduct research, including focus groups and usability testing. We spend a significant amount of time understanding how women want to use our site and then tweaking design based on that information. It’s one of the reasons that we rank #1 in the entertainment news category for user engagement. The average visitor spent 41.3 minutes on www.People.com in January (the #2 site was at 15.9 minutes) and viewed 18.8 pages per day, according to Comscore Media Matrix (the #2 site had 7.4 pages daily).
Q. How much of your People.com content is exclusive to that platform, rather than adapted from the magazine? Do you see that growing in the near future?
A. The vast majority of People.com’s content is original. There's very little magazine content that is repurposed on the site. In most cases, the print and online staffs work together to get breaking news up on the site first. Then, the print staff goes on to create a more in-depth treatment for the magazine.
Q. People.com already offers a lot of video -- e.g., Beyonce's Grammy afterparty, Mary J. Blige and others on the Grammy Red Carpet, "Inside the Golden Globes Afterparty", and Jennifer Hudson and others backstage at SAG. Do you anticipate video playing an even bigger role on your sites in the near future? Have your advertisers expressed interest in video advertising?
A. Video is a big focus for People.com in 2007. To date, our video offerings such as “Video Pop Quiz”, “Celebrity Video Diary” - featuring stars like Dreamgirls' Anika Noni Rose -and Red Carpet coverage have been popular, but we are currently developing a deeper and more frequent offering. There is significant advertiser demand for this content as one element of the overall marketing programs we create.
Q. What about your audio future? You already offer podcasts like People's Jess Cagle interviewing Jennifer Aniston on those nose-job rumors, Staff Editor Larry Sutton's "This Week's Buzz" on Vince Vaughn at Jennifer Aniston's birthday party and "Download This" music clips.
A. People.com launched our “This Week’s Buzz” podcast last August on iTunes. It’s been doing well for us. We are now looking for other ways to integrate audio into our existing content to enhance the consumer experience.
Q. In a recent interview with Bloggers Blog, you estimated that 70% of your visitors come through "the front door," with the rest via links from other sites. Has that percentage been fairly consistent? How significant is traffic coming from your presence as a "partner" on CNN.com, a la Entertainment Weekly?
A. People.com continues to receive approximately 70% of its traffic from users who have either typed in the URL or have the site bookmarked. That’s a strong indicator of just how much our users love the site. With respect to CNN, we have only just recently launched a cross-linking arrangement. Early indicators show that the relationship will be mutually beneficial. We are also in the process of lining up other major distribution partners.
Q. How important is mobile for your sites? Is that platform much different in content from online?
A. We're always exploring new platforms to connect with our users. We are currently developing a subscription-based mobile application that will launch this summer.
Q. Beyond that, what other developments do you see ahead for you in the digital realm? One, of course, would be the People celebrity database due online next year. Can you give a capsule description of what that'll contain?
A. The People.com celebrity database, which we have soft-launched and will start promoting over the next few weeks, provides biographical info, photos and the latest news on the hottest celebrities, all in an easily searchable way. It will be a great destination for fans to learn more and stay up to date on their favorite stars. This is one of many key initiatives for 2007. Others include video, mobile and launching an archive of 40,000-plus magazine articles dating back to the first issue of People magazine.
