Leader-Telegram and StrandVision Form Innovative Partnership to Bring Newspaper Content to Digital Signs: StrandVision Customers also Receive Free Lea

Eau Claire, WI (PRWeb) February 20, 2007 -- The Leader-Telegram and StrandVision today jointly announced a collaborative agreement that brings print and electronic media together. Under the agreement, the Leader-Telegram (http://www.leadertelegram.com) will feed headlines and summaries from its Web site to StrandVision LLC (http://www.strandvision.com) digital signage customers.

The partnership enables StrandVision to make the content available for free to its customers in Eau Claire and several surrounding counties. As part of the package, StrandVision also underwrites a free one-year subscription to the Leader-Telegram for participating customers.

The new service uses a patent-pending concept that combines the automatic delivery of newsroom content directly to StrandVision's digital signage customers with a newspaper subscription so viewers can conveniently refer to the printed content. StrandVision customers in the service area simply select from one or all of the news, sports and features topics from their StrandVision menu when adding signage pages. The Leader-Telegram content is automatically distributed to their digital signs and regularly updated over the Internet.

"When StrandVision approached us, the idea made perfect sense," said Leader-Telegram president, Pieter Graaskamp. "This is an excellent way for us to extend our reach, provide an innovative service, collaborate with an up-and-coming local company and, in the process, encourage subscriptions in potentially untapped areas."

The digital signage/print combination is ideal for many locations, such as doctors', dentists' and other service providers' waiting rooms, auto repair facilities, public buildings and other venues. Viewers have the opportunity to see late-breaking local and national news and, in many cases, will be able to immediately turn to the printed version of the newspaper to read the full story -- a unique marriage of traditional and electronic news.

Commented Mike Strand, StrandVision founder and CEO, "The Leader-Telegram is clearly open to new ideas and is positioned to capitalize on new ways to reach and broaden its readership. This relationship between print and electronic media is exciting because it offers traditional printed media organizations a technological leap ahead. It makes the wait worthwhile for StrandVision digital signage customers' clients by offering local, copyright-cleared, professionally edited news directly to their digital signs."

The Leader-Telegram is historically an early adopter of new media opportunities. It was one of the first regional newspapers to post editorial content on the Web and now runs a second site, The Country Today (http://www.thecountrytoday.com), about rural life in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Its electronic media complements its print properties to create a comprehensive news package.

"We are quite open to new ideas as we experiment with and expand our online presence," explained Tim Abraham, Leader-Telegram online service director. "Adding a digital signage service to our offerings is a natural extension for us since we already have rich content on our Web site. Now we can also increase our reach by distributing our content over the StrandVision network right to its customers."

About StrandVision
StrandVision LLC, previously Online-Kiosks, delivers low-cost, high-availability hosted digital signage services through a patent-pending, Internet-based approach that eliminates the need for complex and expensive onsite hardware. It delivers content directly to subscribers' televisions, including LCD and plasma displays, and computer screens. StrandVision's Web-based service makes it easy to set up, maintain and quickly distribute text messages and graphics, including advertisements, video content, and national and local weather and news. It is ideal for medical and dental offices (patient education), banks, retailers and industrial distributors (video merchandising), employee break rooms (events and benefits), non-profit and religious organizations (client and supporter communications), and other applications. StrandVision Digital Signage services are available directly from StrandVision and through registered affiliates and system integrators (http://www.strandvision.com/?installers). Additional information about StrandVision and a free trial subscription are available at http://www.strandvision.com or by calling 715-833-9501.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

EDITORS - For further information:

Mike Strand
StrandVision
715-833-9501 x100

Sandy McLaughlin
Soucy Communications Group
781-898-7305

Tim Abraham
leadertelegram.com
715-833-9226

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