Fortune and Money, which are losing their anchor positions at CNNMoney.com due to the imminent spinoff of Time Inc. from Time Warner, are launching new websites on Sunday.
For the first time, the two magazines are splitting up. The Money.com URL will direct readers to the Time.com site, where Money will be housed.
Fortune.com will be a stand-alone site.
CNNMoney gets to keep the “Money” name in its title for a site that generated 17.6 million unique visitors on all platforms in April, up 10 percent from April a year earlier.
“It was a nice arrangement while it lasted, but we were never able to optimize the Fortune brand on the Web,” said Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer, who has brought in about two dozen digital journalists raided from other financial online sites to staff the launch.
Money is jazzing up its site with a month-long theme, Money & Love, with videos, quizzes and even a show inspired by ABC’s “Newlywed Game” of the ’70s. “We want to have a little more of a playful attitude, grab you, draw you in and teach you something along the way,” said Craig Matters, managing editor of Money.
Jed Hartman, worldwide group publisher, said that the sites are not going to market with a specific traffic goal. But he points out that when Sports Illustrated ditched its partnership deal with Turner Sports Network, its traffic actually increased.
While the financial field is viciously competitive, he points out that eight of the top 15 traffic generators at CNNMoney were tied to either Fortune or Money. Money’s Best Places to Live was the top traffic generator, while the Fortune 500 release was the No. 2 traffic generator, he said.
This Monday is Fortune 500 day for the print edition, which should give a large boost in Web traffic to the new site.
Hartman said that Fortune has nine native advertisements — ads that mimic the look and feel of editorial material — slated to run in the coming weeks. He said each will be clearly marked as “content from” and the name of the advertiser
“For all intents and purposes, Fortune.com has sold out its advertising for the month of June,” he said.