As Seattle Sidewalk begins its second month of operation, Microsoft is starting to redefine the relationship between its online editorial products, and it looks like Sidewalk is set to lose editorial independence. MSN properties Cinemania and Music Central, Redmond has decreed, will provide Sidewalk with its movie and music reviews, respectively.
According to confidential internal documents obtained by Wired News, Microsoft wants to "flatten our organization to stimulate cross-group learning [and] sharing" throughout its new Service Media division.
The decision is a reversal of earlier policy stressing that the different MS sites would carry unique content. Microsoft always had intentions to "leverage" related online projects through Sidewalk, but the idea was that Sidewalk content, even if shared by several different city offices, would be created by Sidewalk writers.
Some city sites are unhappy with the arrangement. "I think a lot of the executive producers are not real fond of Cinemania and are trying to work around it," says one producer who has been working with Sidewalk since the early planning stages, and who requested anonymity.
Frank Schott, general manager of Microsoft's entire Sidewalk venture, explains the shift: "When you get down to really producing the product you get a lot more pragmatic." Schott says Sidewalk will also begin using content from Microsoft's Expedia travel site. While he is eager to capture economies of scale in using national feeds throughout the Sidewalk sites, Schott admits that he worries about publishing a generic editorial voice.
There will be some cinematic editorial independence. Seattle Sidewalk general manager Kevin Egan says his team will augment reviews from Cinemania with its own writers when local insight is appropriate.
A close look at Seattle Sidewalk's music and movie coverage reveals another oddity: There's no related advertising. Movie and music ads normally run hand-in-hand with reviews, show times, and gossip, but advertising representatives from MGM, Sony, and Disney, say Sidewalk hasn't even been in contact.
