Finn.no
Finn.no is arguably the most successful publisher response to online competition in the world. However, at first it was not, and the Finn.no and FinnTech organization has thus gained invaluable insight not only into what works, but also what does not.
The story of Finn.no now goes back as much as 10 years. Finn's predecessor Vis@visen was launched in 1996, but it was not until the relaunch as Finn (translates into Find) in 2000 that Aftenposten's and Norway's four largest regional newspaper's response to competition from online classifieds pure-plays started to look like a real success.
It certainly is a success now. Finn.no had 897 000 unique visitors a week in week 5 of 2006 - in an Internet population of around 3,1 million. Thus, it is Norway's 6th largest Internet site overall measured by unique visitors - and second largest if measured by page impressions (just over 87 million of them that same week). As of August 2005, Finn.no's unaided brand recognition in Norway was 60 %, total brand recognition was 90 %.
There were approximately 4,5 million Norwegians at last count, and just over 2 million of us stopped by Finn.no last month.
Who said classified ads is not exciting content?
The most compelling part of the Finn.no story, however, is that the impressive traffic figures have been turned into impressive financial performance: Finn.no is one of the most profitable enterprises in the Norwegian media industry, or indeed any industry.
To maintain this enviable position, Finn.no has a strong product development focus and continues to move forward. Ten years ago Finn.no was a newspaper-to-web offering. It is impossible to predict what it will be another ten years from now, exept that it will be developed by FinnTech.
Finn.no rund on the full version of the iAd platform and currently offers 5 main verticals: