WEB—CitySearch launches its own online guide to Los Angeles

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After years of building a network of online guides to cities across the globe, Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch Inc. last week celebrated its five-year anniversary with the launch of an owned-and-operated online guide to Los Angeles.

The Pasadena-based company previously had a partnership with the Los Angeles Times that had sent users to the newspaper’s CalendarLive.com online entertainment guide.

“This is a huge, huge deal for us,” said Gerard LaFond, general manager of the L.A. CitySearch site. “We had all these people coming to work here in the home office, and the bad part was, they didn’t have their own city guide that they could use. You can get a little detached from your product if you’re not using it.”

The company first hinted at the dissolution of its relationship with the L.A. Times and the creation of a new site in its second-quarter report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, submitted in July. Company officials would not comment at that time.

“Our relationship with (the L.A. Times) ended and all parties kind of went their separate ways,” LaFond explained last week.

CalendarLive.com is still up and running, and staff is continually adding new content and features to the site, said Rashmi Turner, director of communications for Tribune Interactive, which oversees online properties owned by the Tribune Co.

LosAngeles.citysearch.com is the first CitySearch site to feature a new overhauled design that makes it easier to navigate and find all the information needed for a night on the town. The company plans to roll out the redesign to the rest of its 82 owned-and-operated city guides by the end of the year. (CitySearch also offers about a dozen additional city guides through partnerships with other organizations, like local newspapers.)

The Los Angeles guide contains information about local performing arts, bars and restaurants, shopping and other recreational events. A growing number of short, snappy reviews and special features highlight some of the city’s best and lesser-known treasures.

What’s different in the new site is the degree to which users can take action on the information they find there. For example, when a concert is coming to town, users can buy tickets through the company’s online ticket sales arm, Ticketmaster.com. Visitors can also meet new people in their hometown through a link to the company’s Match.com Web site.

Through a partnership with Foodline.com, users can make reservations online at select L.A. eateries. And when visitors pull up a review, say, for a swank bar, they can easily arrange a gathering there with a click on an “Invite Friends” button, which takes them to free online invitation Web site evite.com.

“You’re going to see our site develop quite substantially,” LaFond said.

The company has already begun rolling out a career center for job hunters and a real estate channel for house hunters. A comprehensive relationships channel, with some content provided by the company’s Match.com, will launch in the next month. By the end of the year, an automobile channel featuring information on cars and car sales will launch as well.

Content on the new channels will come from a combination of sources, including some partnerships with other Web sites.

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