Spring Air developments reveal power of F/T's Web coverage
David Perry, Executive Editor -- Furniture Today, June 22, 2009
Something big is happening with bedding coverage at Furniture/Today, and faithful readers of the print issue (yes, that's you) may be missing some of the action.
The big news is that our online coverage of the mattress industry has shifted into high gear, and that shift has been accompanied by a level of reader involvement that separates us from any others news sites purporting to cover the industry.
Case in point: Our online coverage of the fall of Spring Air. We broke that major story on the afternoon of May 5. "Spring Air likely to cease operations" was the headline on that first online story, an exclusive for Furniture/Today on one of the biggest bedding stories in years. Our Larry Thomas followed that up with two blogs, one on the scramble for the Spring Air business, and another on the shabby way former Spring Air employees were treated.
The same day that Thomas was sharing that news, I reported on former Spring Air licensee Ed Bates reopening his plant in the Boston area. That was yet another exclusive Spring Air story broken online by Furniture/Today. And then we ran a story on my interview with former Spring Air CEO Steve Cumbow, who broke his silence in our digital news columns.
More exclusives followed: Bates launched the new Spring Air International and announced Rick Robinson as the new president of the company, and Robinson talked about his plans and about the challenges he faces.
Each of those news developments broke online at www.furnituretoday.com. And while the news stories were included in our powerful eDaily, the blogs only appear on our Web site. In other words, you need to visit our Web site each day to learn of new developments on major news stories.
There's another key part of the Spring Air story only available at our Web site: Our "talk back" feature has sparked an outpouring of comments on what has been happening at Spring Air. The blog in which Thomas revealed the cruel way former Spring Air employees were treated has, as of this writing, attracted 48 comments. I can't recall anything else we've run online that has sparked a similar torrent of comments.
All told, we've had more than 100 comments on our recent Spring Air stories and blogs. That kind of reader involvement is another way that we stand far apart from our competitors.
So, keep reading our print issue, but don't miss a day in checking our Web site. When major bedding news breaks, that's where you will read it first. Our blogs will tell you what we think about that news, and the comments will tell you what our readers think, too. That's a powerful one-two-three punch, brought to you exclusively by your friends at Furniture/Today.
Contact David Perry at dperry@reedbusiness.com
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