Great manoeuvres in the on-line proximity information : the Laguardère group opens the south of France to Viapolis while Cityvox succeeds a third fund raising.
/www.viapolis.com">Viapolis, the European city guide network is spreading to the south of France. Among the new eight dailies that just have joined the network, the main four titles of the daily press in the south-east (Lagardère group) : Nice Matin, Var Matin, Corse Matin, La Provence. The other four ones belong to the Centre France group. These are La Montagne, Le Populaire du Centre, Le Berry Républicain and Le Joiurnal du Centre. The French part of the network is composed today of two national dailies (Le Figaro and Libération), and twenty five regional and departmental dailies.
European leader of city guides
As it also exists in Spain, where sites launched with the national daily press are already opened in 53 cities, Viapolis becomes the new European city guide leader. Contacts are in progress at the moment with Italian, German, British and Belgian partners. At the total, the Viapolis' attendance is already up to 7 million pages seen in a month.
In France, where four towns are available at the moment (Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Pau), the objective is to allow surfers to access to services and pieces of proximity information in more than 20 cities by late 2001 and 35 cities by late 2002. 'The Viapolis' sites in France will be strengthen by the local establishment, the promotional power and the savoir-faire of 27 associated dailies which represent almost 10 million readers everyday,it is explained in a press release.
The network is managed by the Ville Interactive company (LVI SAS), owned by all the Viapolis' partners and located in Bordeaux. Pierre Jeantet, the new president of the Sud-Ouest group board of directors, who has succeeded Jean-François Lemoîne, who died on February 15th.
Fabrice Grinda invests in Cityvox
Another great manoeuvre in the city guide world : /www.cityvox.com/home/0,15522,NICFRAACCCIT,00.html"> Cityvoxin 37 cities in France, Nice included, and 16 abroad, has just realized a third fund raising of 65 million francs. Among the investors : Gilles Ghesquière, who has just left Nomade, the francophone site directory which he has created, and Fabrice Grinda from Nice, one of the two founders of the French auction sale site Aucland (Sophia Antipolis). Cityvox claims to have an attendance of 200.000 regular visitors and employs about one hundred people who 70 of them are wage-earners.