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Welcome to Bluefin Technology Partners

Three colleagues working together around a table in an office.

Bluefin Technology Partners has a single vision: to generate new revenue sources for Publishers by offering advertisers the best tools available to place, review and publish their print and online media buys.

Abstract blue wave design on a black background.

The Opportunity

Newspaper publishers are in the best position to become the local destination for online buyers and sellers. To achieve this, Publishers need to:

• aggressively adapt to the changing world of online and print.
• leverage “Brand Equity” to increase online revenue and readership
• simultaneously grow their local markets through both print and online channels

The Challenge

Newspaper publishers are facing an ever growing threat to their local online classified franchise. “Pure-play” online classified vendors like eBay, Craigslist, and Google are aggressively acquiring companies and technologies in an attempt to capture the local marketplace. Some are competing directly, while others are attempting to partner with local publishers in a co-branding arrangement. Either way, publishers are slowly losing control over their core market. Bluefin Technology Partners gives you the e-commerce solutions to compete on an even playing field without having to sacrifice revenue or control.

Read on to find out more how to take back control of your local market while increasing classified revenues for print and online.

Management Team

Our principals are dedicated newspaper industry veterans who know that a combined print and online advertising strategy is what sets newspaper publishers apart from “pure-play” online classified providers.

Rich Grover

General Partner, Founder & CTO
Rich@GetBluefin.com

Rich Grover is the founder of Bluefin Technology Partners. Most recently Mr. Grover led integration development teams at AdStar Inc. as VP of Technology and Systems Integration. Mr. Grover has over 20 years experience in bringing innovative technology solutions to the publishing industry. Mr. Grover was the founder, president and CEO of GDT/Nova, the first company to provide Web ad order management solutions to newspaper publishers worldwide including Gannett, Tribune, Hearst, and McClatchy, and Knight Ridder Newspapers. Mr. Grover’s seven years at System Integrators, Inc., a worldwide supplier of newspaper prepress systems, provided a solid foundation in newspaper advertising publishing systems.

Mr. Grover holds a BS from California State University in Sacramento.

Steve Rosenfeld

General Partner, Sales and Marketing
Steve@GetBluefin.com

Steve Rosenfeld brings over 25 years of international newspaper experience to Bluefin Technology Partners in key management roles with leading publishing technology companies including Atex, Inc. where he held multiple senior management positions including head of European channel operations based in London England. Mr. Rosenfeld also was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Edgil Associates Inc., the leading supplier of electronic payment solutions to newspapers; Sales Director at OpenPages, one of the first providers of online content management systems for newspapers; and VP of Sales at AdStar Inc., marketers of remote ad order entry solutions for publishers and advertising agencies.

Mr. Rosenfeld has an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and Bachelors in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Connected to the Newspaper Publishing Industry

Bluefin Technology Partners is active in the newspaper publishing community through industry associations, conferences, and long-standing relationships with community newspapers and media groups.

National Newspaper Association – NNA
https://www.nna.org/

Texas Press Association
www.texaspress.com

New York Press Association – NYPA
https://nynewspapers.com/

Association of Free Community Papers – AFCP
www.afcp.org

America’s Newspapers
https://newspapers.org/

Frequently Asked Questions

Platform Capabilities

We call it a complete publisher’s advertising platform because it contains all the major pieces for true advertiser self service advertising for print and the Web:
Bluefin Place Ad – Self Service Ad Order Entry
Bluefin Marketplace – Web Publishing of Online Ads
Bluefin Mobile – Publish Advertising Content via Multiple Digital Platforms
Bluefin Command Center – Set Up and Configuration, Reporting, Data Feed
Yes, online ads can be put on “hold” status until released by appropriate personnel. The default implementation is that newly entered online ads remain in a hold status until they are approved. The site can also be configured to auto-release new ads. The platform also includes a ?report abuse’ link to alert the appropriate personnel to possible problems where ads can be quickly edited or removed if necessary.
Absolutely! Bluefin Place Ad gives the advertiser a seamless user experience. You can create both the print ad and the online ad each with its own look and feel. The platform was designed from the ground up with the requirement of seamlessly integrating both print ad and online ad orders, each with its own unique set of capabilities and upsells.

Customization & Integration

Just like with other suppliers, we will use the front-end API to send the ads to the advertising systems. We been involved with more than 20 classified Front-end integration projects, many of them with modern systems like Mactive and CCI and many others with older legacy systems like Atex, CText, SII, etc as well as a few home grown systems.
Front-end integration requires a case-by-case analysis including of front end system types and what their particular import capabilities are. For example, many more up-to-date systems such as Mactive provide a two-way XML interface where the focus is on mapping the correct classifications, markup (unless pdf we use pdf delivery), etc. Other more legacy systems often do not have contemporary mechanisms and require more diverse forms of integration like terminal emulation or one-way batch imports.
For newspapers whose front-end systems have no support for integration, we deliver ads via email whereby our customers can either use the PDF attachment or copy/paste the text from the email.
We maintain the pricing on our side rates, packages, etc. Within Bluefin Command Center, you as publisher have the set up and configuration tools to adjust and maintain the pricing as needed.
Our platform includes a powerful and flexible pricing engine that allows customers to receive fast and dynamic pricing as create their ads. The pricing configuration is managed via a web-based administrative tool that allows newspapers to quickly respond to changes in packages or special offers.
Architecturally, the pricing engine is called via a web service so it is possible to integrate an alternate pricing engine (for example a front-end system if it has that kind of capability).
No limit. They can be by publication, groups of publications, and refined down to the sub-category or classification level. For example, ad rates can take into account whether it is a print only buy or a combo buy of print and online.
The platform supports a variety of packaging, zoning, and rating combinations. The pricing engine was designed for the complex requirements that we have experienced in our many years in the newspaper industry and with former front-end suppliers.
No limit; again through our Bluefin Command Center your staff with have the necessary control to maintain all the parameters of the Bluefin PlaceAd application. The platform is designed to support whatever categories and classifications our customers need to expose on the web site. A web-based administrative tool is provided to allow the creation, modification or removal of categories as needed by the customer.
We have a standard “look and feel” that you can use with your branding (banners, side bars etc.) We use PHP and Ajax on the pages so you can add your own widgets and applets as well. Alternatively, Bluefin is designed so you can create and maintain your own presentation layer and we would exposes our database and application layers to you.
The platform starts with a standardized presentation layer that can be skinned for a particular publications branding for rapid deployment. For a more advanced presentation layer, we can expose the php-based presentation layer for our customers to use as desired. For customers with special requirements or have their own presentation layer, we provide our web service API to allow them to tap into the HnJ, Pricing and Search Engine capabilities.

Implementation

Once we receive all the configuration data we can have you up and running two to three weeks, excluding the time needed for optional front-end system integration.
Yes, we can incorporate any available credit card payments gateways via web service call such as PayPal Payflow Pro (formerly Verisign) or interface to other payment systems using their published API such as EdgCapture electronic payment system from Edgil Associates.
Yes, our interface would be compliant as we would either use web service calls to “move the user” to the payment site, or capture the credit card data-pass it securely to the payment application-without storing the credit card info in our database.

Pricing

Standard pricing model is an up front installation fee to build the privately branded site, monthly service fee based on circulation size, and a flat transaction fee per ad order that is dependant on circulation size. That said, we would be happy to work with you on the business pricing and terms that could possibly lead to a group-wide implementation.

What Is a Bluefin?

Speed. Agility. Stamina.

Bluefin was named for the Giant Bluefin Tuna, one of the fastest and most powerful fish in the sea, growing as large as 10 feet long and 1,500 pounds of pure predatory muscle. TheBluefin is built for speed and agility; it can easily reach swimming speeds of over 50mph and has the stamina and tenacity to hunt prey all across the ocean. Tagged Bluefin have been tracked hunting the Mediterranean Sea, the South Atlantic and off the Eastern Coast of the USA.