OSO.com, the Web site launched by Cox Enterprises four years ago that became one of the most popular Internet sites among Rhode Islanders, has shut down for good.
Tom Viall, manager of OSO.com, said the business cleared out its office, at 1 Richmond Square in Providence, on Dec. 11. He declined to disclose how many employees remained, saying only that it was a small number.
Cox Communications plans to replace the site with a new one that will be operated from its corporate headquarters in Atlanta, according to Susan Leepson, a spokeswoman for Cox in Atlanta. Visitors to OSO.com will be automatically redirected to the new site, www.cox.net, after it is launched in January, she said.
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The new site will have some local content, Leepson said. But plans for the site are sketchy at this point, and Leepson said she could not say how the local content would compare with that of OSO.com, which offers local news and entertainment. Whether the new site will sell local advertising has not been announced.
Leigh Ann Woisard, a spokeswoman for Cox in Rhode Island, said Cox employees in Rhode Island will oversee the new Web site’s local content, even though staff in Atlanta will operate the site.
“There will be a lot of shared content, but our intent is to keep the rich local content that OSO.com was famous for,” Woisard said. She said the cox.net site would be geared toward Cox’s high-speed Internet customers, who will be able to customize their home pages with stock quotes and weather reports, for example.
The OSO.com site still was active as of last week, although the home page warns visitors Awe are in the process of making changes to this site. Viall said that a few employees, working from home, continue to update some content. But in coming weeks, OSO.com will go dark, he said.
OSO.com’s closure is tied to a decision by Cox Enterprises, the holding company for all Cox businesses, to dissolve the division that owns OSO.com and 23 other Web sites in cities across the country.
That division, Cox Interactive Media, has ceased operations, and control of most of the Web sites will be taken over by various Cox businesses in those markets, such as newspapers and radio stations. A handful of the Web sites, though, including OSO.com are being absorbed into the cox.net Web site in Atlanta.
OSO.com, which stands for Ocean State Online, was launched in October 1998. Visitors could use free e-mail, browse classified ads, read restaurant reviews and check movie listings. It became the fourth most popular Web site in Rhode Island, according to The Media Audit, a Houston-based market research firm.
“We had a huge, unaided brand awareness in the marketplace, and great people working here,” Viall said. But this was a decision that was made at the national level
Scott Whiteside, the chief operating officer of Cox Interactive Media, said the local Web sites were popular in cities where Cox already had a presence. But the division failed in its effort to build its brands beyond those core markets, he said.
In many markets, the Web sites likely encountered growing competition from local TV stations and newspapers, which are beefing up their commitment to digital media, according to Bob Jordan, co-founder of The Media Audit.
Cox Interactive had a very good brand and was very competitive in the markets it was in,@ Jordan said. But newspapers and TV stations can use their Web sites as an adjunct to their traditional media.
The three most popular Web sites in the Rhode Island market are Yahoo.com Local, AOL.com Local and projo.com, which is owned by the Providence Journal.
Jordan says that he is puzzled by what Cox plans to do with the various Web sites, including OSO.com, that operated under Cox Interactive. But he has a hunch.
“My thought is, and it’s pure conjecture, that the amount of local information would be reduced significantly,” Jordan said. Otherwise, it takes a lot of investment and people to keep that Web site management going.
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