InterAd Signs UK News Portal Site NewsNow

NewsNow, the UK’s first news portal Web site, signed an exclusive global deal with European Internet ad rep firm InterAd.

NewsNow said it is the UK’s first free, real-time aggregate news headline service, offering breaking news headlines updated every five minutes. It also provides links, archived for 30 days, to 32 UK and international news sites on a single page. Sources include BBC; MTV; Radio 1; Reuters, Sky News, VNU Newswire and ZD Net.

Launched just 16 weeks ago by executive of the former SOFTBANK Interactive operation in Europe, InterAd said it already has agreements in place with almost 30 European sites.

“For our UK portfolio, we are particularly targeting innovative, content-driven sites with strong, distinct audiences,” said InterAd spokesman Gordon Simpson. “NewsNow offers a superb combination of usefulness and usability and, as a result, is attracting a loyal audience of informed UK decision makers–ideal for a wide variety of advertisers as part of our network offering.”

The agency said it aims to complete its UK portfolio within the next two months, and following this, it plans to link its country portfolios to develop the first pan-European sites network.