View PDF of this issue - The Green Sheet

52
News
Webalizer, a Web server analysis program, tracks
activity for the company's Web sites. Latest totals for
RodsandWheels.com show 1,095,552 hits in April 2008; on
a daily basis, the Web site received 36,518 hits.
But even more telling is that it experienced over 3,500
unique visits every day in April. During each of those
visits, five Web pages, on average, were viewed.
Although quantifying Web site traffic is not an exact science,
unique visits are the best way to calculate how many
individual users go to a particular Web site. One unique
visit represents a distinct user browsing a site; the term is
seen as a more accurate metric of the amount of activity
on a site than the number of random hits generated.
Numbers talk
The Green Sheet Inc.'s Web presence began in July
1995 with the launch of GS Online. Located at
www.greensheet.com, it is an adjunct media outlet to The
Green Sheet magazine, providing news and opinion on the
payments industry. In 2001, the Web site was updated with
revamped user forum capability and a search engine.
In June 2007, www.greensheet.com received a little over 1
million hits. At the end of that month, an entirely new Web
site architecture, engineered by System Administrator
Wolf Stiles, went live. July 2007's total hits jumped to over
4 million. For the rest of 2007, GS Online consistently
posted monthly hit totals of at least 3 million.
In January 2008, the number skyrocketed to over 5 million
hits per month. The Web site enjoys 5,400 unique visits
every day, which breaks down to 200 to 250 unique visits
per hour.
Synergy sells
Founded by payments industry pioneer Paul H. Green
in 1983, The Green Sheet's media ventures consist of
The Green Sheet, its sister publication GSQ, GS Online,
RodsandWheels.com, SellingPrepaid.com, TravelAdvice.
com and RetailBusiness.com.
The Green Sheet began as a four-page newsletter printed at
a local copy shop, said Kate Gillespie, The Green Sheet's
General Manager and Chief Operating Officer.
"We are no longer a company producing just one newsletter,
but a multifaceted publisher," Gillespie said. "Our
business model makes it possible for us to serve many
communities.
"Over the last two years we have expanded from the payments
industry into the travel arena and have also developed
a community for hot rod enthusiasts. We continue to
explore new ideas for future expansion."
A major factor in The Green Sheet's success in both print
and on the Web has been how the various enterprises
support and complement each other. The award-winning,
industry leading magazines drive traffic to the Web sites,
and vice versa.
"These are very exciting times for The Green Sheet Inc.,"
Gillespie said. "But we always remain true to our roots. We
have introduced SellingPrepaid.com to our core Green
Sheet audience because we believe that this nascent
industry offers our readers many lucrative selling opportunities
for the future."
Going forward, Gillespie expects readership of The Green
Sheet's trade publications, e-magazines and other electronic
resources to increase. She anticipates the company's
influence in the payments industry and beyond to expand
as well.
Canada piloting
chip and PIN
To enhance data security, as well as reduce credit
and debit card-related fraud and identity theft,
the Canadian payments industry is rolling out a
chip and PIN smart-card payments program in
Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.
The pilot program, which will run through October
2008, will render all 90 local area merchants' POS terminals
compliant with the Europay International, Master-
Card Worldwide and Visa Inc. (EMV) smart-chipcard
standard.
EMV standards are already operative in Europe and
require PIN entry with credit card transactions; Canada's
target EMV implementation date is 2010.
Plans for this trial began in October 2007. Since then,
nearly 200,000 cardholders in the pilot area have received
chip-enabled debit and credit cards to use for day-today
purchases.
And more than 2,300 POS terminals, 65 percent of automated
teller machines and 100 percent of financial institutions
have been updated to accept the new cards.
Chip-based debit and credit cards are embedded with
a device that can be read only by chip-enabled terminals.
The device enables the card to securely store and
process data.
In describing the nature of chip and PIN transactions,
Michael Back, President and Chief Executive Officer of
Collective Point of Sale Solutions Ltd. in Woodbridge,
Ontario, said, "If you really want to boil it down, what it
does is take a credit transaction that used to be swiped
and imprinted and makes it a PIN transaction."