Mirror Media Group, the Westside’s largest local media company, has acquired the popular online community news website/forum yovenice.com.
Yo! Venice! website founder Bret Haller, 45, died of pancreatic cancer earlier this year on April 9.
The transaction between Mirror Media Group president T.J. Montemer and Bret’s brother Eric was finalized Tuesday at the MMG offices.
“Mirror Media Group is very excited to acquire yovenice.com and feel it will be a major and much needed addition to our Westside family of media products,” Montemer said. “Even though Venice makes up only 1 percent of LA’s population, the city, its people and its culture are a major part of our identity as a regional community and definitely one of the prized jewels of the Westside.”
Yovenice.com will remain strictly all about Venice and will be transformed into a print version that will hit the streets, homes, and businesses mid-2015.
Yovenice.com already has very high traffic coming from Venice locals and the surrounding communities with an average of 78,000 user sessions per month, bringing the total traffic of the Mirror Media Group digital network to approximately 250,000 unique visits per month.
Mirror Media Group will take over operations of the site as of Wednesday, July 30, 2014. Eric Haller, will continue as site moderator for the foreseeable future and will work closely (as will other former yovenice.com staff/volunteers) with Mirror Media to continue the vision that Bret Haller created and that the community of Venice deserves.
Mirror Media Group, is also publisher of Westside Today, Brentwood News, and Century City News with a total circulation of more than 100,000 home delivered newspapers.
