Good News From Sears and AOL? Probably Not

(MoneyWatch)  Sears Holdings and AOL -- two companies that haven't been bearers of much great news lately -- are tired of too much negative press out there. So they've come up with their own solution, GNN.com (an abbreviation for Good News Network) which will "foray into delivering 'good news' at a time when Americans need it most." The ironic thing here is that GNN.com probably won't run many favorable headlines about either of its parent companies. Sears' sales have been in the basement for a while, it just settled an FTC suit that claimed it put spyware on consumers' computers and there are more and more reports about store closures.

Thinks aren't exactly rosy over at AOL either. An MSN Money survey just ranked gave it basement-level customer-service rankings, Yahoo Inc. wants nothing to do with the company and reports of layoffs are coming from the Internet firm after its split with Time Warner.

Instead, what readers get at GNN.com are feel-good stories not related to either company. There is a story about a gunshot victim able to walk during his graduation. Another piece reports on an American tourist surviving a train accident in Australia. Household pets saving the lives of toddlers are sure to follow.

GNN.com also has a lot of ways to get to Sears' Web site. A store locater is featured prominently on the the site's upper right hand corner. My BNET Retail colleague Mike Duff calls these aspects of the site money well spent on Sears' part. This could be the case if the site is able to draw traffic to Sears; apparently a test of the site performed well over the holiday season.

And sure, there is a lot of bad news out there nowadays, and it can get tiring. But it seems strange that a Web site devoted to the cause of good news is run by two companies that for the most part generate unfavorable headlines.