The Blackstone Valley

Main Street Connect Acquires CentralMassNews.com

Jack Schofield and Merrill Brown Join Senior Team

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Main Street Connect, a National Community News Company, has acquired CentralMassNews.com, a network of online community news centers serving Central Massachusetts. The ten websites of CentralMassNews.com will be incorporated into the quickly-growing Main Street Connect network, which included 10 sites in Connecticut and will add 32 Westchester County, New York sites on June 1.

From Holden to Northbridge to Westborough, CentralMassNews.com has become the main news source for the communities they serve. Main Street Connect's network will grow to 52 sites after the launch of Westchester County and addition of the Central Massachusetts sites.

"In 2010, we launched ten sites in Southern Fairfield County," said Main Street Connect Editor and Publisher Carll Tucker. "Now that we've learned how to produce profitable, popular, high quality community news sites we will be launching them quickly in communities throughout America. This spring's addition of 41 high-quality sites is just the beginning."

CentralMassNews.com CEO Jack Schofield said: "Expanding on the success of CentralMassNews.com and bringing this model to all of Massachusetts is a challenge we are very enthusiastic about. By partnering with Main Street Connect, we will be able to provide top-quality community news to all of Massachusetts within the next few years! The communities of central Massachusetts embraced our news center sites wholeheartedly and we are delighted to bring this model to millions more in Massachusetts."

Jack Schofield has been named Publisher of MSC-Massachusetts.

"Jack is an enterprising, visionary, and capable community news publisher, as talented a digital publisher as I know," said Tucker. "I look forward to working side by side with Jack as Main Street Connect continues to build a great company." Main Street Connect also announced the appointment of Merrill Brown as Strategic Advisor. Brown, founding Editor in Chief of MSNBC.com, will join Main Street Connect to develop relationships with potential investors, assist the CEO in the challenges of managing a fast-growing company, and assist the company in long term planning.

Brown is the founder and principal of MMB Media LLC, which provides clients with management and strategy consulting, corporate, editorial and program development, business analysis and marketing services. Since the founding of MMB Media, clients have ranged from companies in the news, information and wireless businesses to a large foundation. Brown serves on many Internet company boards and is Chairman of the Advisory Board of TRA Global, a media management and analytics software company. Brown recently served as Senior Strategist for Journalism Online, the startup online publishing subscription services company founded by Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery. The company was acquired last month by R. R. Donnelly. Brown also served as Chairman of the Board of NowPublic, which was acquired by Examiner.com.

Brown served from 2005 through December 2007 as National Editorial Director of News for the 21st Century: Incubators of New Ideas (News 21), part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. Brown was associated with the Washington Post from 1979 to 1985, serving as a financial reporter (1979-1982), New York financial correspondent (1982-1984) and director of business development, Washington Post Company (1984-1985). Brown's background includes considerable experience in the magazine industry, cable television and digital publishing.

Website: http://mainstreetconnect.us
Facebook: http://facebook.com/mainstreetconnect
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mainstconnect

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About the Chamber

The mission of the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce is to promote the economic vitality of the Blackstone Valley and meet the needs of the Chamber's business members, while providing leadership on issues which impact the economy and quality of life in the Valley. The Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce serves the eleven towns in the Massachusetts BV Region: Blackstone, Douglas, Grafton, Hopedale, Mendon, Millbury, Millville, Northbridge, Sutton, Upton and Uxbridge. For more information on the Chamber please contact administrator@blackstonevalley.org or call 508 234 9090 X101.