Mediaweek, April 20, 2009 – Northern & Shell’s OK! magazine has labored in virtual obscurity online, dwarfed by online celebrity sites like Yahoo’s OMG! and even print-based brands like People.com and Usmagazine.com.

Now, OK! is hoping to change that by teaming up with Buzzmedia, a collection of 30 pop culture Web sites including Just Jared and Britney Spears’ and Kim Kardashian’s celebrity blogs.

Buzzmedia logged 9 million uniques in March to OK!’s 195,000, per comScore. It recently announced a $12.5 million infusion of financing with backing from Focus Ventures, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture firm.

The pact calls for OK! and Buzzmedia to jointly sell ads, collaborate on news stories and cross-promote each other’s editorial content. Lori Burgess, publisher of OK!, hopes traffic will increase ninefold this year as a result of the Buzzmedia partnership.

“It was an opportunity for us to really grow our brand franchise,” Burgess said. “We are not a huge magazine franchise, but it’s a way to blow out the OK! brand.”

OK! also will be able to take advantage of Buzzmedia’s technology to pump up its site with new advertising units and video, virtual party, countdown and polling features. The site is expected to reflect those changes by July, Burgess said.