Wicked Local Is Wicked Interesting
December 31st, 2007 — Tom Masterman
A holiday trip to my sleepy Massachusetts hometown never ceases to teach me something. It was a wicked shockah, indeed, when I noticed, affixed to the weekly townie paper, a bright yellow Post-It shouting, “How Local? Wicked Local… WickedLocal.com.” On the site, it was relatively easy to find my local paper. I was happily greeted by a clean design and simple navigation. There were top stories that allowed commenting, blog posts, user generated photos, current weather conditions… Heck, there was even a little RSS feed just for my town’s news.
Most impressive was that stories had been created throughout the week. No longer do the people of my small hometown have to wait until Thursday to learn of the latest town hall scandal, boys hockey upset or embarrassing cow-tipping arrest. True, the news fodder is thin, but this is certainly a terrific platform for instant, hyper-local information.
I quickly scrolled down the page to see who was behind this. The firm is called GateHouse Media. Its site boasts 101 daily publications reaching a local audience of 10 million readers across 23 states. A quick look at its publications list shows about 500 properties, from paid weeklies to shoppers. Monetization is achieved through standard IAB ad units and, of course, a slew of classifieds. At the core of its classifieds is TotallyLocal.com, a consumer-facing yellow pages venture powered in part by Premier Guide, a Local.com company.
Clearly, GateHouse Media isn’t the only firm building hyper-local online networks via its offline publications. Community Newspaper Holdings has over 200 properties running on a unified platform. TownNews.com, run by Lee Enterprises, just acquired Anytime News from Community Newspapers Online to now control over 500 community papers.
Two implications jump out at me. To the advertisers, GateHouse offers a geo-targeting alternative to buying the large metro paper sites and the other big, local media sites. To consumers, these platforms offer instant access to relevant, neighborhood information. To both targets, there is an unparalleled opportunity to contribute to the content of the site. Geo-targeting on a portal is a fine way to reach a local audience, and news aggregators are a decent place for getting hyper-local information. However, you aren’t likely going to see a blog post from a local sporting goods store or a neighborhood gossip column on MSN or Topix.
I am not certain that national advertisers will derive a ton of additional value from these hyper-local platforms, but townie consumers may find these sites a happy medium between big city news and their own personal blogs. This business strategy is not simply about leveraging offline properties to establish online revenue streams. If firms like GateHouse can create a comfortable environment for neighborhood citizen journalism and targeted advertising, they have the potential to garner substantial eyeballs and ad dollars.
