State of Local

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.  Read More… »

There seems to be this theory in the business world that everyone should blog.

But, as anyone who has ever read business blogs can tell you, the quality of information and entertainment varies wildly from person to person.

This NY Times article highlights both sides of that quality spectrum, and the piece does make the good point that in the right hands, a blog can be a great marketing tool.

For companies in the technology sector, having a blog is pretty much expected. Still, Tony Stubblebine, the founder and chief executive of CrowdVine, a company that builds social networks for conferences, said that one of his main reasons for blogging is to show that his business model is different from the typical technology start-up.
Read More… »

We all have a pet project or two rattling around in the back of our minds. That idea that you’d really like to tackle, but haven’t had the time or the ability to get it off the ground.

My favorite pet project is one that I suspect you could launch in just about any community. But as far as I know, it’s hasn’t been attempted anywhere.

Roadside memorials to loved ones seem to be nearly universal across the U.S. They dot major intersections and lonely stretches of highway. Typically, they mark the scene of some fatal vehicle accident, and the markers range from simple crosses to elaborate floral arrangements and written prayers.

All of these markers have a story, and they seem to be the perfect fit for an online project mashing Google Maps with photos, rememberances and links to news stories. Read More… »

In theory, having a blog that focuses on a high-profile local business makes sense, particularly if you’re a newspaper. You should have a better sense of the company than even the best-funded outsider, and if the business is big enough, there’s an audience for the blog that can be worldwide.

The downside is that sales pressures will make it difficult to do a good job with the blog. If the target company is a big advertiser, it’s nearly impossible to argue that the blog is important enough to risk alienating all that potential income.

But if that’s a concern, then you should really just walk away from the idea. Don’t try and dance around the conflict and do a blog that attempts to cover the business in a way that won’t annoy anyone at the company. Because you’ll end up with a blog that reads more like a promotional brochure than a work of journalism.

For an example of that approach, take a look at the “On Target” blog at TwinCities.com. Read More… »

Launching a successful hyper-local web site (or network of sites) has the same attraction and success rate of turning iron into gold.

In theory, creating a site that focuses just on local from a certain neighborhood or section of the city makes sense. People would care about news from their local school board, soccer team and high school glee club. Getting hyper-localized crime stats and other zoning news would likewise seem to be a natural.

But as people have painfully learned, while it’s an idea that makes sense in the abstract, it’s almost impossible to pull off successfully. Particularly if you hope to turn a profit. Read More… »

SearchEngineLand.com posted today that Google News has updated its algorithm.

The two key enhancements:
1) Updates to its “news cluster” when a source adds updated or new information to a breaking story. The site doesn’t simply show the most recent publisher to post a story, but rather rewards the sources that first broke the story. Implications: more exposure for sites that stay with story; opportunity for editors to abuse this by making frequent, meaningless updates.

2) A “signal” that gives weight to a quality publisher who is geographically close the story. While a marquee news brand might dominate coverage of a big story, Google News isn’t forgetting about the little guys with deep roots at the center of the action. Implications: worthy rewards for original reporting with local context.

Google News, in a recent blog post recognizing the struggle to balance quantity and quality, asserts it’s not “just about including every story; it’s about helping you find the stories that matter most to you.” (Hear that, Topix?) Rewarding quality local publishers and the consumer all in one fell algorithmic swoop? One more reason to put stock in news aggregators.