local_news - Yule Heibel on Diigo

10 Aug 09

The New West FAQ for Online Community Journalism Entrepreneurs | Jonathan Weber | NewWest.Net

Although over 2 years old, Jonathan Weber's "FAQ" for starting an online publication focused on local news is still useful and highly informative. Weber covers raising money, staffing, competition, revenue streams/ business models, etc.

www.newwest.net/...unity_journalism_enterpreneurs - Preview

newwest jonathan_weber entrepreneurship journalism online_publishing local_news

Did you raise money from investors? How did you go about that?

Yes, we raised a high-six-figure sum from a group of angel investors. There are some friends and family in the deal, and there are also professional investors who did it as a personal angel investment. The success of the fundraising was very much dependent on my track record and reputation as editor in chief of the Industry Standard, and required relentless networking and cajoling over a period of almost a year.
What is the revenue model for New West? Advertising?

Online advertising is the core of the model, yes. However we also have several other revenue lines, including a small indoor advertising business, a custom-publishing business, and a conference & events business. Multiple revenue streams are a lovely thing. It remains difficult to make money on online advertising alone unless and until you have boatloads of traffic, and it is especially difficult to achieve that with a local site.
5 more annotations...
- Do you sell your own ads, or do you use an ad network?
  
  We sell our own ads. We do run Google Adsense on the site and we make some money from that, and we have looked at some of the other ad network options and may try some other things in the future. However, we get much, much higher CPMs on ads we sell ourselves then on anything we have seen from a network, and we expect direct sales to remain the core of the model.
- Who are your main competitors?
  
  Newspapers still dominate the local news and information business, especially outside of the major metro areas. The local newspaper here in Missoula – a Lee Enterprises paper – has been extraordinarily hostile and even unethical in its competitive response to us, though that has not been so much the case in other markets. There are various small, independent local sites that are competitors on some level but few that have any real traction. TV station and yellow pages Web sites are also becoming bigger factors in the market.
- How big a staff do you have? Are your writers paid?
  
  We have a full-time staff of seven, which includes managing editor Courtney Lowery, assistant managing editor Matt Frank, event calendar editor Colin Hickey, sales and marketing associate Jennifer Calhoun, designer Marshall Hibbard, a Webmaster who will start next week, and myself. We have “city editors” in each of our markets who are on contract. We also have a handful of other writers on regular monthly contracts, and we have some people we pay based on the traffic their stories generate. We also have a number of unpaid contributors.
- What about citizen journalism?
  
  We have found that the “if you build it they will come” approach to citizen journalism does not work at all. You can’t simply put up a site and invite people to come in and write stories and expect them to do so. However, we have also found there are a lot of non-professionals out there who can and will do good journalism if we work with them and encourage them. We think of this as a “high-touch” model (which depends heavily on the indefatigable energy and talent of the above-mentioned Courtney Lowery). Overall we think of our approach as “pro-am” journalism rather than “citizen journalism” or traditional professional journalism.
- Have you looked at aggregating local blogs and other kinds of content rather than producing it all yourselves?
  
  Good question! Aggregation is a key function of almost any publication these days; no one can pretend to be the source of all news and information. We have found though that aggregating news and headlines from other publications – even if we do it by hand and try to be clever about it - is not what drives readership for New West. We have also found that simple automated feed aggregation of local bloggers and the like is not very useful; you lose all context. On the other hand there are some very interesting new efforts in this area, including Steven Johnson’s OutsideIn and Lisa Williams’ Placeblogger, and I’m sure different forms of aggregation will be an important part of our future.

16 May 09

Open forum: Journalism students lead way

Terrific article by Neil Henry, professor and dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, about the J-School's initiatives around local news reporting. Focusing on Linjun Fan's success with Albany Today (albanytoday.org), Henry explains how the students cover local news and use cutting edge multimedia tools.
QUOTE
For nearly every story over the next two years, Linjun was first on the scene, using the most highly advanced digital tools to file her work to her site from all over town.

Most of the time she was the only reporter at any of the events she covered, a stark reality shared by most of her classmates in their own coverage of places as varied as El Cerrito, Emeryville, and West Oakland.
(...)
Today, as they learn multimedia and community-based journalism, so do all of our students practice it, providing fresh content throughout the year to our other thriving digital news sites, Oakland North (oaklandnorth.net) and Mission Loc@l (missionlocal.org), which won a national award for Internet excellence recently for its coverage of San Francisco's Mission District.

And we continue to grow. In August we will launch a new digital news site devoted to the people of Richmond.
(...)
We want to partner with other local sites run by people similarly committed to covering Bay Area communities. We envision legions of small businesses and other potential advertisers in the Bay Area finding tremendous new audiences through these ties. We are filled with excitement and purpose, fueled by the idealism and dedication of young students who increasingly are showing the way.
UNQUOTE

www.sfgate.com/...article.cgi - Preview

local_news uc_berkeley journalism

18 Apr 09

Ignite Show: Monica Guzman on Being an Awesome News Commenter - O'Reilly Radar

Fabulous short video clip of Monica Guzman explaining how to be an awesome news commenter

radar.oreilly.com/...e-show-monica-guzman-on-b.html - Preview

local_news blogging business_model newspapers ignite seattle monica_guzman news o'reilly

03 Feb 09

Everyblock's Dilemma: How Do You Open Source Your Entire Site and Survive? - O'Reilly Radar

Brady Forrest (O'Reilly Radar) ponders Adrian Holovaty's announcement that Everyblock will be opensource/ available. Some interesting comment responses.

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everyblock local_news business_model open_source adrian_holovaty

Everyblock was funded through a Knight News Challenge Grant and they've come crossroads as Adrian explains:

But now we've reached an interesting point in our project's growth: our grant ends on June 30, and, under the terms of our grant, we're open-sourcing the EveryBlock publishing system so that anybody will be able to take the code to create similar sites. That's a Good Thing, in that EveryBlock's philosophies and tools will have the opportunity to spread around the world much faster than we could have done on our own, but it puts the six of us EveryBlockers in an odd spot. How do we sustain our project if our code is free to the world?

What do you think? How can they keep the project alive and perhaps even make it profitable if they are providing development resources to the competition?

29 Oct 08

DIYcity

John Geraci's new project, DIY city. Well worth checking out: its aim is to figure out how we might use social and mobile apps to remake (or at least help) the city.

As Geraci puts it, "DIYcity is a place where people figure these things out by actually building and launching applications that address the problems around them."

Looking forward to seeing more from this.

diycity.org - Preview

diycity john_geraci local_government local_news cities

12 Aug 08

Voices From the Suburban Blogosphere, by Bob Tedeschi - NYTimes.com

Article that chronicles the role of blogging in the creation of new hyper local / local news eco-systems.
QUOTE:
For readers, the blogs are providing news in ways unseen in traditional local news media.
(...)
Like other journalists who run news sites, Paul Bass, New Haven Independent’s editor, does not consider himself a blogger.

“We’re a news site,” Mr. Bass said.

To underscore the difference, Mr. Bass said the site has three full-time reporters and one part-time reporter, all paid for by $185,000 in grants, corporate sponsorships and private donations. The site’s coverage, he added, helped remove a city budget director, change city towing policies and shame board of education members into better attendance, after it publicized the fact that the board’s truancy dwarfed that of city students.

“A lot of neighborhood boards weren’t covered until we came around, so we’re just showing up,” Mr. Bass said. “That’s the promise of hyperlocal journalism, as opposed to blogging.”
UNQUOTE

www.nytimes.com/...10Rblogs.html - Preview

nyt blogging hyper_local local_news placeblogging

07 Aug 08

Reflections of a Newsosaur: Getting local coverage in gear

Wow, lots of excellent suggestions in this blog post, and nice discussion of how the newspapers aren't covering the local news AT ALL.

newsosaur.blogspot.com/...ng-local-coverage-in-gear.html - Preview

newsosaur local_news newspapers business_model

Denver metros can't (or won't) take the steps necessary to report the news in their own backyards. And local news is the only thing they have to sell.
I can't get local news online.
8 more annotations...
- I define "local" news as the type we use to see in zone sections.
- We filled them with all the stuff that readers were interested in but couldn't find anyplace else: births, deaths, divorces, marriages, anniversaries, engagements, school-lunch menus, school calendars, zoning hearings, local city council meetings and meetings of the subcommittees, school news, lots of prep sports, features and “business of the week” profiles. We crammed in as much as possible. It was all relevant to readers because it happened in their neighborhoods or suburbs.
- Zone sections were an invention of the ad departments, which were convinced that if you offered a small business an ad that didn't have to go ROP, they would buy in.
- The sections fell into disfavor and disappeared – and all the good LOCAL stuff that readers wanted also disappeared.
- To the credit of the Post and Rocky, they have tried some zoning (both print and Web) using “citizen” journalists, but the stories are what you’d expect: warm and fuzzy feature stories.
- So, if I don't get my national and international news from the Post, and the paper makes no attempt to cover anything about where I live and work, then why should I subscribe to a newspaper that is not relevant to my life?
  
  It gets worse. The Rocky Mountain News, the Post’s partner in the Denver joint-operating agency, pretty much hews to the same line as the Post in regard to what gets covered. I read the same stories in both newspapers.
- I'd hate to be a newspaper editor today, but if I were. . .
  
  Instead of spending time bemoaning how my owners are going to kill my paper, I'd make real sure that the people on my staff were covering news relevant to the communities where subscribers live.
  
  I'd fire a third of the editors and convert another third of them to being reporters and give them a laptop. I'd send all my reporters home with a laptop. I would tell each of them his beat is now a circle with a radius of 12 blocks and the center of the circle is his house. I want to know everything that happens within those 12 blocks.
- What do I do with all this news? Put it on my web site as a zone section.

05 Aug 08

reportonbusiness.com: 'Social networking for social change'

marketing / business strategies for website, recurring revenue stream tips

www.theglobeandmail.com/...home - Preview

globeandmail socialnetworks socialjustice business local_news revenue

01 Aug 08

outside.in » The outside.in Guide to Great Local Blogging

Chrysanthe Tenentes of outside.in put together a useful "guide to great local blogging" in 6 easy-to-follow points.

blog.outside.in/...-guide-to-great-local-blogging - Preview

outside.in hyper_local local_news blogging

Go where big media doesn’t. Nothing is too local.
Be as specific as possible when talking about places. Give them accurate names
6 more annotations...
- Connect with your neighbors and other local bloggers. Share ideas with other bloggers and leave comments on their site.
- Post early and often, or at least regularly.
- Be timely. Break stories. You can cover news way before local media sources pick up on stories.
- Tag your posts. Use relevant subject, place and (most importantly!) location tags so that your content is easily searchable and identifiable.
- When you write about local issues, places or people, tag with the most specific geographic information (address is best, but use a zip code or neighborhood name if your post is about a more general area).
- Use your stats to your advantage

23 Jul 08

…My heart’s in Accra » The changing newsroom: good, bad and ugly

Ethan Zuckerman on the forces at work in the changing newsroom.

www.ethanzuckerman.com/...ing-newsroom-good-bad-and-ugly - Preview

ethan_zuckerman newspapers local_news

14 Jun 08

Geography, social media and breakfast - Feb. 29, 2008

Must-read article on how "combining social networks with geographic information was one of the big ideas at a gathering this week of uber-techies and media digirati in New York." (2/29/08)

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local_news socialmedia socialnetworks jeff_pulver meet_ups

07 Jun 08

YouTube - Final Cut#2: West Seattle Blog

- great video, some interesting info.

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seattle youtube local_news blogs bloggers west_seattle_blog hyper_local

Crosscut Seattle - Neighborhood blogs: the mom-and-pop news business

- note the ref to the "instant journalist" blogging software: this could be really useful for setting up a MC blog...??

www.crosscut.com/...+the+mom-and-pop+news+business - Preview

crosscut local_news blogs hyper_local seattle neighbourhoods

02 Jun 08

"The Future of Mobile Social Networking" by Kate Green (p.2) (MIT Technology Review)

P.2 of Kate Green's "the Future of Mobile Social Networking" - fascinating stuff.

www.technologyreview.com/...page2 - Preview

mit_techreview local_news location_based_reminders locative_media mobile_city mobile_muse

Whrrl is most useful when members of the user's social network actively contribute reviews. This requires that the user's friends have smart phones--and the motivation to critique the places they go.
the biggest obstacle faced by services like Whrrl is privacy concerns.
3 more annotations...
- Choudhury says that these first-generation services will likely be used by small groups of early adopters who are more aware than most of potential privacy risks and will push companies to confront them.
- In the future, she suspects, location-based services will include more predictive features. For instance, instead of explicitly requiring you to write a review, the software might recognize how often you visit a restaurant and infer that it is a favorite.
- "Eventually, I think that a whole lot of exciting technology will emerge that figures out how to reduce the burden on the user," Choudhury says. "There will always be the case where user input will be important, but when we find the sweet spot, that's when I think it will take off."

"The Future of Mobile Social Networking" by Kate Green (MIT Technology Review)

"IPhone users will soon be able to enjoy Whrrl, software that combines activity recommendations with real-time location data."

This sounds very intriguing...

www.technologyreview.com/...20844 - Preview

location_based_reminders locative_media mobile_technology mobile_city mit_techreview local_news

The software enables something Pelago's chief technology officer, Darren Erik Vengroff, calls social discovery: using the iPhone's map and self-location features, as well as information about the prior activities of the user's friends, Whrrl proposes new places to explore or activities to try.

"If you think about your day-to-day life and how you discover things around you and places to go, to a great extent the source of that information is your friends," Vengroff says. With Whrrl, a user can "look through the eyes of friends and see the places they find compelling." The software begins with the user's position on the iPhone's map and indicates a smattering of nearby establishments. If the user's friends have visited and rated these places, the software indicates that as well. The map also shows the positions of nearby friends who have enabled a feature that lets them be seen by others.
Whrrl may turn out to be the leading edge of a wave of new location-based applications. "I think we're going to see a lot of new players showing up in this space," says Kurt Partridge, a research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center who works on a similar project called Magitti. "Part of the reason," he says, "is the universal availability of GPS or access to location, which hasn't been available to application writers before." The iPhone and Nokia's N95 phone are two examples of phones that provide location data to computer programmers. Google's forthcoming Android mobile operating system may also help push location-based applications onto the market.
1 more annotations...
- Whrrl, which can also be downloaded onto BlackBerry Pearl, Curve, and Nokia N95 smart phones, is commonly compared to both types of service. But it differs from either in that it combines aspects of both. In addition, Vengroff explains, Whrrl has collected details on establishments in 17 cities, which allows the service to provide fine-tuned local search, letting the user narrow down the hunt for, say, a café to one that has outdoor seating and vegetarian options and is recommended by at least one friend.

18 May 08

A river of news — that actually flows (warning: if you’re a news junkie, don’t try this) (rexblog.com: Rex Hammock’s weblog)

Very cool new application (Adobe Air-based) -- must check out.

www.rexblog.com/17666 - Preview

local_news rexblog aggregators

19 Apr 08

Site-Specific

4culture and other arts orgs in Seattle / King County have teamed up to create an online site where you can find out what's going on in the arts, site-specifically, so to speak. They have a forum (albeit still under construction), but the Schedule part seems functional, and has an "attend this" feature -- quite cool.

www.sitespecificarts.org - Preview

sitespecific seattle 4culture local_news

06 Apr 08

My Essential Twitter Tools

Via Tris Hussey; blog post by Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategist, SF Bay Area: listing of 7 different Twitter tools/ apps. "TwitterLocal" is particularly interesting.

www.web-strategist.com/...my-essential-twitter-tools - Preview

local_news tools twitter apps web2.0

6) Location Based: If you live in a particular area, and want to parse out a specific location, this Twitterlocal filter finds tweets based upon a users profile location. If you’ve a local business, this could become useful.

02 Apr 08

Community Platforms | DavidCrow.ca

Found this in Mark Lise's blog -- useful compilation of different apps for this, and comment about how it's a trend.

davidcrow.ca/...community-platforms - Preview

aggregators community_platforms local_news

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