Jan 15th, 2007 | Media 2.0 | 2 Comments
Don Dodge has some thoughts about newspapers and local content — like restaurant reviews, movie reviews, etc. — that got their start with a post from Greg Linden of Findory (which Greg said recently is shutting down, or at least going into hibernation) on the same topic. Greg’s post in turn was based on a very perceptive post by Rich Skrenta, CEO of Topix (a local news aggregator), about how newspapers generally suck at making their content available to search engines where they can become part of the “long tail.”
All of this drew some skeptical fire from my friend Rob Hyndman, who said in his post that newspapers shouldn’t own local search. His reasoning (expressed both in his post and in an email discussion with me): newspapers may have local content, but that doesn’t mean they can necessarily compete with other, better sources of content that are faster and more flexible than newspapers are — even assuming that papers can solve their archive and searchability issues.
Needless to say, I think that newspapers have a slightly better chance than Rob does, but that’s not just because I work for one. I will agree that trying to convince local-content searchers to come to a newspaper site — which Rob also criticizes in his post — doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense. But that doesn’t mean newspapers can’t make use of their content by making it easier for search engines and other aggregation mechanisms to find.
Maybe newspapers can’t compete with other local sources (like Yelp, which Mindy McAdam likes), either because they don’t have compelling enough content or because they don’t know what they are doing technology-wise, or because they are just clueless and handicapped in a variety of ways. But they can certainly do a heck of a lot better than they are now. Pramit Singh has some good suggestions at MediaVidea.
Jan 6th, 2007 | Citizen Media, Social Media | 4 Comments
I wish I could say I was surprised that all is not well at Backfence, the local “citizen journalism” site, where the second of the co-founders, CEO Susan DeFife, just left (the first, Mark Potts, left a few months ago) and about a dozen employees — out of a total of 18 — are being let go, according to a post by Peter Krasilovsky.
Potts is to act as interim CEO while the company tries to restructure itself, according to the post at Local Onliner. DeFife says that “Ultimately, we did not share the same strategic vision for the company as the board of directors.” The company got $3-million in financing in 2005 from a group of venture capital funds, including the Omidyar Network. Apparently, Backfence’s backers didn’t think things were going well, and pulled the trigger.
I don’t live in the areas covered by Backfence, which has 13 sites in three metropolitan areas (Washington, Chicago and the Bay Area), but I have taken a look at it from time to time because I’m interested in local citizen journalism efforts — and spent a bit of time looking at Backfence after it absorbed Dan Gillmor’s failed local CitJ experiment, Bayosphere, which I wrote about here. And it certainly never seemed like a thriving entity to me.
Like Frank Barnako, who has written about it here and who also wrote skeptically about it about a year ago, it just seemed stale and unappealing to me, not to mention a little bit like a ghost-town. I would agree with Frank that in order to draw people in, a local site has to live and breathe the area it covers, and have lively personalities and content. And maybe giving citizen journalists some financial incentive might help too.
How all that happens exactly, I don’t know, but it is possible to do local journalism — SunValleyOnline.com seems to be doing well, and so does Baristanet.com. And the Fresno Bee, owned by McClatchy, just finished acquiring a couple of local sites that seemed quite successful: ModestoFamous and FresnoFamous. Did the founders sell because it wasn’t a viable business, or did McClatchy want them because they had something the chain needed? Perhaps a combination of both.
In any case, I will leave it to others to decide whether Backfence failed because it took the wrong approach, or because local online journalism doesn’t work. My bet is on the former rather than the latter. Howard Owens has also written about the recent news, as have the gang over at PaidContent.
Update:
Tish Grier, who comments below, has written a post about local content and monetization here, and Fred “A VC” Wilson has written one as well talking about how he believes it isn’t about trying to attract a community but about aggregating posts from a community that already effectively exists — and I believe he is right. Someone is going to do that, either the local paper or a startup (or both put together, as the FresnoFamous case illustrates).
Update 2:
More on the saga here at Jay Rosen’s NewAssignment, and at Citizen Media Watch, where blogger Lotta Holmstrom got an email from Mark Potts about the restructuring of the site, and later did a short email interview with him. Greg Sterling also talked with Potts about the restructuring and some of the strategic changes he wants to make, and wrote about it here. And Robert Niles has a great look at building communities online at the Online Journalism Review, entitled “Fake grassroots don’t grow.”
Update 3:
The New York Times had a piece about a network of local “citizen journalism” sites called American Towns, but not everyone was impressed. Tish Grier, for example, said that American Towns is more like “citizen shovelware.” Good one, Tish. And according to a story in the Washington Post, Backfence appears to be headed down the tubes: One angel investor said that arguments between backers and founders has “destroyed the company” and that it has “downsized to a modest team of people and they’re out of money.”
Nov 6th, 2006 | Media 2.0 | No Comments
CNet has reported that Topix, the local-media network controlled by some of the major U.S. newspaper chains, has raised another $15-million in financing. According to the story, Gannett and Tribune each own 33.7 per cent, and McClatchy (which was bought by Knight Ridder last year) owns 11.9 per cent. Together, the newspaper companies own about 80 per cent of the company.
Topix says that it will use the money to add more staff and put some more cash into marketing, something that it definitely needs to do. Although it has climbed in the rankings, it really needs to get its name more known as the source for local news — and promote some of its unique tools, such as the ability to comment on stories, links to blogs that are mixed in with the news feeds and a great search engine.
Unfortunately, the site is going up against Google News and Yahoo News on the one hand and sites like Digg on the other, and even its new funding might not be enough to turn the tide. As PaidContent points out, the site hasn’t exactly been able to integrate its tools and content with its newspaper owners so far, at least not in any meaningful way, and time is quickly running out.
Oct 30th, 2006 | Citizen Media, Social Media | No Comments
Journalism Hope writes about the launch of Citzenbay, a locally-focused “social media” site that is designed to allow residents of various cities, towns and regions in the U.S. and Canada to both write or submit their own stories and submit links to news stories of interest from other sources, and then encourages them to vote on those that have been submitted by others. Not only that, but Citizenbay.com says that those whose links and/or stories are ranked highest are paid (although it’s not clear how much or on what basis).
Update:
Julie Wohlberg, a PR person who represents Citizenbay, got in touch with me and explained that users who post stories can make $1 a day if those stories are “voted up” by 15 or more people, and more if they attach photos or other media along with it. There are more details here.
