Jun 06 2007
[The] Starbuck Times
For some time now hyperlocal news has been touted as a panacea for the declining revenues and readership decimating regional newspapers and TV stations. By focusing on local issues, so the theory goes, journalists can avoid competing with online sources by providing niche audiences with pertinent news they cannot find elsewhere.
“There’s no official definition, but generally a hyperlocal news site (also known as local-local or microsite) is devoted to the stories and minutiae of a particular neighborhood, ZIP code or interest group within a certain geographic area. Such sites have been springing up on the Internet for some time now” - AJR April/May 2007
An article in the current issue of American Journalism Review asks “Is there a real business in this kind of business?” A survey from The institute of Interactive Journalism suggests that “the answer is no”.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. With blogging flourishing and citizen journalism just budding, Mark Potts and Susan DeFife thought they had a winning formula for a new kind of journalistic enterprise. One evening in the summer of 2004, they sketched out their common vision: A series of hyperlocal, news-oriented Web sites whose tone and content–news, commentary, blogs, photos, calendar listings–would be supplied primarily by the people who knew each community best, its residents. By May of 2005, the venture, dubbed Backfence.com, was up and running, with sites serving two affluent Virginia towns in Washington D.C.’s suburbs, McLean and Reston…The partners began talking about creating as many as 160 sites in 16 markets…..And then? And then the bottom dropped out.
A few of the estimated 500 or so “local-local” news sites claim to show a profit, but the overwhelming majority lose money”. AJR May/June 2007
Dissappointing for all of us hoping to profit from this once promising paradigm. Hyperlocal news was a great idea but it just doesn’t work.
For a short time in the late eighties I was part-owner of a small restaurant in a Colorado ski town. I was convinced that we could generate more business from our espresso machine if only we could provide better coffee. But the coffee suppliers were adamant - and they had a lot of research to back them up - “no-one will pay more than $1 for a cup of any [of our] coffee”.
They were right!
Which is unusual because pundits are (nearly) always wrong. You can’t blame the pundits. Prediction is difficult, especially when it’s about the future.
hat tip Journalistopia
