Street Fight Daily: Facebook Expands Wi-Fi Check-Ins, Angie’s List Cuts Prices
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Why Facebook Is Giving Out Free Wi-Fi For Check-Ins (CNet)… Cheaper Advice: Angie’s List Cuts Prices (Wall Street Journal)… In Test Project, N.S.A. Tracked Cellphone Locations (New York Times)…
Street Fight Daily: Patch To Close Sites, GateHouse Files For Chapter 11
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Memo: ‘Regretfully, A Number of Patches Will Have To Be Closed (Romenesko)… GateHouse Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection (Wall Street Journal)… The NSA Refuses To Deny That It Collected The Location Data Of U.S. Phone Calls (TechCrunch)…
VIDEO: Making the Economics of Hyperlocal Publishing Work
The once-bright prospects for hyperlocal publishing have dimmed somewhat in recent months, leaving some of the most promising ventures shuttered, bankrupt, or scrambling to save face. During a conversation on stage at Street Fight Summit West in San Francisco earlier this month, Chris Tolles, chief executive of hyperlocal news aggregator Topix, and Sacramento Press co-founder and AdGlue CEO Ben Ilfeld discussed the future of Patch and the long-term sustainability of hyperlocal media at scale…
Sac Press’s Ilfeld: More Talk About Reader Revenue at Hyperlocals
Two major online news industry conferences were held recently — BxB Summit 2012 in Chicago and ONA12 in San Francisco. I asked Ben Ilfeld, COO of the Sacramento Press and an inveterate news industry conference goer who was a participant at both meetings, for his take on what took place at both…
Extracting Key Metrics to Make Your Hyperlocal Site More Valuable
“Quantitative” data — those UVs and PVs — work effectively for advertisers who want volume, Lofgren says, but most hyperlocals aren’t big enough to deliver multi-millions numbers in audience. “Qualitative” data, he says, tells you who your customers are — by their activity on the site, as it’s actually happening — or their identity, with information neatly served up from sign-up info. But it can tell much more if the publisher surveys a sampling of site visitors with multiple-choice questions…
Getting Local Online Ad Dollars to Flow Into Hyperlocal News
Hyperlocal news sites are turning up everywhere, but advertisers aren’t following them nearly as fast. “Advertisers don’t want to be around local news,” Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, told Street Fight. I went to several people building business models around hyperlocal news to find out how they are planning to turn the tables on Borrell’s assessment…
How Is Citizen Journalism Playing Out Today?
Citizen journalism has propelled hundreds of hyperlocal news sites into existence. In the middle of the last decade, CitJ, particularly at the community level, was the hot topic in new media. Journalism’s thinkers saw it as a necessary and overdue reinvention of news (see Dan Gillmor, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, among others). So how is it actually playing out today — on the ground? To find out, I asked publishers and editors who have been part of the hyperlocal phenomenon.
Why Sacramento Press Hit the Wall – And How It Hopes to Survive
“Simply put, we can’t depend on either grants or online advertising to support local news,” says Jared Goyette. “Reader revenue and big sponsors or donors should be part of the picture. I hope we can find a hybrid approach at Sac Press that allows us to keep our client base – we have more than 40 clients and a significant revenue stream – while also finding nonprofit relationships to support our community work. There is no one answer. If I find it, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.”