Backfence reorganizes amid revenue troubles

Posted by Steve Safran on January 12, 2007

Backfence, provider of hyper-local media sites, is undergoing some tough times. CEO and co-founder Susan DeFife has resigned, and the company has had to lay off some staffers. How many people were let go is a bit of a mystery. Paid Content had originally reported that 12 of the company’s 18 staffers were let go. Backfence disputes the number, but won’t quantify it. Backfence received $3 million in venture funding in 2005, but apparently hasn’t found the right ad model yet. Writes Amy Gahran: “…finding a sustainable way to financially support local news content is a thorny issue. Personally, I don’t think conventional advertising can continue to shoulder most of that burden, in any media.” Terry Heaton adds: “Itâ€™s a tricky proposition, to say the least, but I think efforts that donâ€™t do well have difficulty, because theyâ€™re trying too hard to build something thatâ€™s already there. Aggregation is the key, not content creation.”

thewashingtonchannel

with just a small portion of that “$3 million in venture funding” they should have put up a small garage somewhere and worked out of that.

it’s amazing how many google-types start out in one.
http://dcabloob.blogspot.com Everett W.

If the Washington Post’s planned community blog portal shapes up as advertised, I imagine that there won’t be any need for a Backfence at all.
Dan

What does “hyper-local” mean?

dr
Dan

Writes Amy Gahran: â€œâ€¦finding a sustainable way to financially support local news content is a thorny issue. Personally, I donâ€™t think conventional advertising can continue to shoulder most of that burden, in any media.â€

Are you kidding me?
Advertising can support hamburgers, coke, autos,
laundry detergent, George Forman Grills, but it can’t support reporters typing and making a web site and thousands of people accessing it (the hamburger sales analogy)?

What world are you guys living in? The one where you need a printing press the size of a small town and trucks to get the papers out? One where you need
large buildings with your name on the side, which all the high overhead these locations entail?
One where you need
TV station management paid large salaries, and corporate offices and another layer or management there being paid large amounts,
in order to get news with video edited and posted? Plllaaaaeeeezzzze.
The old way is done. Put a fork in it.
Firing editorial workers at newspapers is the opposite
of what needs to be done there, and that goes for
local TV as well. Content IS what is needed, local
content of local events, sports and news. Aggregating
news from other places is a stop gap and is not
generating anything new for the news consumer.
. . . . in my humble opinion.

Dan