Is there money in hyperlocal news?
Cory Bergman July 6th, 2007
AJR has a great story on the failed Backfence experiment and what it means for all the other hyperlocal news efforts that are springing up all over the country. With 13 sites and $3 million in funding, Backfence is closing down due to two key problems 1) building a loyal user base without breaking the bank and 2) generating significant revenue among small-time advertisers. Their founder still believes that the keys to success are keeping costs extremely low and bundling multiple sites around common regions. But few if any sites have really succeeded to date: a study by the J-Lab found that only a handful of the estimated 500 hyperlocal news sites are making money. One of the success stories is Baristanet.com which covers the snazzy New York City suburbs of Montclair and Bloomfield in New Jersey. While the site is getting a ton of buzz, it only generated $60K last year — not enough for the two authors to quit their real jobs.
Here in Seattle, our gleaming example of hyperlocal news success was the BainbridgeBuzz, which focused on an island community outside the city. Despite building a significant loyal audience and plenty of local media attention, the site’s founders couldn’t convince advertisers to drop the local paper and spend the same kind of money on their site. The result? They closed the site after two years.
The Washington Post is working hard on its hyperlocal news play — 10 staffers have been working on it since October of last year. The sites will feature such things as real-time coverage of high school games, podcasts of local church sermons and a highly-detailed restaurant guide. LoudounExtra.com will be the first site to launch.
6 Comments Add your own
1. tdc | July 6th, 2007 at 8:55 am
i tried that loudounextra link yesterday when i first read that the backfence fell down… it’s a dead end.
so much for making the most of EVERY eyeball.
2. Richard | July 6th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Its like asking “Is there money in small-town weekly newspapers?” There isn’t, but people keep doing it. And hard-working operators can make a living.
The Backfence site is interesting, but it lacks one indispensible component: boots on the ground. Somebody, locally, has to have enough interest in the project to ramrod it through.
You see this so often these days. The technology allows something to be done with limited human resources applied. Sure its done half-assed, but there’s no payroll.
I would bet there are some successful hyperlocal news sites out there somewhere. I don’t know what they are, but I do know that behind the scenes is a real live human being pounding the streets.
3. rex | July 6th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I talked a bit about that AJR story in an interview I recently did (click on my name to see it). As I see it, what Backfence and a ton of these other hyperlocal sites are missing is very simple: sexiness.
That is, there’s some sort of expectation that you can throw up a textarea box and a submit button, and people will supply content. Too many of these kinds of sites were started by former newspaper execs who can’t think outside their newspaper minds. Their idea of innovation is putting comments on stories.
For hyperlocal to work, it needs to contain elements that are engaging, fun, and actually different. Too many of these sites think that “information” is all that’s needed, when as the history of publishing has shown, voice really matters.
4. Peter Ralph | July 9th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Yes Richard - I believe that is the key: communities are built by community members.
YouTube, MySpace, Facebook were all started by insiders - people who wanted to use the service they were building.
Backfence was built by people with no understanding of the communities they were aiming to serve.
5. Been There, Done That | July 14th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Rex nails it, again. I appreciate what the hyperlocal/community-based folks are trying to do, and someone will figure out how to do it well soon enough. Right now, I think too many people are too afraid or too nice to point out the obvious because they’re afraid of stifling innovation and slowing progress.
I’m not nice, so I have no problem pointing out the obvious: I’ve looked at dozens of hyperlocal sites, and the content on most of them is just awful. REALLY awful.
There, I said it.
Now get back to work changing the world. I know you can do it withOUT boring me to tears….
6. Lucy | December 24th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Thanks for the Information
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed