Is It Time for a Major Directory of Local Blogs?

On the Knight Digital Media Center’s “News Leadership 3.0″ blog (that’s a mouthful), Michele McLellan has started creating a list of online news organizations — a list that includes, of course, several hyperlocal news blogs.

Michele already has quite a list in place, and she’s divided it into several categories. And even more readers are leaving the names/links of their blogs/sites in the comments of that post. (If you run an online news blog/site, maybe think about joining that discussion.) All of this is only cementing an idea that’s been in my mind for some time now, and an idea that I shared in the comments of that KDMC post:

We need a high-quality directory of great hyperlocal blogs and web sites.

I’m not necessarily volunteering to do it, mind you; my time is extremely limited these days with clients, work, and a fair amount of travel coming up. But someone should do it. Maybe if no one does, I’ll pick up the torch at a later date.

It would have to be done right; there are all kinds of issues included in that, like whether or not to charge for submissions, how to define a local/hyperlocal blog or web site, and so forth. But I really believe there’s a need for this.

Do you agree? Disagree?

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | 6 Comments 

MetBlogs Wants to Grow, Even if It Means Selling

Interesting post yesterday from Sean Bonner of Metblogs talking about the future of what you’d have to consider a grandfather of hyperlocal blog networks.

If I’m reading it right, the overall point is that it’s time to get more serious about the business side of what Metblogs does. Bonner writes that he and co-founder Jason DeFillippo have taken it as far as they can, “but business development has never been our focus.”

If you know a thing or two about blogs and local media and think this sounds interesting, we want to talk to you. If your company is already doing something similar or complimentary and could benefit from a closer relationship with Metblogs, we want to talk to you. There are many shapes this might take, from something as simple as a new CEO or GM, to a full acquisition by the right company.

Metblogs was founded in 2003 and now has close to 60 cities in its network. I’m no industry analyst, but given all the recent deals in this space, I’d certainly expect there’ll be interest as word gets around.

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | 1 Comment 

Hyperlocal News Roundup

newsstandMy feed reader has a pretty big backlog of hyperlocal articles I’ve been wanting to link to and/or write about. And with more people talking about hyperlocal news/blogging, I’m wishing there was a simple way to automate the creation of these “link roundup” posts. Anyone know an easy way to do that?

In any case, here’s the latest hyperlocal news roundup. Some will include short explanations, while others will just be links.

January 28, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | 1 Comment 

Blogging in Minnesota? Submit to Newsbobber

newsbobberlogoVia Lee Odden on Twitter comes word of a Minnesota blog directory I hadn’t heard of before: Newsbobber. If you’re a Minnesota local blogger, it looks like a good place to be listed and perhaps get some extra exposure — not to mention finding other local bloggers for networking, etc.

The FAQ page describes what it takes to be listed:

“If the blog is based in Minnesota or written largely for a Minnesota audience — and the writer updates at least once in awhile — it will get listed.”

There you go. You can submit your blog here. I’ve added Newsbobber to my growing list of local blog directories. It’s now the third one covering Minnesota. What’s up with that??!

January 21, 2010 | Filed Under Promotion | Leave a Comment 

Local Papers & Local Web Traffic

In Why Local Blogging Works, I suggest that the decline of traditional media is a big opportunity for local blogs to succeed. Newspapers, in particular, have been cutting back in many ways — from letting go of staff to killing the print edition altogether.

With that in mind, I was struck earlier this month while reading an article in which my local paper shared its most popular online articles of 2009. I wasn’t struck by the content of those articles, but by where the traffic came from. Here’s a quick summary:

For seven of the top stories, most or a significant portion of the traffic wasn’t local. It was from social media or national web sites. Now, surely if the local paper went deeper into its 2009 traffic, there’s no doubt the vast majority of its traffic is local. Still, this is an an interesting admission, I think.

It’s interesting from a financial and advertising perspective. The newspaper is selling local ads, but its most popular content is being seen by people who aren’t local — that’s bad news for advertisers. Why would Sam’s Diner want his online ad seen by people half the country away?

Maybe you’re selling local ads on your blog, too. If so, you’re competing with the paper. Is this something you can keep in mind when talking to potential advertisers? Can you show them that your blog is being seen by locals, and not getting traffic bumps from Digg, Fark, and other sites that won’t help your advertisers?

Something to think about.

January 21, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | 5 Comments 

Bing’s Hyperlocal Tool is Now Official

Quick note to mention that Local Lens, the hyperlocal content layer on Bing Maps, is now officially rolling out of beta to all users, per this Bing blog post.

You may recall my earlier post when Local Lens was previewed at a conference in December. It still only covers 10 major US cities, but here’s hoping they expand that.

Update: Chris Pendleton is the Bing team member who wrote the blog post I linked to in the first paragraph above. I asked Chris via Twitter if there are plans to expand to more cities. His reply:

Local Lens will continue to grow with more and more data for more and more cities. No priority list at this point, tho.

Now you we all know.

January 20, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | Leave a Comment 

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