New York Times Drops Its Hyperlocal Experiment

logoHere’s a change of pace: One of the big guys is getting out of the hyperlocal blogging business. The New York Times revealed today that it’s closing the doors of The Local, its pair of hyperlocal sites in New Jersey. The sites are being handed over to Baristanet, possibly the original hyperlocal blog.

The Times was one of the first major media outlets to try hyperlocal blogging/journalism, and when they first announced The Local, there was a fair amount of criticism. Some questioned the decision to try to cover three unique towns with a single blog; others questioned the decision not to launch each blog on its own domain (they were launched under the nytimes.com domain). And I pointed out the oddity of launching The Local on a URL that had the word “marketing” in it.

In its announcement, the Times talks about The Local being an “experiment” and mentions “lessons learned,” but I’m struck by this point they make about the capabilities of citizen journalists/bloggers:

From its launch on March 2, 2009, the heart of The Local has been our contributors, who taught us that communities are filled with talented, civic-minded, interested and interesting people who have much to offer in the way of local coverage. We are spreading that message far and wide, encouraging other journalists and news organizations — and other citizens — to venture down this path.

Quite a contrast to the recent editorial in my small-town newspaper, isn’t it?

I’d suggest you read more about this on Mediagazer, which has reactions from a handful of other sites, too. (thx to Nancy for the tip)

June 30, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | 4 Comments 

HelloMetro Continues to Grow its Hyperlocal Network

We tend to talk a lot about what AOL is doing with Patch, about big media’s interest in hyperlocal (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, The Guardian, Seattle Times, etc., etc.), about small-town papers going hyperlocal … and yet we barely talk about what HelloMetro.com is doing.

What is HelloMetro?

hello-metroHelloMetro is building a network of hyperlocal web sites that currently covers 1,500 cities, 35,000 neighborhoods, and 50,000 zip codes. There are currently about 1,100 web sites in the network, covering big cities like HelloAtlanta.com and smaller towns like HelloRichland.com in my backyard.

In early 2009, the company started hiring local writers (HelloMetro uses the term “journalist”) to create new content across this network. The company says it currently has more than 2,500 local and exclusive articles, and its network gets more than six million visitors per month. (You can look at both sites above to compare a site with a local writer and one without.)

What are they doing now?

According to a news release last week, HelloMetro is going international — it’s hired writers in Canada, Scotland, Ireland, and Australia. The news release also says that the company now has 40 content writers with a “professional literary background” who write dozens of “new and exclusive” articles every week.

HelloMetro President/Founder Clark Scott emphasizes in the news release that the company isn’t a local content factory.

“We do not employ free blogs, create cheap content treadmill, or try to coax journalists into writing for pennies a paragraph,” Scott said. “Our goal is to ensure that every exclusive article published by HelloMetro provides enriching, valuable, professionally produced information about that city – from a uniquely local perspective.”

The news release says that HelloMetro pays its writers “a substantial per-story rate,” but doesn’t offer any more detail. A little research online, though, leads you to a copy of a HelloMetro job listing in Google’s cache. It says that HelloMetro pays $50 per article. No one’s going to retire on that wage, but it could make for nice spending money for a motivated local writer.

Final Thoughts

The main idea here is to point out that not all of the movement and energy in the hyperlocal news/blogging/content space is coming from the Big Players — something I feel guilty of focusing on. All of us down on the ground tend to perk up our ears when we hear about another big newspaper starting a hyperlocal project, or about CNN investing in the space. This industry that we love has a lot more branches on its tree than we may realize, which means a lot more competition out there for readers, advertisers, and attention.

June 28, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | Leave a Comment 

Hyperlocal News Roundup

newsstandThis week’s recap has some more stuff on some of the recent Knight News Challenge winners, a job listing from EveryBlock, and more. Enjoy the links!

June 27, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | Leave a Comment 

How are Your Comments and Discussions?

commentsReaders, I’m curious to know how well you’re doing in attracting comments and discussions on your hyperlocal blogs/sites? And not only how well you’re attracting them, but how’s the quality of the conversation?

This is prompted by an interesting article written a few weeks back by Steve Buttry – an article that offers an examination of Civil Beat, the hyperlocal site started in Honolulu by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Civil Beat has a content paywall, but it also has a discussion paywall. Readers can pay just 99 cents/month to access article summaries and full discussions about the articles. By forcing people to pay, anonymity goes away — and when people have to reveal themselves by name, the conversation improves:

As a result, Mark Potts noted to me a few weeks ago and on his blog, discussions on Civil Beat are amazingly (come on, you could see this coming) civil. Mark noted a discussion about same-sex civil-union legislation that was robust, with strong opinions on both sides, each with a full real name attached, but none of the ugliness on both sides that often characterizes anonymous discussion of the same issue in other forums.

So I’m curious … how’s the conversation on your local blogs/sites? Do things ever get ugly/uncivil? Comments are open.

June 25, 2010 | Filed Under Blogging | 7 Comments 

This is the Sound of a Scared Newspaper

scaredConfession: I love newspapers. We still subscribe to our local paper, and we’ve taught our kids to read the paper every morning before school. My post-college career began at a newspaper (the Los Angeles Daily News). I want newspapers to succeed because I think they have a critical role in society.

But this really makes me angry: The inside scoop: What’s new for newspapers?

It’s an editorial published today by my local paper, the Tri-City Herald, and written after a visit by the CEO of McClatchy Newspapers, the paper’s owners. The visit apparently was all about the future of newspapers and probably included some kind of pep talk for the troops. And the paper turned that talk into an editorial that compares online news, bloggers, and everyone else to the BP oil spill. Here’s some of what the Herald published:

The internet is great. But it’s a gusher — not unlike the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Once you get it started, there’s just no shutoff valve … and no filter … and no retraction button.

And once it’s on the web, those rumors become a lot more believable for a lot of people. “I read it on the internet” is the new excuse for just about everything.

But buyer beware. It is often impossible to know if anyone has verified the material that’s on the internet or whether anyone is held responsible for rumors, misinformation or outright libel.

That uncertainty is working in newspapers’ favor. People are turning to newspaper websites as a trusted source.

Certainly, we’re guilty of sins of commission and omission — but our mistakes are made in the context of striving to present a complete and accurate report of events.

We have plenty of detractors, and hear from them regularly, but newspaper websites dominate internet traffic in virtually every market — usually attracting 70 percent of the audience or better.

It makes sense. Aside from credibility issues, few bloggers have the resources that a newsroom commands. There are serious journalists in the blogosphere, of course, but without newspaper reporters gathering facts and publishing first-hand accounts, few bloggers would have anything to talk about.

For all the painful changes at the nation’s newspapers, no one else reports on the communities we serve with the same depth.

It takes a newsroom to cover the city council meetings, disseminate the police logs, follow the court case and file the open records requests.

That’s the sound of a scared newspaper. Let’s look at some of these claims:

1.) The Internet is like the BP oil spill. Oh, grow up, Herald. The problem is that your day-late print publication can’t keep up with the speed of news that the Internet facilitates. It makes you obsolete. And you, with your annual cutting of thousands of trees, are a lot closer to the environmental damage happening in the Gulf than any online news outlet.

2.) It’s impossible to verify material online. It’s no more difficult to verify online news than it is to verify what you publish. On our real estate blog, I just broke the news that Charter Cable has bought out the local cable company; big news in our little town (that you still haven’t reported). And to help people verify the news, I scanned and posted the complete letter we received from Charter. What tools do you give me in your articles to help verify them? But all news should be read with a critical eye, whether it comes from a newspaper or a local blog. In fact, I dare say that if someone were to verify the news you print … they’d go online to do it. Jealous, perhaps?

3.) Our mistakes are made in trying to present a complete and accurate report. Yes, like when you completely failed to report that Dino Rossi, a well-known Republican who twice this decade came close to winning the governor’s seat, had declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate. You didn’t publish a correction the following day (to my knowledge), but an online news site would’ve quite easily amended such a mistake by posting the news when a reader like me asked about it.

4.) Newspaper web sites dominate Internet traffic with 70 percent of the audience or better. And how am I supposed to verify a stat like that when you don’t bother sharing a source? Online bloggers would’ve linked to their source.

5.) Without newspapers, few bloggers would have anything to talk about. Oh, KMA Herald. Your reporters use the Internet for research as much as anyone. Here’s a study that says 89% of journalists use blogs for research. (Notice how I included a link there so you can verify the datum?) And if you’re complaining that local bloggers steal your stories, remember that goes both ways. (Another link for verification!)

6.) It takes a newsroom to [cover local news]. I don’t run a local news blog, but I know a lot of people who do. And they do it from their homes just fine, thank you. In Seattle, they do it so well that the Seattle Times has been partnering for about a year with several local news blogs to help the paper cover stories it couldn’t cover otherwise. There are similar newspaper-blog partnerships happening all over the country, at least in cities with forward-thinking papers.

So, really, Tri-City Herald … stop sounding so scared. Even though you cut staff in 2008 and then cut more staff and lowered wages in 2009, there’s still hope. Embrace the future. Online news, hyperlocal blogs, and citizen journalism is here to stay. You can’t wish it away via defensive editorials like this.

June 23, 2010 | Filed Under Industry, MY BEST POSTS | 17 Comments 

Hyperlocal News Roundup

newsstandI had too nice of a Father’s Day weekend to do any blogging yesterday, so the link roundup was pushed back a day. Here’s a look at some news and blog posts that you may find interesting. If you’re a dad, I hope you had a great Father’s Day, too!

June 21, 2010 | Filed Under Industry | Leave a Comment 

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