Comments on: Hyperlocal News sites are surviving … and more

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:07:49 +0000

Just to let everyone know that we are in the middle of redesigning OurTown.com and it is not a completely free site where anyone can sign up and manage their own site about their local town. We provide the platform and the tools to help anyone who wants to blog or write about whats going on in their town or community. Their is also a business plan built in for the local editors to make a nice amount of money if they want with local advertising.

OurTownChris

By: TheKCGuy

TheKCGuy — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:13:52 +0000

Matt – It has its good side and bad side. I don’t recommend it for everyone, but I sort of like it.

Good things:
I like it because I have a lot of pages that are not date related. For instance, restaurant reviews or the stuff about this particular month. I try to focus on those more than the daily posts, and the wiki lets me do that a little better.
I can easily edit the general “theme” or look and feel of the site or any particular page using regular wiki syntax.

Bad things:
Not many other people use a wiki for their website like I do, so I had to build a bit of my own infrastructure. For instance, I pretty much had to build my own calendar system. I can’t use any of the wordpress plugins that many people use.
The way I have it set up, I have exactly one post per day, and I can’t really change that if I want two or zero on one particular day.
I had to build my own RSS feed script that deals with the particular way that I do daily posts.
Comments are not really built into the system. I tacked them on with intensedebate.com. I’m not completely satisfied with the solution, and I may work to improve it in the future.

If you’d like more information about using mediawiki as a blogging platform or a CMS, don’t hesitate to contact me. thekcguy (at) gmail.com.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:42:22 +0000

KC Guy — you’re using a wiki format for your site. How’s that working for you? Would you recommend it to others?

By: This Week’s Blogging Roundup | Matt McGee

This Week’s Blogging Roundup | Matt McGee — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:33:27 +0000

[...] Hyperlocal News sites are surviving … and more Share and Enjoy: [...]

By: David Mihm

David Mihm — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:18:01 +0000

I love seeing the stat about Quincy, Illinois on here. I grew up in a nearly identical town about two hours away. I think this is a great example that should help quell some of the fears about “the demise of local journalism” that seem to come up on Greg Sterling’s blog. If a HyperLocal blog can succeed in Quincy, it can succeed anywhere.

By: TheKCGuy

TheKCGuy — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:51:38 +0000

I’m seeing pretty much the same thing here in Kansas City. As the local print newspaper shrinks, pageviews of my local site keep climbing, as do ad CTR and CPM rates.

By: John Cronin

John Cronin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:38:51 +0000

Hey Matt – good post with some great links!

I’m over in the UK and slowly making my mark in the hyperlocal scene. My home town site is gaining readers but it’s only a small population (approx 3,300 16-65) there’s a limited audience.

Nice to read that some sites are turning a healthy profit.

Cheers

John