Local takes center stage

Local news, advertising and commerce took center stage at the MIT Enterprise Forum dinner last night in Bellevue. While it was one of many subjects discussed, local (and “hyperlocal” and “microlocal”) strategies and opportunities were given the most attention by the speakers at a dinner called “Breaking News: How will the pieces be put back together again?”

The highlight for me was seeing the founder and editor of West Seattle Blog, Tracy Record, positioned on stage next to MSNBC.com president Charlie Tillinghast. Two years ago, who would have believed that a neighborhood news site would warrant the same consideration as one of the giants in the online news world. (And the event planners did plenty of due diligence in finding and screening speakers, interviewing more than 20 people – including me – to fill four spots.)

The conversation was mostly entertaining and occasionally informative for someone who follows the disruption of news media by technology, but probably more informative to the general audience. Todd Bishop of TechFlash did a masterful job moderating, keeping the conversation flowing while challenging the panelists with more than just softball questions. The most interesting points included:

• Patricia Lee Smith of the Seattle Times repeating time and again that she didn’t have an audience problem, just a revenue problem, and that she needed technology to solve it. She rattled off a host of statistics to illustrate how viable print remains as a medium for advertisers (including the U.S. pre-print business is nearly $6.7 billion a year and up 30% and accounts for 90% of coupons redeemed in-market.)
• Tillinghast reported that MSNBC.com had a record revenue year and profits missed projections by only 1%. “We’re making plenty of money,” he said. Which begged the question (that didn’t get asked): how is MSNBC.com monetizing its audience better than seattletimes.com? Is it the strength of a national brand/audience or simply the lack of a legacy business to support?
• Record said her operation continues to grow and is looking to bring on more people to assist in the growth. So, again, revenue apparently isn’t a problem for a hyperlocal operation – if done right. Which is why big companies like Fisher are jumping into the fray, hoping to tap into some of that marketplace, a strategy Smith didn’t think was too promising. “Where’s the money?” she repeatedly asked when queried about hyperlocal opportunities.
• And even though her business is doing fine, Record didn’t think her operation should be attempted at scale by big companies, either. She cited a letter someone forwarded her from a town on the East Coast that’s the location of a new Patch.com site as an example of how a company like AOL (Patch.com’s owner) is missing the point: the letter told the resident that the new Patch editor couldn’t wait to “learn all about your community.” That’s much different than Record’s model, which grew out of already knowing all about the community.
• Bishop asked Tillinghast about the future plans for hyperlocal aggregator Everyblock, a website and team MSNBC.com recently acquired. Contrary to popular assumption, Tillinghast said Everyblock, which was launched with a $1.1 million Knight News Challenge grant, may not be integrated into the flagship MSNBC.com site but rather grown as an independent entity.

Since the audience allegedly included several investors, Bishop joked at the beginning that if the panelists, which also included 1Cast’s Anthony Bontrager, wanted to form a joint venture, they probably wouldn’t get out of the room without at least a little angel money. Mirroring the recent trend with these discussion, there is more optimism than hand-wringing, which is refreshing. After all, as I’ve often said, the news business isn’t dying, it’s just changing.

- Mark Briggs

Today, mobile means local

In case you missed it last week, hyperlocal took center stage at the Techcrunch 50, an unlikely venue for what has previously been thought of as too small a problem for the Silicon Valley elite to get excited about.

Those days are gone. In the wake of acquisitions by AOL (for Patch.com), MSNBC (for Everyblock) and Examiner.com (for NowPublic), hyperlocal is hot and two of the top three entrants at the Valley’s premier technology showcase were hyperlocal focused startups. Redbeacon seeks to build a better alternative to yellow pages or craigslist by matching local service providers with prospective customers, while Citysourced is partnering with cities and municipalities to provide real-time reporting tools to citizens who want to report problems where they live.

Sean Blanda, writing for eMediaVitals, highlighted the obvious irony of this development earlier this week:

Both Citysourced and RedBeacon are profit driven methods of servicing a community, and both ideas could have been revenue generators for a local news outlet.

Mobile, of course, is at the heart of this movement. Half-jokingly, I told my Serra Media co-founder Glenn Thomas that Citysourced is the application that we set out to build in 2006 when we first came up with the idea for Newsgarden, but without an iPhone available, we traveled down a different path than we would today. Blanda sees strength in the mobile movement for hyperlocal as well.

The success of local at TechCrunch 50 might be attributed to Web 2.0 fatigue, but it really is a tribute to the cost and availability of location-based tools on the market. GPS-enabled smartphones are becoming the norm, thus increasing the potential market for location-based mobile applications and web sites.

Adding an iPhone app (and other mobile apps) is critical to any local strategy. (Which is why we’re building mobile into each of our product lines.)

As I often say to audiences during various speaking gigs, publishers should view mobile in 2009 as if they were looking at the web in 1998. Then I ask: “what would you do differently, knowing what you know now about how the web evolved?” Blanda sent a similar caution:

Local community news sites would be wise to jump on the bandwagon before scrappy Internet startups eat their lunch.

Again.

Community fruit mapping – now that’s hyperlocal

What is hyperlocal? It’s certainly a buzzword that some people in the news and advertising business are getting tired of hearing. Discussion of the definition of what constitutes hyperlocal news often goes unsettled with one person drawing the line between what’s interesting and what’s trivial differently than the next person.

When you think about it, that’s a pretty simple formula: local + interesting = relevant. Whether a news story, an advertising message or a web site is categorized as “hyperlocal,” depends on how large a geographic area would find it interesting. The smaller the area, the more likely it can be called hyperlocal.

Whether something qualifies as “news” is a different conversation altogether. For example, this effort in Seattle to map fruit trees is unquestionably hyperlocal, but probably wouldn’t pass for news in most traditional newsrooms. The Rainier Valley Post, unquestionably a source for hyperlocal news and information, recognized the relevance and spread the word, writing …

Map Your Fruit Trees! City Fruit is a new organization that promotes urban-grown fruit as a valuable community resource. Why let the 150 pounds of Bartletts from a medium-sized pear tree on Beacon Hill drop to the ground?  Deliver them to a food bank, or share them with neighbors—or make pear butter.

“I know it when I see it” is how Justice Potter Stewart defined obscenity in one of the more famous Supreme Court cases in history. It’s a pretty good guide for hyperlocal, too.

- Mark Briggs

Hyperlocal news sites, ideas profiled

Just a quick linkfest: I’ve been posting more content on my Journalism 2.0 blog lately related to hyperlocal happenings. I want to make sure readers of this blog are aware of them, so here are some recent links:

- Sacramento Press thriving, looking to expand

- Startup news site rocking the boat in Portland

- Chaos shouldn’t cloud current opportunity in hyperlocal

New in town? Let hyperlocal sites, Twitter and iPhone apps be your guide

Exploring Seattle

Starting over in a new city is a daunting task. As overwhelming as unpacking can be, it’s even more overwhelming to feel lost when looking for basic amenities like good Chinese food.

Fortunately, as a tech-savvy millennial, I’ve got a ton of hyperlocal sites and social media tools at my disposal. A variety of free applications have had a huge impact on my move and my adjustment to Seattle.

Before making the 3,000-mile move from Charlotte to Seattle in June, I used Craigslist to weed through rental listings and set up showings for our apartment-hunting trip. I created a Google Map that defined the area where we wanted to live, then mapped each prospective apartment to make sure it fell within our boundaries. I used Google Maps Street View to investigate apartment listings, particularly the ones that sounded too good to be true, like that adorable bungalow overlooking Lake Union that just happens to be located under the interstate.

Now that I’m in Seattle, I chronicle life in my new city on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo so that my friends and family around the world can see what I’m up to. I also joined Seattle’s professional groups on LinkedIn so I can find out about networking events and opportunities.

I read the Wallyhood blog daily and learn something new about my neighborhood each time. As my boyfriend and I walk around Wallingford or Green Lake, I find myself sharing tidbits I learned on Wallyhood. “Did you know a new restaurant is opening there?” I’ll say. “There was a car break-in on that street last night,” I’ll point out. People typically find hyperlocal news interesting when it’s hyperlocal to them. It’s true – I don’t care all that much about a car break-in 10 miles away. But I definitely care about stereos being snatched from cars a couple blocks from my apartment.

Then there’s the sometimes-frustrating task of figuring out where to go for dinner or drinks. Trying new restaurants and bars is fun, but I occasionally miss the confidence that comes with going to a familiar favorite. I search Yelp reviews before going to most new places and find myself evaluating restaurants based on their average ratings because there are just too many varied reviews to wade through. Although Yelp isn’t the only factor in my decision-making process, I doubt I’d go to a place with a rating lower than three stars. (Disclosure: I worked for Yelp last year as a Charlotte scout.) When I’m on the go, I use the Yelp and Urbanspoon iPhone apps to sort through the vast offerings of restaurants and bars. When I’m overwhelmed by the hundreds of Thai restaurants listed on Yelp, I welcome the randomness and simplicity of the Urbanspoon app.

Twitter has been a much better resource than I ever expected. I follow hyperlocal bloggers from Fremont, Ballard and Capitol Hill to find out what’s going on in nearby neighborhoods. How else would I have known to go watch a record-breaking zombie flash mob in Fremont? I follow CitySearch Seattle and GoTime Seattle, which often tweets about which happy hours going on right now and upcoming concerts. (I just downloaded GoTime’s Happy Hours and Nightlife iPhone apps, which I’m excited to try out.) Tweets from Seattle’s magazines, journalists and niche sites help keep me informed about city news and cool events. I also rely on my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. When I post updates asking for suggestions about restaurants or activities for out-of-town guests, my followers/friends respond with good recommendations.

And when all else fails, I seek advice from Brenna. She’s that knowledgeable friend who can tell you the best drink specials, when chicken is on sale at QFC, which hair stylist to trust and which boutique has the nicest employees. Brenna is the perfect type of person to contribute to sites like BargainBabeLA.com, which is powered by Serra Media’s Townluxe platform. Some day soon, I’ll have just as much Seattle knowledge to share with others. But I doubt my habits will change. Now that I’m hooked, I’ll always scour Twitter for good finds, get neighborhood news from hyperlocal blogs and research nearby restaurants on my iPhone.

- Amy Rainey

Hyperlocal still a ‘can’t-miss’ opportunity

Potential. That word has surrounded location when it comes to news and advertising for a long time.

TechFlash’s John Cook recently asked me why I think hyperlocal is a promising market. It’s a question that continues to bounce around the news and publishing space. The consensus, according to this Fast Company article, is that there is an opportunity here, but much of it remains unrealized.

The challenge is satisfying readers with enough relevant content that makes the pool large enough for advertisers to want to jump in to support the content with cash flow.

Media companies have wasted their opportunity in this space for 15 years by keeping content and revenue strategies separated. That’s why start-up companies or a non-journalistic publisher like AOL see this as a winnable market today.

“Hyperlocal seems like a can’t-miss proposition,” Michael Gluckstadt writes in Fast Company. “The truth is that billions are not migrating to hyperlocal sites.”

Local news companies and yellow page directories have dominated local advertising markets for decades, but most are stumbling into the digital age, hoping to simply survive. They don’t have the tools to engage – and monetize – their audience and leverage their built-in brand awareness in the yet-to-be-won battle for local advertising online.

The combined void of content, community and advertising creates a significant opportunity. Hundreds of new players are starting up to cover their communities with hyperlocal blogs and news sites while venture-backed companies attack the vertical search and local directory markets.

Neither the established players nor the up-and-comers have the technology development resources or strategic thinking they need. So you see new companies forming to attack this opportunity.

Kelsey Group estimates that local advertising in the U.S. will reach $137.0 billion in 2011 and $144.4 billion in 2013. While just 11.5% of that will go to digital in 2009, that figure will double to 22.2% by 2013. Borrell Associates. meanwhile, projects a U.S. online local-advertising marketing worth $15.5 billion in 2013 “fueled mostly by small businesses ditching the Yellow Pages and local newspapers” according to Fast Company.

Serra Media sees the opportunity, and hopes to seize it. Our social mapping platforms and mobile solutions help publishers of all sizes launch interactive hyperlocal destinations that are supported by local advertising, solving the publishers’ double pain of audience and revenue.

The future of hyperlocal lies in bringing neighborhood-level interaction online. Many of our other human interactions and circles of communities are already there. We network with friends and colleagues, share photos with family, play fantasy sports, exchange reviews of books and movies and so on.

But neighborhood-level news was seen as bottom-feeding for most journalists for a long time, so the content wasn’t there to build an audience. Hyperlocal blogs have changed that perception. So the next step is to marry relevant, scalable advertising with that relevant content.

It’s happening already. How many pieces of that $15 billion-dollar pie will be sliced up? That remains to be seen. If there are hundreds or even thousands of slices, then hyperlocal publishing will remain “unrealized” in the eyes of the national business press. But as more readers can find out what’s happening in their neighborhood because targeted advertising is supporting relevant content, the true success of hyperlocal will already have been achieved.

- Mark Briggs