Jerry Michalski and Pip Coburn co-host Yi-Tan, a weekly conference call that eventually covers most things cyberlogical. Today’s guests were Lisa Williams — founder of placeblogger, Tish Grier — Online Community Maven and social media consultant, and Danny Ayers — (not the semantic web advocate, but rather the) Director, Interactive Media at MyNC.com - WNCN-TV. They were gathered to talk about hyperlocal news and the business model for “place blogs.”
Hyperlocal media, “place blogs,” share “the lived experience of a place.” They can tightly focus on specific aspects of community life. (I’m thinking of starting one on Madison, Wisconsin Mexican food). They can represent almost any point of view: someone mentioned a blog that’s written from a dog’s perspective. Place blogs can provide coverage where mainstream media has gaps, for example news regarding a city’s outlying suburbs.
I enjoyed listening in and I was happy to have so much place blogging lore and so many links aggregated for me in a forty-five minute conference call, but the topic was a slippery one and I failed to grasp any emergent facts regarding business models. The conventional wisdom that blogging is a “labor of love,” and that the creation of place blogs really resides in the “gift economy” was contradicted by the counter-assertion that you could make money in the hyperlocal market if you were associated with a media company.
Somebody observed that “google eats everybody’s lunch,” but the details of just what that means and what’s implied were scarce. Nobody talked about the grantsmanship that can ease the financial burden of a local blogger, although Knight Ridder has provided funds for some of the discussants’ efforts.
I came away with a lot of interesting links. I’ll share them here:
NYT: Voices from the Suburban Blogosphere
30Threads… Danny Ayers
MyNC.com… Danny Ayers
Coastsider… Half Moon Bay blog
placeblogger… Williams and Grier
oh, and here’s another way to do it: BlogNetNews
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Tish Grier 08.15.08 at 1:03
Hi Frank!
It’s kind of hard to talk about business models for hyperlocal–partly due to economic conditions being different in regions across the country, but also because of the kinds of hyperlocal sites that are out there. Some really aren’t looking for business models, and are hobbies/labors of love, etc. Others are intertwined with the blogger’s business ventures, a few get grants, others make it from advertising. Hyperlocal bloggers–if we talk strictly news style sites–usually combine revenue streams, and are often fully aware of the financial consequences and options (or lack thereof) before they launch their ventures.
Their mindset is often different from business bloggers or bloggers who want to make money from product endorsements and the like–in that many of those bloggers are looking for a direct financial link to their blogging. In other words, they wouldn’t do it if endorsements weren’t bringing them money or if they didn’t think it would benefit their businesses.
Some hyperlocal ventures started by news orgs or other established local media outlets *sometimes* make money–sometimes, too, they don’t. That, too, is regional. What may work in Nashville or North Carolina may not fly in other regions. Only the media outlets are less than forthcoming on whether or not their ventures are profitable.
Overall, I don’t think there’s going to be one uniting business model for hyperlocal–perhaps not until geo-tagging makes placement of hyperlocal advertising easier. Still, that just returns us to the old ad-supported model, which in the long run, probably won’t be the only sustenance for hyperlocals.