Jeff Sonderman
Feb. 8, 2013
11:07 am
Hyperlocal news and community discussion site
EveryBlock closed Thursday, as NBC News announced it struggled to become profitable and was not a "strategic fit."
The closing was a surprise to everyone outside the company, and many people immediately began discussing the journalism and technology legacy of EveryBlock and what, if anything, might succeed in its wake.
Dan Sinker, head of the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews project, says "
we’re all living in Everyblock’s world now":
The impact of Everyblock goes far beyond the traffic to the site itself. Everyblock is one of those ideas that bent the world in a new way when it came around. One of those ideas that felt both so obvious and so ingenious simultaneously, that it looked *easy* when it was anything but. Back when it launched in 2008, the idea of arcane civic data being of use to regular citizens didn’t really exist. The idea of geolocation-based information gathering didn’t really exist. The idea of (shudder) “hyperlocal” information at the street-level didn’t really exist. And yet today, five years later, these ideas are commonplace thanks in large part to Everyblock proving that they were possible and vital.
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Jeff Sonderman
July 23, 2012
7:32 am
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Anna Tarkov
July 19, 2012
11:09 am
We’ve become familiar with the way Journatic — and the news organizations that outsource to it — are gathering and publishing local “micro-news” like school lunch menus, death notices, high school sports scores and real estate transactions. But we wondered: … Read more
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Julie Moos
July 13, 2012
10:11 pm
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Tracie Powell
July 10, 2012
4:03 pm
In as many months, two pioneers of hyper-local news websites have decided to leave those sites for jobs in the public sector. Debbie Galant, who launched Baristanet.com eight years ago, announced earlier this week that she’s accepted a job at … Read more
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Steve Myers
July 9, 2012
5:43 pm
With founder
Debbie Galant taking a new job at Montclair State University, where she'll join "an ambitious effort to nurture digital and hyperlocal journalism in New Jersey," Baristanet co-owner Liz George now has a busier summer ahead of her.
But George said she doesn't expect major changes in the hyperlocal site's coverage or approach.
"We have such a mix of voices, I don't think there's going to be a dramatic change," she said in a phone interview. "We have a sensibility that we've worked on for eight years, throughout the site."
In the past several months, George said she and Galant spent most of their time managing the business and handling editorial issues, with some writing interspersed. She said it wasn't a full-time job for either of them, though of course it will be harder with Galant gone and contributors away on summer vacations.
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Steve Myers
June 27, 2012
5:13 pm
Capital New York | Nieman Journalism Lab
Capital New York's Joe Pompeo reports that The New York Times will end "The Local," its two hyperlocal collaborations with New York University and CUNY, and the schools will take over the two sites.
The Times started The Local, Pompeo writes, "at a time when 'hyperlocal' was becoming the industry buzzword of the moment. This was back in March 2009, when AOL's Patch was still in its infancy and there seemed to be lots of promise for a new breed of community news sites that would scale by selling targeted local online advertising, an end that has proven more difficult to achieve in practice."
Pompeo's take on what happened:
The sites ceased to be a priority for a news organization with no shortage of priorities, including a growing list of new web initiatives that have been rolling out as readers continue to adapt to the paid digital model implemented by the Times last year.
Jim Schachter, the Times associate managing editor who oversaw The Local and other partnerships, told me in a phone interview that Pompeo's assessment was accurate:
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Andrew Beaujon
June 18, 2012
2:46 pm
Windy Citizen
Brad Flora is closing down Windy Citizen for a couple of reasons, "but the main one is that for some time now it has cost more to keep up than it's been generating revenue-wise,"
Flora writes in a note to readers. Also, he notes, "the internet is a lot different today than it was just over 4 years ago. ...Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Everyblock, these sites do a great job of keeping people up to date on what's happening in the communities they care about."
Windy Citizen was something of a darling when it launched; Steve Johnson wrote a
mostly positive review of the site after it changed its name from Chicago Methods Reporter. Tim McGuire of Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
raved about Flora:
To my old media, hidebound mind he will make some savvy investor big-time money. I was blown away by his creativity, his practicality and his passion. He knows story-telling, he knows local news and he fits in no newspaper box of which I’m aware.
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Andrew Chavez
Mar. 12, 2012
4:31 pm
Reports about the death of hyperlocal have been greatly exaggerated.
That was the takeaway from a panel of entrepreneurs and observers of hyperlocal and local news sites at a South by Southwest Interactive panel Monday.
Local news sites continue to … Read more
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Andrew Beaujon
Mar. 12, 2012
2:19 pm
Columbia Journalism Review
Sean Roach reflects on his stint as editor of Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch. The 60-hour weeks were invigorating, he says, even if advertising was a frustration. Rather than feeling muscled by the folks in shiny suits, he wishes they'd asked him for more ideas: "It seemed I could control every aspect of my site’s being, but making it sustainable was out of my grasp."
In many small-town publications there is a thin wall between advertising and editorial. At my previous job, with a twice-weekly newspaper, the wall literally had a doorway that connected the two departments. At Patch, the dividing wall between editorial and advertising seemed so high at times that it was impossible to know where we stood in relation to those on the other side. (more...)
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