Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The False Hope of Hyperlocal

Digiday reporting: Hyperlocal news has failed to live up to its promise. Chances are it never will.
Once expected to fill the void left by shrinking and shuttering local newspapers, community-based digital news sites have not taken off quite the way the New York Times predicted it would as recently as 2009: EveryBlock is now in the scrap heap, as is Placeblogger. Outside.in was acquired by Patch, whose editors have been flooding JimRomenesko’s inbox for months, asking him to air the awful state of affairs at Patch. “I love Patch,” wrote one Patch editor to Romenesko at the beginning of June. “However, from what I see on the ground, we are on our last legs.”
An ambitious project by the Times itself, called The Local, recently dissolved after launching in 2009. It now operates as a shell of its former self under the uninspiring name “The Nabe” with no New York Times logo, or journalists, attached.
So what happened? Many of the problems come down to the structural challenges of building a business dependent on mom-and-pop businesses. Local businesses were never willing to fork over big dollars for banner ads, and national advertisers targeting local audiences never materialized, leaving hyperlocal sites with sizable revenue shortfalls. And since the height of hyperlocal optimism in 2009, advertising has grown better at targeting local audiences, essentially rendering the ads available on hyperlocal news sites irrelevant.
“The hyperlocal models haven’t proven scalable in terms of content and advertising sales,” said analyst Peter Krasilovsky. “We haven’t seen an alternative solution pop up for providing community content that people find valuable, and that’s disappointing.”

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