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Does hyper-local make sense online?

Started by mathewi · 1 year ago

I wanted to take a more in-depth look at some of the things that NowPublic.com CEO Leonard Brody said about the local “citizen journalism” model during our interview about NowPublic’s financing and the failure of Backfence, which I posted about here. He said som ... Continue reading »

2 comments

  • Howe's piece points to an important part of the puzzle - that building around communities of interest - while focusing locally - like CincyMOMS - brings real results.

    What I've found with Philly Future is that it is easier to target smaller communities of interest within a geography, than entire geographical communities.

    For example Philly Foods - Philly Sports - Philly Liberal Politics - all are potentially greater centers of community then a generalized Philadelphia community like Philly Future.

    The more general your community effort is (to me news and community are synonymous) - the harder it is to gain traction.

    Jeff Jarvis once said the web is about niches - he's right. Hyper local isn't a successful niche - it's just a strata to identify communities of interest - niches - within local geographies.
  • Thanks for the comment, Karl -- I think you're right.

    In many ways, I don't think actual physical communities matter as much as we think they do -- shared interests (which may have to do with physical location or may not) are much more powerful.

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