For the last few years there have been a number of successful sites (blogs) that have maintained a hyper local news orientation within the US.
I have wondered from afar as why this model would not be successful in NZ built around larger geographical zones eg Auck, Wgtn etc with focus on suburbs within this zones, yet I have seen no examples?. The US model in most successful cases has about a population of around 250K and up.
Given I believe that the content for the majority of the these is text, no doubt the coming years/months will incorporate video, and as such probably surpass regional TV of old (like that was successful when run by TVNZ but to the credit of some regional TVs stations recently).
In fact probably given wide content (both text and video) put to shame regional newspapers and network television by being directly in touch with the community involved. No doubt the overriding issue is monetization of this to make it possible. It is interesting to note that the example below does not use Google Adsense, but direct advertising. Also interesting is the large amount of postings per month, following on from incepetion, orginally below 100 postings per month, now up to an exceeding 300 per month. That is heavy content posting, all credit to them.
Angela Connor on her blog http://blog.angelaconnor.com/ has interviewed this story from Seattle by Tracey Record and her husband in 2 parts here is the link to the second more about the nuts and bolts of her operation.
It shows that dedication and hard work can pay dividends for new enterprises. No doubt low startup costs to those in the know.
http://westseattleblog.com/blog/
Further to this a view of how these enterprises are doing nationwide, and early signs of how they are weathering the recession.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/davidwestphal/200902/1660/
Finally an online video of the current state of Seattle Hyperlocal news blogs
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5210832
Anyone got a lead on a NZ hyperlocal news blog?
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2 comments:
Population - we don't have it, which is why we don't have as many local cutting edge news!
The successful WestSeattle Blog is from a population base of 40000 households, equivalent of the Hutt Valley. The crux is more local than other go have a peep.
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