a formula for hyperlocal success
Fitzroyalty is a hyperlocal site that focuses on a small and well defined geographical area – the inner city suburb of Fitzroy in Melbourne Australia. A majority of the content I publish is about Fitzroy and its immediate surroundings.
I started the site over 3 years ago with the assumption that a substantial audience for Fitzroy based information existed. With a population of nearly 9,000, and with busy commercial, retail and entertainment businesses providing employment for thousands more people, as well as the thousands who come to the area for recreation and entertainment, the potential audience of my site may be 20,000 or 30,000 people or more.
Publishing hyperlocal content is a challenge: for it to be viable, the area must have enough topics to be worth examining and an audience that wants to consume this content. I have demonstrated that Fitzroy (and other areas via the 10 local news sites for inner city Melbourne) meet these essential criteria.
Identifying the right content and delivering it to the right audience is one thing, but converting this service into a business is another. I thought the utility of hyperlocal information was high, but had no illusions about its commercial potential. I assessed its viability as a for-profit business as being non-existent, dismissed the idea and instead pursued creating great content as an enjoyable and sustainable hobby. This remains my view and my mission.
Jake Dobkin, co-founder of the New York City blog Gothamist, says that:
Fitzroyalty is one of the rarer blogs in Australia in that it is truly hyperlocal. Most blogs are theme based (food, fashion, art etc) and cover several local areas familiar to their authors.
Dobkin’s argument about the inadequacy of the advertising business model is true for three reasons. First, the advertising income that could be earned from a hyperlocal site is insufficient to be commercially viable.
Second, as Bill Fitzgerald states on Twitter, “hyperlocal, hypertargeted ads won’t save journalism, as they are a continuation of a broken model.” Advertising only worked in twentieth century print and broadcast media because it had a monopoly on content distribution and audience attention. These two conditions have been eliminated by the internet.
Third, as Dobkin also reveals, local businesses are not focused on delivering local advertising. Michael Gluckstadt suggests that:
He’s right about the first part, but not for the reason he implies. Most local business don’t even have bad old static websites, much less contemporary dynamic CMS driven sites that attact customers with regular new content. Expecting them to understand the dynamics of online advertising strategies would be naive. Their lack of measurable interest is due to ignorance, not deliberate disinterest, which is an important distinction to make in the context of Dobkin’s argument.
As for supply and demand, I think that Gluckstadt is absolutely wrong. The demand for hyperlocal content has not been accurately measured to date because it has not existed as a reliable commodity. I want a flying car, but I don’t expect one to be delivered to my door. Neither do audiences sit around waiting for content that has not previously existed to be magically delivered to them.
The traditional relationship between supply and demand does not apply to free online content. The more that is available, the more people will consume. The growth of the internet demonstrates this as a general concept, and the traffic Fitzroyalty receives is a specific example of this. There is demand (from audiences) for hyperlocal content. There is no demand (from advertisers or from audiences) for hyperlocal advertising.
How can aspiring hyperlocal publishers deliver content to meet this demand? Why would they want to if there is no money to be made? Most bloggers and hyperlocal or citizen journalists are not motivated by money, but by appreciation and influence. Favourable comments are a powerful motivator, as is the reputation bloggers gain as they build an audience. Running a hyperlocal site as a hobby can be sustainable if it is motivated by community support and encouragement.
The ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy seems to work. My archive of content and my audience have grown significantly. In July 2009, according to Google Analytics, Fitzroyalty received over 10,000 unique visitors and over 30,000 pageviews. Of the over 14,000 total visitors, over 10,000 are from Australia and about 8,500 are from the Melbourne metropolitan area.
The statistics available from Wordpress.com (I use the statistics plugin they provide) suggest higher numbers: in July close to 60,000 hits. I suspect that Google Analytics does not include posts read via RSS, but I cannot confirm that.
Regardless of whether the higher or lower numbers are more accurate, they make me feel confident that I am producing content that is of interest to a significant percentage of my potential audience. Dobkin says “You grow a website by producing a high quantity of interesting content every day, year-in and year-out, for a very long period of time.”
I agree with Matt McGee of HyperlocalBlogger when he says that “Hyperlocal sites are best done from the bottom up, not from the top down” and “the best local blogs didn’t start out as money-making initiatives“. Instead, they were motivated by a vision of delivering an information service for a community, of which the publisher is a member.
I’m not very interested in the struggle to understand and define the future of journalism, which is a significant aspect of the current debate about the future of media. Gathering, analysing and reporting information will continue. The role of the traditional twentieth century journalist probably will not. Good riddance. Most of the journalists I have encountered are lazy, stupid and vain, with mediocre critical thinking and writing skills and an absense of professional ethics.
Hyperlocal sites are not the saviours of journalism. I agree with Gluckstadt when he concludes that “Hyperlocal success should be judged on a hyperlocal level – and not on whether or not it is the savior of journalism.” If you’re planning to start a hyperlocal news service, I suggest you follow these steps to success:
- Determine if an audience exists (measured by population, access to the internet, and whether a cohesive and coherent local culture and identity exists)
- Determine if sufficient content exists (should a cohesive and coherent local culture and identity exist, then it is likely that content about it either exists or could easily be created)
- Determine the resources you would need to publish a site. It can really be done on $0 using free hosted blogs provided by Wordpress.com or Blogger.com.
- Determine whether you have the time, energy, interest and motivation to publish a site.
If you can answer ‘yes’ to these questions, you should start a hyperlocal news site for your suburb, town or local area.
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Other posts you may find relevant and interesting
- State of the blogosphere in Australia, 29 September 2008
- hyperlocal media is a bad competitor, 30 November 2008
- volunteer roles available for local news site editors and publishers, 8 November 2009
- 10 challenges for hyperlocal content aggregators, 8 February 2008
- hyperlocal startups – all take and no give, 6 February 2008
September 11th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
So what you’re saying is: from your perspective, discussions about the success or failure of ‘hyperlocal’ media aren’t much related to discussions about the future of journalism. A bit different from what you said here: http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty/2008/11/30/hyperlocal-media-is-a-bad-competitor/
Also, way to lever yourself out of the interesting debate! Oops. Oh well, I guess you can stick to aggregating other people’s content on your blog and crowing about the hits.
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September 11th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Good point, but all the conversations about the future of journalism are about the future of ‘professional’ journalists in commercial media. As my post above makes clear, the role of the journalist in investigating and reporting news will continue, but the traditional commercial employee role is under threat because of the collapse of the print media advertising business model, and because of bad competitors like myself. Nice try to find a contradiction in my argument, but you’ll have to try harder than basing it on various definitions of the term ‘journalist’..
Louisa is wrong in her last statement. I do not routinely aggregate the content of other bloggers in my blog Fitzroyalty, apart from occasional posts recommending other writing about Fitzroy. I edit 10 local news sites that aggregate the work of over 300 local sites. These sites are only mine in the sense that I built them; I do not own their content. I reported above on the traffic my blog receives, not the traffic the local sites receive. The local sites are designed to drive more traffic to all their contributors.
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September 11th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Your broader (and much-self-touted) online reputation is based on the site indolentdandy.net, wherein the ‘local news sites’ are housed. It’s clear you intend to continue to profit from this content in terms of reputation. Or, as you term it above, “appreciation and influence.”
Regardless of how much you protest, that’s what people are thinking.
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September 11th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
As I have previously explained, each local news site is a standalone Wordpress installation. My plan is to find volunteer editors for each site, which can be moved to another server, given an independent domain name and a new visual identity. In the meantime the local news sites are hosted in subdirectories under my domain as there is no other place for them to exist. I have sufficient server space and bandwith in my hosting package to do this.
My reputation is based on Fitzroyalty, which is also in a subdirectory of my domain, not my root domain.
I have built something for $0 that benefits hundreds of Melbourne bloggers through the SEO and increased audience the sites deliver. I give it away for free. I make no money from it. Complaining about this is beyond petty.
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October 1st, 2009 at 12:58 am
The four points you list at the bottom of the post are very interesting, I feel that I could answer ‘yes’ to all those question but perhaps you have missed out on an important aspect.
The audience does exist, if you have journalistic qualities to find a story then the content is there and there are lots of ways of setting up a website for free as a platform to show the content.
What I feel has been overlooked is the fact that you have not mentioned content-specific hyperlocal adverts. A teenager finding information about concerts or events in their local area should only be shown adverts from businesses that have teenagers as part of their target audience.
You are right about the changes in the business model and a journalist could set up their own website with local content and adverts so they become the editor, reporter and advertiser all-in-one. That spells the end of the old print media model. But I feel that no-one is thinking about content specifics!
The more hits a news story, video, or other content gets the more money should be charged for the adverts shown with it.
Or am I missing something?
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October 1st, 2009 at 1:06 am
Yes, you’ve completely missed the point that audiences don’t like advertising and usually ignore it. Banner ads that replicate print advertising in their static format are simply ugly distractions from the real content. The 10 local news sites I publish feature lots of posts by local businesses promoting their latest ventures, but none of these are advertisements as such. The internet demands new marketing strategies. Local businesses can no longer buy display ads in monopoly local newspapers and expect to be delivered a passive audience.
Audiences don’t need banner ads. Audiences respond far more to targeted genuine promotions delivered directly to them by businesses they like via RSS or Facebook, etc, where they can opt in and out of receiving promotional content at their discretion. Audiences no longer tolerate being forced to view the digital equivalent of junk mail catalogues. When will people like you learn that advertising is a failed business model?
You’ve also completely ignored the fact that most hyperlocal bloggers do it for pleasure not profit, and that there is usually no profit to be made from local news. Delivering news is a service, not a business. Converting it into a business requires certain restrictive conditions, such as distribution scarcity, that the internet has destroyed.
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October 1st, 2009 at 2:01 am
I’d like to point out that I’m not a advertising executive with a grudge, but I think that hyperlocal bloggers who do it for pleasure not profit are missing out.
If local news is a public service why can’t you ask money for it? There will always be someone who will do it for free, but that’s no saying it’s better. Delivering news used to be a business but people want it as a service but you can’t have your cake and eat it. Collecting date to form information to convey as news costs money that I feel is what is being overlooked.
I realise that banner ads don’t work and that audiences are passive. RSS feeds and Facebook rely on user discretion but this should be taken further to tailor every advert to suit the audience’s needs.
Also there is profit to be made from local news. To think that no-one cares about what is going on in their local community is naive. Local daily newspapers are dying out but people still want know about what will affect them in the broader picture this might seem insignificant. If you can connect local people with local businesses through content then there is surely a way of extracting money through advertisement. Newspapers, news channels all deal with the most important news but changes by local government would still affect a group of people. People who have a right to know, like you say news is now a service, but by actively looking for this information a business should be made aware of the potential customers.
Saying all this I don’t want to sound like I know what is best, and as you say as a distribution platform the internet still has found a proper business model but that just means no-one has found it yet. Do you have any ideas for distribution?
‘When will people like you learn that advertising is a failed business model?’ a bit harsh, I was only asking the question not trying to upset anyone.
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October 1st, 2009 at 8:38 am
I hypothesise that entrepreneurs who pursue the commercial exploitation of local news will fail as the business model is fundamentally flawed and does not take into account user psychology and behaviour. Caring about something and being willing to pay for it are two different things. Audiences have no need for ads and prefer not to see them.
Local businesses may want to connect with local customers but local residents are not primarily motivated by connecting with local businesses. Audiences want news and information. Non-commercial local content producers build trust with audiences by delivering on what we promise: local news. We don’t exploit our audiences by leveraging their attention to sell advertising space. Selling advertising negates trust.
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October 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 am
I think your hypothesis is lacking due to the idea that the audience are not consumers. They consume information as much as material goods. By your own admission if you take into account user psychology and behaviour – profiling of user preferences – then you could use bespoke adverts for each user.
Indeed trust is the most important factor and if newspapers have anything to keep them in the game it’s the trust they have built up with its readers to inform them with the news they are interested in. But I wouldn’t discount content. Your site and the many others has the trust but so much more could be done with the content. Videos, podcasts and other interactive media could be utilised to give more content to the site’s visitors. Twitter and RSS feeds are simple and effective way of conveying information but because they are primitive no-one would want to pay for them. People always want more. If you had video content more people would visit the site, with extra content only unlocked by agreeing to include adverts. But specifically adverts that are tailored to each individual user.
I realise that profiling every user would be a mammoth task but half the job is already done by knowing their location. And of course there is a saturation point when everyone who wants to visit the site, has. I haven’t thought what the next step would be but all your points are extremely helpful.
I think exploitation is way off if you are talking about trust. If they trust you to inform them, can they not trust you to inform them about business they might be interested in? Local events, that take local people away from their computers, could benefit from advertisement on website primarily used by local people.
The assumption that audiences have no need for ads is an oversight – it sounds like you are not taking into account consumer psychology and behaviour. However, you are right about the fact that they would ‘prefer’ not to see them. Perhaps they would prefer to see adverts they are interested in?
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October 2nd, 2009 at 8:45 am
In my opinion the arguments I refer to above and those in my previous article about hyperlocal bad competitors are extremely pursuasive and pragmatic in suggesting that the online advertising business model is fundamentally flawed and incapable of making hyperlocal news sites profitable.
As an online reader / site viewer I find online advertising extremely annoying, ugly and disruptive to my experience. I use an ad blocker when viewing newspaper sites and consume most blog content via a feed reader, so I can avoid the ads they serve on their pages. Many other people do the same.
As a publisher I choose to deliver a hyperlocal news site to my local community as a non-commercial community service. The negative look and feel of advertising would undermine the user experience of visiting my site and make my pages ugly. It is unacceptable. I would sooner close the site than include advertising.
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October 2nd, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Fair enough, I fully understand where you are coming from and it is great that you serve your community with the respect they deserve. I am interested in the hyper local idea and was impressed by your site and wanted to gauge the thoughts of someone who is doing for the love and not the money. I had initial ideas but your opinions have definitely changed them. I admit that I hate pop-ups and would sooner have an uncluttered site with information that was straight to the point. The bad competitor article is very interesting and I realise that on the internet people don’t want to pay for information and there will always be someone willing to put information online for free. But what if someone in Fiztroy built a website with more information and better cross-platform content that used advertising revenue to fund it? Would you still feel you were in the right because you were doing it for free? Granted the trust you had built up would be invaluable but there is always a bad competitor waiting around the corner ready to serve the community with more informative content. And they might be able to finance their content production with advertising.
Apologies for playing devil’s advocate.
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October 3rd, 2009 at 12:16 am
It’s not a matter of being in the right. I think my reading of the economics of content is correct now; circumstances will surely change over time. I have no concerns about competition from other publishers as part of my motivation to publish is the satisfaction I gain from doing so. This site is a hobby, as are the 10 local news sites I publish that aggregate the work of hundreds of Melbourne local content creators.
I think audiences want far more information, particularly pragmatic useful information about the real world around them, than they currently receive. More publications does not necessarily mean competition for attention as attention is not scarce; it is merely difficult to obtain. Identifying audience wants and needs is something that legacy media does badly. Social media is far ahead in this regard as the audience contributes to creating the content it wants to consume.
Some of the few continuing contstraints on the number of online publications are talent, skill and ability. Not everyone can write or take photos. The abiliy to select newsworthy or relevant topics to write about is a relatively rare skill, as are the abilities to build and manage the information architecture and manage the scheduling and other processes that create successful publications. I’m a professional writer, editor and publisher. Most people are not.
In my opinion I cross reference my own content far better than major newspapers. I also geotag my content better than the ABC. This functionality is not difficult, but it requires vision and initiative. One of the rarest skills is the conceptual ability to unite all these factors to produce something unique. I know I can do this better than most people. This means I face little real competition.
I think you misunderstand the bad competitor concept. It is primarily economic. You can’t go beyond free. Building a bigger site with lots of video content, as you suggest, requires times, skill and investment. Advertising would not immediately cover these costs and hoping that future profitablity would occur is risky.
I think we have recently learned what happens when arrogant suits finance their egos with debt. Good riddance to them. And if the newspapers understood any of this they would perhaps not be losing the millions of dollars they currently are. Good riddance to them too.
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October 3rd, 2009 at 9:20 am
Too true! Your audience is too small to extract money from and I would much prefer hearing news from someone who truly cares about their community. I feel the same way about newspapers. They have been too lazy to update their information distribution platforms and that spurred me on with my thinking. I don’t wish to come across as someone who knows best – even if I did at first, your insight has changed a lot of my thinking. My thoughts do not include any costing, just ideas. The investment in time and money is something that I have not thought about but I am glad that I asked the question. The future of journalism on a local level lies with people like you who see information as a valuable commodity.
There is far to much guess work involved with costing and what audiences want. This will only become clearer over time and hyper local blogs can change much quicker than newspapers.
But the people who work for newspapers, in particular editors who have the most experience in understanding what is newsworthy, just need a new model to gather information and cover the costs. I thought I was the only one who could see a gap that could be filled with a new model based on content specific bespoke local advertisement.
I suppose I am being too optimistic, but where you see risk I see opportunity.
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October 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Risk and opportunity don’t exist in a vacuum. Commercial media is primarily interested in making money and leverages content and audiences to do that. They’re not primarily interested in delivering what audiences want, which is why they do it so badly. My vision of hyperlocal media is focused primarily on the needs and wants of my local audience, and no one has asked to see ads or to have to pay for content. I’m not going to risk alienating them by polluting my publication with aesthetically displeasing and irrelevent ads. I’m not doing this to make money so I have too much to lose and too little to gain. End of story.
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October 5th, 2009 at 1:12 am
It’s not the end of the story. I was wrong to think that hyper local blogging is the future of regional journalism. ‘Super local’ has better potential for collecting regional news on a sustainable model. My whole point is that ads are relevant – they have to be specific to the user. Why don’t you ask your audience what they are interested in?
Informing, representing, campaigning and interrogating. How can you cover all these points and do it as a hobby? How can you generate independent content and do it for free? And what will you future content be?
The future of consuming information will be cross-platform, do you have any plans for that?
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October 5th, 2009 at 1:44 am
I am speaking only for myself in the context of delivering information about Fitzroy. My circumstances are atypical; Fitzroy is one of the smallest suburbs in metropolitan Melbourne – you can walk it from one end to the next in 30 minutes. It’s more like what people in the US would define as a neighbourhood. It’s not a typical suburb in terms of size or culture.
I ask my audience to comment on every post. I get feedback via Facebook, Twitter and email. They tell me what they’re interested in every day. How do I generate independent content? I walk around and look at what’s happening on the streets around me. I do it for free because I enjoy it. What do you mean by cross-platform? It’s a meaningless buzzword to me. So are hyperlocal and super local, whatever. Defining your scope is all it means.
Maintaining that ads are relevant to audiences is also meaningless to me. Believe what you want; I have no interest in trying to alter your views. I’m stating a hypothesis about advertising being rubbish and annoying to audiences and am looking for evidence to prove or disprove it. You seem to be asking me a lot of things I have already explained here or elsewhere and I think I have given you enough free advice.
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October 5th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Thank you very much. The future of interactive community media will be interesting.
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