In Journal-Register’s Brady: Local Advertisers Have a Tech Gap | Street Fight., Jim Brady recently has moved to the Journal Register Company, a local newspaper group in the US which is moving aggressively to remake its business. Brady gives a lot of great ideas on the future of local journalism. He talks about mobile and how location can be used to deliver information. He also weighs in on local paid content, and I think he makes a valuable point that the customer base is so small that it might not be economically worthwhile, especially when you factor in marketing (acquisition) costs.
hyperlocal
Since I started geo-tagging content during my trip across the US for the 2008 elections, I’ve been interested in the possibilities of location-based services and news. Location is one way to deliver timely, relevant content to audiences. Smart news organisations such as TBD.com in Washington DC in the US are already leveraging geo-tagging to deliver their content, and now Examiner.com has struck a deal with Foursquare in 288 cities. MocoNews.net, part of the paidContent network, is reporting that:
In essence, Examiner’s 68,000 contributors, known as “Examiners,” will provide reviews and recommendations on nearby venues, restaurants, events, businesses and landmarks that will surface within the Foursquare mobile app when users following Examiner.com check in.
This is one of the opportunities that news organisations must not miss. Location allows for better delivery and discovery of content by readers, but it can also deliver new revenue streams to support journalism.
Kevin: In a move that echoes the FutuRoom in Prague and its network of news cafés across the Czech Republic, "Freehold InJersey, a community news blog run by the Asbury Park Press and Gannett, has launched a coffeeshop newsroom in conjunction with Zebu Forno Cafe in Freehold, New Jersey". "We hope that having a 'newsroom' in the center of town will encourage folks to drop by, talk to me and the other writers, and participate in a community conversation," said Colleen Curry, the editor of the website and creator of the partnership. It's smart, but the thing that sets the FutuRoom's cafés apart is that they also derive revenue from the cafés so that what was previously a cost centre, a newsroom, becomes a revenue stream.
