Fast Company delivers a sobering piece on the economic promise and delivery of hyperlocal news --- the term for information about your street, district and community at a very granular level.

It is, as Fast Company suggests, a $100-billion potential in the United States. But the consumer demand isn't being met by sites, and sites aren't meeting the demands of advertisers. The result is the absence of a business model.

What Fast Company concludes is that the idea itself is excellent. It just needs to marry its potential audience with its potential revenue, and that may be some time away.
 


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Mark Briggs link
08/12/2009 16:40

Potential, potential, potential. That word has surrounded location, location, location (with regard to news and advertising) for a long time.

The apparent consensus is that there is an opportunity here, which I wholeheartedly agree with. The trick is satisfying readers with enough relevant content that makes the pool large enough for advertisers to want to jump in.

Media companies have wasted their opportunity in this space for 15 years by keeping content and revenue strategies separated. That's why start-up companies or a non-journalistic publisher like AOL see this as a winnable market today.

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