Brad Flora, one of this year's Knight News Challenge winners, outline five principal reasons why local blogs fail. Their mistakes seem common enough that there ought to be remedies, but Flora notes in his post for PBS' MediaShift they're committed time and again.

His picks:

1. People too often work alone instead of seeking collaboration and confidants.
2. Bloggers don't know their markets and their technical capabilities.
3. Their content is, well, too weak to make an impression.
4. They haven't figured out their business models.
5. They are lacking a distribution strategy.

Flora elaborates: People make the mistake by assuming they're starting a blog. No, he says, you're starting a small business.