14 Aug 2009
The future of hyperlocal — according to the people who have studied, lived, and championed it — seems to be in convincing others that hyperlocal is the future. “Someday soon, somebody will make [hyperlocal] work and turn it into a successful business,” wrote hyperlocal pioneer Mark Potts after his company Backfence folded in 2007. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that the power and potential of local communities still is waiting to be tapped.” And so it remains.
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Can Anyone Actually Tap the $100 Billion Potential of Hyperlocal News? | Fast Company
Scale is of course the tricky part. But I wonder if it’s not, as this article says, the content that’s objectionable to advertisers — the police blotter, for example — but rather that there’s no scalable way for advertisers to buy hyperlocal advertising of this type, i.e. not through an ad network.
