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There is no local news problem. Local news exists to sell advertising...and there's hundreds and hundreds of companies attacking that space.
by brandnewlow 14y ago
There is no local news problem. Local news exists to sell advertising...and there's hundreds and hundreds of companies attacking that space.
- _delirium 14y agoThere is some demand for local news on the part of readers, though, which is what causes these papers to survive (and be able to sell ads). The newspapers aren't really producing the highest-quality output, but they retain some readership, because some number of people want to read about what happened in their 80,000-person town's city council meeting yesterday, what the sirens around 3rd and Main were all about, etc., etc. I haven't yet seen a startup tackle that aspect, of producing some kind of local information source that people will want to read. It's at least a demand-side problem, in that a lot of people want that information, and current information providers are producing a fairly low-quality version of it. Whether it's monetizable, I suppose, is another story.
- brandnewlow 14y agoMy anecdotal and experiential evidence says that while there are people who want that information, it's a pretty small number so you can't exactly make money directly from them. And the people who look at that info have zero intent to spend money, so advertisers have zero interest in appearing alongside it.