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Patch didn't fail at monetizing local news, it failed at achieving profit margins. Patch had significant revenue coming in, it just had more money going out tha
by yummyfajitas 12y ago
Patch didn't fail at monetizing local news, it failed at achieving profit margins. Patch had significant revenue coming in, it just had more money going out than in.
Revenue numbers were leaked at some point: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/18/inside-patchs-leaked-revenue-numbers-and-its-hunt-for-profitability/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/18/inside-patchs-leaked-revenu...
The core problem is this. If 1 reporter writes "Top 6 reasons why kittens are cute - number 5 will SHOCK YOU", the potential audience is millions. You can scale your content as needed, and readers / writer is potentially unlimited.
If 1 reporter writes "Bishop School closed due to heavy rains", the potential audience is merely the students and parents of Bishop School. Your potential audience is thousands - you simply can't scale past this except in special cases (e.g., Boston bombings, school shootings, hurricanes).
tl;dr; For local news, readers / writer is simply too low and your margins suck.
(Disclaimer: I worked for Patch. However, this post is based on no inside knowledge - I know little more than what techcrunch leaked.)
- mtbcoder 12y ago> If 1 reporter writes "Top 6 reasons why kittens are cute - number 5 will SHOCK YOU", the potential audience is millions. You can scale your content as needed, and readers / writer is potentially unlimited. Even in this scenario you still need a tremendous amount of domain authority and/or a Herculean marketing effort to achieve any kind of traction in terms of traffic.
- yummyfajitas 12y agoMy point is that no amount of domain authority/marketing/etc will drive much traffic to "Construction causes traffic delays on Nagar Road". Even if everyone who commutes on that road reads your article, ad revenue - cost of reporter is probably negative.