As newspapers lose readers and advertisers, local news seems to be dying a long, slow death. The debate over what to do about it took on new urgency last week, when the Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection.
Some Web entrepreneurs are starting companies to try to resuscitate local news. One of those start-ups, Outside.In, announced its latest round of funding Monday.
The Brooklyn-based start-up raised about $2 million to add to the $5.5 million it has already raised, primarily from existing investors Union Square Ventures, the New York City Investment Fund and Betaworks. Angel investors who have backed Outside.In include big Silicon Valley names such as Marc Andreessen and Esther Dyson.
Outside.In labels information from across the Web with geographical tags, categorizing it by city, neighborhood, intersection or street address. The site can then provide readers with “hyper-local” news from news outlets, blogs and even Twitter. It helps small publishers find an audience and helps big publishers find local stories. By serving up all this local content, it hopes to help advertisers target the reader on precise streets.
Outside.In can tell advertisers where a reader is and affirm that they are reading about their neighborhood. That means an ad for a bookstore that is 50 feet from the reader will be more useful for the advertiser and the reader.
“Our whole premise is that these traditional media companies need to evolve to something that’s more sustainable,” said Mark Josephson, Outside.In’s chief executive officer. “They’re getting squeezed at the top by the national news organizations, and their customers are expecting really granular, specific, local information, but you can’t put a reporter on every corner.”
The site went live in 2007 as a service that aggregated local citizen bloggers who cover topics that a town’s citizens are passionate about but that the newspaper might not have the resources to report on, such as a city library brouhaha, the high school football team or the closing of a favorite coffee shop.
Mr. Josephson, formerly an executive at the ad network service Seevast and at About.com (which is owned by The New York Times Co.), became chief executive in May. He replaced the company’s founder, Steven Johnson, who became executive chairman.
Since then, the company has unveiled new services. One of them, Radar, lets readers subscribe to news feeds about their choice of neighborhoods or cities. StoryMaps lets publishers chart their stories on a map. Outside.In has 2 million unique visitors each month and has grown from 400,000 in January. An Outside.In iPhone application will be available within a month.
Perhaps most interesting is what Outside.In can do for its big publisher partners, including NBC and McClatchy newspapers, who want to be one-stop shops for local news. Outside.In maps stories from around the Web and brings local stories to a publisher’s site.
On NBC Chicago’s Web site, for example, readers can search for stories about the Hyde Park neighborhood, and see results from NBC Chicago as well as the Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicagoist blog.
For smaller publishers, Outside.In offers a map that plots stories by location, giving readers a new way to search. On Mommy Poppins, for example, a blog about what do with kids in New York City, readers can see everything written about Park Slope in the last two weeks.
Outside.In charges publishers to use its service, but mostly depends on advertising for revenue, which is a challenging business model right now. Mr. Josephson believes that Outside.In’s local focus will help it survive the slowdown in online advertising.
“What local media companies have going for them is sales teams with longstanding relationships in these local markets,” he said. “If they only had more to sell, they could sell it.” Other sites target readers by ZIP code, but they do not know if that reader is interested in neighborhood news or reading a foreign affairs story, Mr. Josephson said.
Hand-wringing about the plight of local news has been escalating. We’ve done a lot of it here at The New York Times: Saul Hansell argued in the Bits blog that local advertisers might no longer need local newspapers to spread their message. Richard Perez-Pena wrote about non-profits that cover local news, and Maureen Dowd wrote about local newspapers outsourcing reporting to India. David Carr argued that the political scandal in Illinois proves how important it is that newspapers survive.
What do you think? How can Web sites like Outside.In help keep local news covered? Have you spotted Web sites with promising business models?
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