Monthly Archives: October 2007
Topix Local Forums Pass Milestone
Newspaper-owned Topix.com reported today that their…
number of daily, active(1) local forums on its site now exceeds the total number of daily newspapers(2) in the United States for the first time. Topix local forums were first launched in December 2005 as part of the Topix’s broader user-generated forum functionality. Since that time, Topix local forums have grown at a rapid pace, reflecting Topix’s ability to meet pent-up demand for local news and to successfully generate local engagement and online participation.
Ranked a top 20 news site(3) since June 2007, Topix draws more than 12 million unique visitors every month and 70,000 forum posts per day. Topix local forums, which span all 32,500 U.S. zip codes, give local residents, especially those located in rural areas that are underserved by major media outlets, an opportunity to discuss and share the news that matters to them. Beyond daily local forum activity, Topix has generated user activity across 20,000 local forums with 16 million forum posts and 3 million users across the site.
(1) “Active” defines user forums with at least one post per day
(2) 1,437 Editor & Publisher (http://web.naa.org/thesource/14.asp )
(3) ComScore, -June, 2007
So… 32,000 or so local forums? And 1,500 of them have at least one post/day? About 5% of them are active? Do most of those 70,000 posts/day fit into the 1,500 active local forums… 40-50 posts/local forum/day?
About 30 of Front Porch Forum‘s 130 neighborhood forums have at least one posting/day… that’s in metro Burlington, VT, population 150,000. Our average neighborhood forum averages one posting every two days.
Where2GetIt getting it right?
Greg Sterling writes today…
Where2GetIt has been around for a decade and is impressively self funded (VCs take note). Based in Southern California it’s a company that more people in the local space should know about. However the company has been relatively quiet about what it’s doing and where it’s going.
Where2GetIt started as a dealer locator service for retailers and manufacturers, hosting maps and directions that appear on their those third-party sites. But in the process of building out its services over time the company has developed a rich database of product inventory information in addition to business locations. In other words, it has a tremendously valuable body of information about where consumers can find products today in local stores. Among its customers are a host of “marquee” brands such as Office Depot…
But what caught my attention was Greg’s closing…
One of the other interesting things about this company is that it has built a business rather than the appearance of a business for the purpose of an acquisition, which is characteristic of so many “Web 2.0” companies of late.
Sounds good to me.
Smalltown buys Local2Me
Smalltown announced today that it just bought Local2Me. Here are some of the reports about it…
As I’ve written in the past, I admire Smalltown’s narrow and deep focus on their initial five California towns. Local2Me is in the same geographic area as Smalltown. From Local2Me founder Michael Olivier…
The Local2Me service launched in 2000, and over the last seven years community members have posted over 31,000 neighborhood messages in 90 towns about wide-ranging topics, from great pediatric dentists to Halloween costumes for sale, trustworthy appliance repair, neighborhood crime issues, anti-raccoon measures, and more!
Each of these services has some similarities to Front Porch Forum. Although it’s probably more apples to oranges than anything, FPF had about 15,000 messages in its first year operating in one small metro area (including 19 towns).
Good time to go into sales?
Michael Taylor writes about “local online” start ups with lofty advertising sales ambitions…
In a recent post on Venturebeat.com, Dan Kaplan reveals ReachLocal is aiming to dramatically increase the size of its online sales force. “Local search marketing company ReachLocal will use its massive $55.2 million infusion to build a gigantic sales force that it hopes will dislodge the Yellow Pages as the de-facto place local businesses spend their promotional dollars.” Kaplan makes a good points on the grand goal set out by ReachLocal “To add some perspective, ReachLocal has around 300 salespeople; the global Yellow Page market employs more than 41,000 in sales alone. Zorik Gordon, ReachLocal’s chief executive, doesn’t balk at that figure, and suggests that a sales force of 10,000 or more might be in the cards. This is an unprecedented goal for an Internet-focused company, and a risky one. It comes at a time when the market for talented salespeople is extremely tight.”
“Neighborhoods Online” gets a Look by MediaPost
Kathleen Burge writes in OMMA this week about several neighborhood-level online efforts. She includes FatDoor, BackFence, eNeighbors, MeetTheNeighbors, and Front Porch Forum. The conclusion… full of potential, but two big problems… (1) generating sufficient revenue, and (2) scaling and adjusting the formula that works in San Francisco so that it plays in Peoria. Worth a read.
Get the ZipSkinny
ZipSkinny is worth a look. This beta site compares census 2000 data by zip code… very interesting.
$1.5M more invested in Outside.in
Greg Sterling highlights today that Outside.in recently received another round of investment: $1.5 million.
The company is trying to scale “hyper-local” and has improved the look and functioning of the site since its launch. As founder Steven Berlin Johnson told MediaPost:
“The development of our partner program and targeted regional and national advertising will be two major initiatives for the coming year,” said Outside.in co-founder Steven Berlin Johnson. “We’ve spent our first year building out a state-of-the-art platform for organizing the Web geographically, and now we’ve got a fantastic opportunity to build a business on top of that platform.”
Smalltown is also in this category, although taking a more incremental approach to building out its sites. The challenge of course is direct advertiser acquisition. Backfence (now gone), Judy’s Book (now evolved) and InsiderPages (now acquired) have all faltered along this path to monetization. Yelp has had success in certain markets doing direct sales because of its brand recognition and consumer traffic.
Most Trusted Source? The Envelope Please…
Greg Sterling summarizes recent studies that ask about the most trust source of information…
Front Porch Forum deals with lots of word-of-mouth. I differentiate between word-of-mouth from anonymous strangers (most review sites) and word-of-mouth from a clearly identified person with whom you have a connection. With FPF, the recommendations come from clearly identified nearby neighbors.
And from the eMarketer Newsletter…
About Blog
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more
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