Yearly Archives: 2007
CitySquares lands $1M; Version 2.0 imminent
Peter Krasilovsky reports about CitySquares‘ latest developments…
neighborhood-centric directory of local businesses has got about $1 million in venture funding; almost 400 advertisers paying roughly $600 a year, mostly for “deluxe” business profiles; and an 88 percent renewal rate.
They seem to be getting some traction, and they’re going places…
In mid-October, CitySquares is going to re-launch using new neighborhood slicing-and-dicing capabilities from Urban Mapping and Localeze, all based on an open-source Drupal platform. The site is also confidently planning to expand beyond Boston, with another northeast city set for Q2 2008, and a third one for Q3.
Co-Founder Ben Saren says the site’s re-do reflects a key truism: hyperlocal is about neighborhoods, but the reality is that neighborhoods are often “in-between” other neighborhoods. The new version of the site is going to present searchers with the five closest neighborhoods, as well as proximity options. “They can be five miles or ten blocks,” he says. That’s the Localeze part of it.
They’ll also identify neighborhoods within neighborhoods, such as Observatory Hill, which is a section of Cambridge. That’s the Urban Mapping part of it. The ability to sell across neighborhoods will help sell ads for the many small businesses “in between.”
American Machine – Must See
Front Porch Forum is about people connecting with their neighbors and getting involved in their neighborhoods. That involvement ranges from organizing a blow-out block party, to watering the next door neighbor’s plants when she’s away, to just becoming aware of a spate of bicycle thefts on the street. All that tuning in adds up to a heightened sense of community within the neighborhood… a simple and powerful thing.
Which brings me to American Machine, the new play created by local artist Jim Lantz. Jim has done a rare thing… he’s written, produced, and directed this show on his own… with a great team of people around him, but not housed within some larger organization. He’s taken the creative, career AND financial risks.
In doing this, he’s offering all folks local to the Burlington area a chance to tune in and get involved in local arts and national political discourse.
It’s simple, if you want to live in a place that has this kind of creative economy coursing through it, then you need to turn out, buy tickets, and take in the play. The show is clearly an artistic success. Now it’s up to local residents to make it a financial success by filling the seats. Get tickets here (show runs through Oct. 7, 2007).
To the play… my wife and I attended tonight’s performance with friends. While Front Porch Forum is a sponsor of the play and American Machine advertised in FPF, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought it might be lean toward a heavy-handed political piece… not at all.
Simply, I was enthralled. The production grabbed my attention and kept it the whole show. The six characters, their stories and their relationships all rang true, even when the drama flared. I know I’ll be thinking of the characters for some time, wondering what comes next for them. And the political message struck me as timeless, not about policy minutia.
I look forward to discussing the play with neighbors out on the sidewalk in the coming days… lots to mull over.
One last idea for locals… post a message about American Machine on your FPF neighborhood forum… help spread the word and build local community! Here are some details.
Online Coupons?
Front Porch Forum has a new modest advertising platform for local businesses. The response is exceeding expectations. Our ad inventory is sold out for the next several weeks and the response from our members to the sponsor messages has been strong. Color me cautiously optimistic.
Also, we’ve seen some advertisers offer discounts to Front Porch Forum members and others are considering some kind of coupon option. So today’s posting by Greg Sterling is of interest…
Even though online coupons have been around for years, there’s really still no leader in the segment — quite mysteriously. Also the overwhelming majority of coupons are still clipped from physical newspapers and direct mail envelopes, such as ValPak’s blue envelope. But one gets the sense that the stars have finally aligned and online (and later some version of mobile) coupons will start to take off.
To that end, I previously forecast that the total face value of online coupons will be just over $16 billion in 2010 and the redeemed value of those coupons will be about $2.4 billion. (That may be too aggressive, but we’ll see; it depends on distribution and consumer awareness.)
And he goes on to write about AskCity’s efforts in this area.
Future of Local Online Advertising: Rosy
“All advertising is local”… Borrell did a study that showed in 2005, U.S. Local Advertising spending (YP, Newspapers, billboards, etc.) was approximately $140 billion (offline and online combined). 70% of that spend was done by truly local businesses, the rest was done by national advertisers targeting local markets. Total online advertising in 2005 (national and local combined) was about $4 billion… there is an enormous amount of potential growth for local online advertising as the offline spend of local and national businesses continues to migrate online.
National retailers increasingly understand the importance of driving Internet consumers to physical storefronts, as offline purchases still far outweigh online purchases. In fact, Yahoo recently reported that 92% of conversions occur in the offline environment.
Given this consumer behavior, as the local online advertising industry grows, national merchants will be targeting a larger percentage of their advertising budget to address the local consumer by utilizing geo-targeted ads, driving consumers to local storefronts and offering great deals on their Web sites. Local advertisers, of course, will be doing the same thing. This means that both national merchants and local merchants are very important drivers of the local advertising ecosystem, and both will be competing for the clicks, calls and wallets of local online consumers as this industry continues to expand.
Local Online Start-Up Funding and a Prize Winner
A couple interesting posts by Peter Krasilovsky today. First, funding levels for several start-ups with a local focus…
Belated congratulations to our friend Sebastien Provencher and his Praized Media team for getting $1 million from Garage Ventures Technology Canada… you can do a lot with $1 million. You can hire key staff, pay salaries, build software, do some PR, travel (and hire consulting firms). In fact, a number of firms have recently landed deals for $1 million or so….like Outside.in ($900k) and City Voter ($1.1 million). Boston’s City Squares is also apparently funded at this level. And if you haven’t been on the site lately, it is building nicely.
A couple of years ago, the “must have” amount for a startup was more like $3 million. Smalltown, Backfence and others got the larger amount (or said they did). I never could figure out what they needed that much for.
And a story about a local citizen journalism site succeeding in New Hampshire…
At first, there was no news coverage for the 15,000 residents of a central coastal New Hampshire area including the little villages of Deerfield, Candia, Northwoods and Nottingham. Manchester’s Union Leader, a family-owned paper that is fairly notorious for its politically-charged, NH primary coverage every four years, basically ignored the area.
But then three years ago, the residents started their own news site and called it The Forum. Today, the site, a recipient of the 2007 Knight Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism has 240 contributors, sells ads to local businesses, and even publishes an occasional print edition on special occasions… the site has an 1.6 “reporters” for every 100 residents.
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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