Monthly Archives: August 2008
Media Literacy Education
I’m looking forward to speaking about our experience growing Front Porch Forum at this upcoming event…
GROWING UP DIGITAL: Kids, Commercialism & New Media Culture
Organized by: Action Coalition for Media Education – Vermont Chapter
Sept. 26, 2008 in Burlington, VT
Online advertising status
Lots and lots written about online advertising dollars. Bottom line… it (online ad spend) is big and it’s growing. Although, it’s not likely to grow as fast as some predictions previously suggested.
Web success is slow coming
Seth Godin’s recent post rings true to our experience with Front Porch Forum to date…
The irony of the web is that the tactics work really quickly… But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.
… If you stick at stuff that bores them, it accrues. Drip, drip, drip you win.
It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web.
The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that’s how long it’s going to take, guys.
In fact, I’ve often referred to FPF as the “tortoise” compared to lots of “hares” covered in the dot.com press.
Place Blog Data from New York Times
Bob Tedeschi wrote in the New York Times (Aug. 10, 2008) about local news blogs and included some interesting data…
Baristanet.com [Montclair, N.J., and surrounding towns]:
- Posts about five or six videos, articles or photos every weekday.
- Debuted in early 2004 and now attracts 18,000 readers on peak days… and more than 82,000 monthly readers, or roughly twice the population of Montclair, and about three times the number of readers it had early last year.
- The site has a full-time editor, Annette Batson, a full-time designer, and four part-time workers, [and] now consistently generates more than $10,000 in monthly profits.
Red Bank Green (www.redbankgreen.com) [Newark, NJ], started in 2006… attracts about 45,000 readers a month.
Hoboken411.com [Hoboken, NJ]… attracts more than 250,000 monthly visitors… readers click on “several million” pages monthly on his blog, founded in 2006, and have added more than 100,000 comments.
WestportNow.com [Westport, CT] started in 2003, has more than 40,000 monthly readers.
NewHavenIndependent.com [New Haven, CT], begun in 2005… has three full-time reporters and one part-time reporter, all paid for by $185,000 in grants, corporate sponsorships and private donations.
The Loop (GetInLoop.com) [Long Island, NY], a new hyperlocal site started last year… attracts more than 10,000 monthly visitors.
Launched in 2006, Front Porch Forum is a different model, but shares some things in common with these efforts. Our 10,000 subscribing households are local to our pilot area (greater Burlington, VT) and are about 20% of total households. These good folks supply nearly all of the writing (FPF employs no writers) and partake of our service every other day on average.
Community and Engagement… MeetUp and more
Scott Heiferman of MeetUp.com writes today…
I’ve come to realize that the uphill battle Meetup faces isn’t just getting people away from the screen to go offline & face strangers — nor even having them embrace community or realize the power of self-organized groups. Perhaps the biggest challenge is getting people to see the value in institution, in organization, in structure… a “Meetup Everywhere about Most Everything” means there’s a grounded community organization in-place when you need it. When your social network can’t do what you need. The social graph is great for a lot of things (eg. relationships & help & events), but there’s a need for Organizations. Just-in-time organization is flimsy. It’s not there when you need it. Relationships aren’t in-place. Infrastructure isn’t there. Commitments are weak. Engagement begets durability — structure & relationships that weathers storms.
Based on our growing experience operating Front Porch Forum, I think he’s on to something. People increasingly see FPF as part of the infrastructure around our pilot area. And often the initially weak social connections that happen through FPF grow strong over time because they are made with clearly identified nearby neighbors.
And some folks want FPF to be more than it is… to become an “institution” as Scott describes above. But it’s not that (yet)… FPF is best at introducing people and catalyzing connection and community among neighbors. But they still need the bowling leagues, neighborhood associations, churches, scout troops, schools, etc., to be there over the long haul.
Ad spend data from Palore
Mike Boland writes today about a nugget of data released by Palore…
This set shows the monthly ad spends from a sample of 6000 advertisers in San Francisco and New York within the Yellow Pages headings of beauty & fitness, landscapers, photographers and limousine services.
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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