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Traditional media moving to online hyperlocal content sites

By Patrick Kitano, Friday, April 13, 2007.

News organizations are finally executing on the anticipated switch from newsprint to online journalism. Earlier this week, Media General announced that the Tampa Tribune would cut 70 staff jobs to launch at least 15 hyperlocal sites  under the Tampa Bay Online ("TBO") umbrella. The GM of TBO states:

“Basically, we’re turning all of our zone/weekly reporters into online producers, so that they think online first and print second"

Here's the rationale behind this new media move:

"In essence, hyperlocal sites are the online version of zoned editions, designed with the theory that people care more about “their” news than that of the entire area. Zoning in print is usually costly and doesn’t always pay off; some of the grandest zoning efforts are being dismantled or retooled for those very reasons. Hyperlocal sites stand a greater chance of success because they are much less expensive to produce and can be even more local than print editions."

With traditional media jumping headlong into publishing hyperlocal content online, will this compete with and cannibalize the new hyperlocal sites like Street Advisor,  MyCurrency and the newly launched Your Street that are geared to facilitating real estate analysis and transactions? Yesterday, Greg at Bloodhound encouraged real estate agents to develop their blogs hyperlocally by recruiting writers and others within their own immediate community to participate in the blog. We're moving very quickly into a new content paradigm that will explode with local content.

At Transparent today, I discuss what the new real estate focused hyperlocal sites need to do in order to be effective in 1) attracting and maintaining consumer readers, 2) generating leads for the real estate agent, and 3) encouraging the interaction between the consumer and agent readers that will drive traffic.

--Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

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