Allan Siegert's Page

We originally started the discussion about finding a Hyperlocal Business model in the midst of great pessimism. The real problem was that advertisers weren't convinced that such sites were worth their money.
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The piece is called "Hard Sell" and it's at onthemedia.org. Host Bob Garfield interviews professor Jeff Jarvis.

We were kind of hoping that Michael Connelly's main character in his novel The Scarecrow would start a hyperlocal site after being laid off from his newspaper job.

Sadly, that doesn't happen. Jack McEvoy spends his last two weeks at the paper solving murders (I listened to the Audible version which is great by the way) and planning to earn his living writing novels. Ironically, some of the action takes place in a colo data center that perhaps hosts some hyperlocal sites - but that aspect is not… Continue

Emily Sussman responded to our previous post (journalists thinking about revenue), "It's a little scary to me that the university where I'm getting my master's would have allowed me to graduate with a mere "magazine writing" concentration."
She raises an interesting point about the role of J-schools during the decline of newspapers and magazines. As long as there are students willing to pay, J-schools will be increasing the supply of journalists. In this market, there could be more "classically"… Continue

The RJI Talkfest with journalists confronting business reality was great.

In years past, students entered J-School with the assumption that advertising dollars would support their reporting efforts (and objected to the one required advertising course).

That model is broken.

Journalists (like the dailies and weeklies) are in big trouble.

They can work in all the new vehicles but ...

Until advertisers believe their dollars are well spent on things like web based, hyperlocal journalism sites o… Continue