WSJ looks at Washington Post’s hyperlocal efforts in Loudon County and declares them a flop, in no small part because the ballyhooed team imported to run the effort, led by ants-in-his-pants job-jumper Rob Curley, didn’t actually spend much time in . . . Loudon County (!?!)
To penetrate those communities requires a more dedicated effort than the LoudounExtra.com team was putting forth. Mr. Curley himself acknowledged he spent too much time talking to other newspaper publishers about the hyperlocal strategy and too little time introducing his team and the site to Loudoun County. . . .
Several media analysts agreed LoudounExtra.com doesn’t do enough to engage the community. Hyperlocal sites range from the fully service-oriented — filled with databases, calendars and news — to repositories for blogs, commentary, photos and video from visitors to the site.
But there were hazards involved in putting an autonomous team of outsiders in charge of new digital initiatives at a major media company. Mr. Curley says his team had been developing online tools to funnel Loudoun County-related video and photos to the site from other sites like YouTube, Facebook and Flickr, but couldn’t get approval from the Post’s legal team to launch the application. According to Mr. Brady, the legal team voiced concerns about who had legal claim to the content of those sites.
As he decamps with five colleagues to take on an Internet venture for the Las Vegas Sun, Mr. Curley acknowledges he didn’t get out into the community enough. “I was the one who was supposed to know we should be talking to Rotary Club meetings every day,” Mr. Curley said. “I dropped the ball. I won’t drop it in Vegas, dude.”
A “wanna bet, dude?” line right now would be cheap and cheesy, so Squared will pass.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Pat Thornton // Jun 5, 2008 at 10:57 am
Rob lived in Loudoun County, fyi.
I can’t comment on the rest of his team, because I don’t know, but he at least lived in that area.
2 Database Management » Blog Archive » The Post’s ‘Hyperlocal Flop’ // Jun 5, 2008 at 10:58 am
[...] amresdata.com wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe Post’s ‘Hyperlocal Flop’ June 5, 2008 at 10:19 am WSJ looks at Washington Post’s hyperlocal efforts in Loudon County and declares them a flop, in no small part because the ballyhooed team imported to run the effort, led by ants-in-his-pants job-jumper Rob Curley, didn’t actually spend much time in . . . Loudon County (!?!) To penetrate those communities requires a more dedicated effort than the LoudounExtra.com team was putting forth. Mr. Curley himself acknowledged he spent too much tim [...]
3 Kibbles ‘n Bits | Links for Today // Jun 5, 2008 at 11:15 am
[...] Contact ← The Post’s ‘Hyperlocal Flop’ [...]
4 Teaching Online Journalism » A real need for local news, “hyper” or not // Jun 6, 2008 at 8:33 am
[...] stories. Local news is too mundane for their snooty tastes. I think this is reflected in The Wall Street Journal’s assessment of LoudounExtra.com — a local site without any local buy-in. This was always true of The Washington Post’s [...]
5 MC // Jun 6, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Rob did not live in Loudoun, he lived over the border in Fairfax (Herndon/Oak Hill).
6 Websites tagged "hyperlocal" on Postsaver // Mar 15, 2009 at 9:47 pm
[...] – links for 2008-10-07 saved by llemaster2009-03-08 – The Post’s ‘Hyperlocal Flop’ saved by archivaltv2009-02-24 – Links of Local Interest, Vol. Three B saved by millanpl2009-02-22 – [...]
Leave a Comment