Local News and Real Estate
The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal will find a way to survive, but it’s no secret local news has had a rough ride over the past two decades. Newspapers aren’t what they used to be. Some even say they are dead.
There have been a number of startups try to bridge the local news gap, largely to no avail. Outside.in and Patch got the closest. Blockfeed in NYC is the one I wrote about most recently. Turns out, making money from hyper local news is pretty damn hard — since no one is intent on purchasing anything. (making money from ANY type of news is hard, for that matter).
Real estate has a business model that could support some degree of local journalism — and a vested interest in getting in front of home owners.
We know hyper local can work in attracting audience (see West Seattle Blog). We also know it takes months/years to see the fruits of your investment.
The long game.
Why more in the real estate community aren’t playing is something I still struggle to understand.
PS: If you’re interested in following the future of local news, consider signing up for Local Edition, a newsletter by Kristen Hare.
Todd Carpenter
Posted at 15:31h, 16 FebruaryThis was pretty much the center of the strategy I presented to NAR in 2009 when interviewing for the social media job. We evangelized social media adoption to the membership in hopes they would naturally fill the holes being vacated by local press. It’s actually worked pretty well. It’s just not that noticeable because the members are writing or contributing heavily to the old school media outlets instead of trying to be their own news source.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 15:40h, 16 FebruaryWould you be able/willing to write a post here telling that story with examples?
SpanTower
Posted at 03:02h, 16 MarchGreat post.. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. really interesting to read. and easily understandable too.