Local Onliner

BackFence, the Washington D.C. – area social network that strives to blend the best of community journalism with Yellow Pages and classifieds, is reaching across the continent to launch BackFence San Francisco. Rather than starting from scratch, it is taking over Bayosphere, a site started by “We The Media” author Dan Gilmoor and Microsoft Sidewalk founder Michael Goff. To buy the site, BackFence will apparently use a small portion of the $3 million it recently raised.

Bayosphere had been initially funded by Lotus Notes founder Mitch Kapor and The Omidyar Network, but ran out of money a few months ago. On his blog, Gilmoor expressed relief at BackFence’s takeover, and promised to stay involved, even though BackFence is more focused on hyperlocal news and content than the Silicon Valley tech community that has been his forte as a tech columnist for The San Jose Mercury News. Goff, a Los Angeles resident, won’t be contributing to the new site.

What they hand over is a site with 10,000 regular visitors; occasional or fewer visits from 90,000 others; and a legion of fans who will probably follow Gilmoor’s activities whatever he does. Even as the conversation shifts more heavily to traffic and PTA meetings, one imagines they’ll be much more involved than BackFence’s current users in Washington.

Talking with BackFence

BackFence President Susan DeFife talked to The Local Onliner about the Bayosphere acquisition and BackFence’s overall status. Like many people in the local online community, I tend to root for BackFence to succeed because of the insight and passion of DeFife and her co-founder, Mark Potts, who I’ve been friendly with for many years. The sites are seamless, the layout is easy to grasp, and the sites are well produced.

But the sites don’t have very much advertising, there haven’t really been any blockbuster “conversations,” and there are few comments on most of the posts. In fact, few posts have more than five comments, and most don’t have any. Does BackFence’s arrival worry WashingtonPost.com? Not at all, it claims (although WashingtonPost.com did recently upgrade its City Guide).

Is it just that my former hometown of Washington is so full of stuffed shirts? Will ultra-wired San Francisco better prove the concept? Even if BackFence succeeds in San Francisco and Washington, are they anomaly markets, or will there be trickle down?

To DeFife, the watchword is “patience.” She says, vaguely, that the Washington sites have been steadily building an audience and advertisers, and are beating expectations. “It takes time.”

Nevertheless, growth in San Francisco should be dramatically faster since it is the ultimate early adopter market. But it is also an intensely more competitive market for user generated content, with locally- based sites such as Craig’s List, Yelp, SF Gate and Local2Me essentially vying for the same audience.

DeFife, however, notes that she’s totally reassured that the BackFence model really works. For instance, she attributes the heavier use of its hyperlocal Yellow Pages — the second most popular feature after news — to the sites’ media-like values.

“We’ve seen that users don’t come back on other Yellow Pages sites. We are convinced that we add a lot of value.” On BackFence, enhanced Yellow Pages currently cost $120 per year, and together with business classifieds, account for 20 percent of the company’s revenues. Display ads make up the remaining 80 percent.

As to whether San Francisco and DC are “anomaly” markets, DeFife concedes they have factors that could make them different than others. Proctor & Gamble won’t be trying out any new shampoo in either market, that’s for sure. But BackFence is aiming to serve every kind of community, and certain local conversations are common to all. In any case, she says we should expect to see launch announcements in the near future about smaller, less-wired markets.