MerchantCircle is joining the ranks of companies creating local and vertical content, including Demand Media, Associated Content, Examiner.com, AOL’s Seed and Patch, Perfect Market, Helium, Brafton Media and others. MC’s new Local Content Studio is being helmed by Andy Halliday, who many of us remember as former head of eCommerce at Excite@Home, who has since [...]
Category Archives: HyperLocal
Gannett in Big Push for Online High School Sports
August 19, 2010 – 11:38 pm
High school sports have been the centerpiece of many hyperlocal efforts. They bring to the table highly passionate fans, families and players in the hard-to-reach 12-17 year-old demo.
But the economics of school-by-school efforts don’t always work, whether for branding; region-wide advertisers and advertising sales; production needs; data and content acquisition; or site infrastructure. Just [...]
AOL’s Patch Gives a Progress Report; The Implications for Hyperlocal
August 18, 2010 – 12:23 am
AOL’s Patch gave a progress report today on its $50 million hyperlocal initiative. The site said it now has 100 hyperlocal sites, and will launch 400 more over the next six months. It also said it plans to hire at least one journalist in each community, adding 500 new journalists as part of its growth. [...]
GroupTabs: Check-ins = Group Buying
August 13, 2010 – 7:16 pm
Some people (like me) don’t like games. Game mechanics-driven “check in” media like FourSquare, GoWalla, Loopt and BrightKite mostly leaves them cold.
But what if check-ins triggered group buying discounts? That’s the concept behind GroupTabs, a new service launching in New York City next week. The idea is that offers could be floated on smart phones [...]
Allbritton’s TBD.com (and TBD TV) Launch in DC
August 10, 2010 – 1:12 am
The latest attempt to make hyperlocal a sustainable reality came today with Allbritton Communications’ launch of TBD.com, a hyper metro site for the Washington DC area. Allbritton, which has sunk “under $5 million” into the project to date, hopes it will grab hold of the DC audience in the same way that its [...]
Sacramento Emerges as ‘Ground Zero’ for Blogger Networks
August 2, 2010 – 7:23 pm
The Sacramento area is fast becoming Ground Zero for local blog networks. McClatchy’s Sacramento Connect, a project carved from The Sacramento Bee, is a content connector for 70+ area blogs and websites. It first started incubating last summer, and was fully in place by March.
Connect, which is sub-titled “best of the local Web,” can [...]
Kudzu, HGTV Form Broad TV, Online Partnership
July 27, 2010 – 4:28 pm
Scripps’ HGTV Network, which reaches 99 million U.S. households on air, and five million unique visitors per month online, announced today that it is partnering with Cox’s Kudzu in a broad agreement with many moving parts.
The deal will provide HGTV’s on-air and online viewers with Kudzu’s local directory and social media information on home repairs [...]
