What's going to happen when the Richmond Times Dispatch, Washington Post, etc. go away? Will we all be stuck with the "fires/murders/car crashes/storms/sports" local TV idiot "news?" Or, will something spring up to take the place of the newspaper? Maybe something like blogs? Or how about
this?
A number of Web start-up companies are creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists.
The sites, like EveryBlock, Outside.in, Placeblogger and Patch, collect links to articles and blogs and often supplement them with data from local governments and other sources. They might let a visitor know about an arrest a block away, the sale of a home down the street and reviews of nearby restaurants.
Call me skeptical but intrigued by this model. Here's one possible problem right off the bat:
One hurdle is the need for reliable, quality content. The information on many of these sites can still appear woefully incomplete. Crime reports on EveryBlock, for example, are short on details of what happened. Links to professionally written news articles on Outside.in are mixed with trivial and sometimes irrelevant blog posts.
In addition, what about the fact that there's no business model for blogs outside those in the "short head" statistical distribution (a few blogs like Daily Kos that get enormous traffic)? Will people provide high-quality (or even medium-quality) content for free, indefinitely? Will they be compensated in some way by the new "newspapers?" It will be interesting to watch, but one thing's for sure; with the ongoing collapse of the "traditional" news media business model, combined with the continued demand by people for news, it's inevitable that something's going to spring up to fill that niche. The only real question is, what exactly will it be?
