Hyperlocal Boston
Posted on 16. Oct, 2009 by Jeff Jarvis in Hyperlocal
Now that The New York Times Company has decided not to sell the Boston Globe, DailyDeal.com wonders whether the company should convert Boston to a hyperlocal-based business.
Well, our Knight Foundation-funded New Business Models for News can be a roadmap. Indeed, the 5-million-person hypothetical market we worked on looks an awful lot like Boston (because, truth be told, it is Boston).
We suggest that a new news organization working collaboratively with a large base of independent sites and companies can establish itself at low cost and risk because much of the news is produced by people other than employees. The company would be much smaller but it would be profitable, potentially at impressive margins. Getting smaller would be painful, of course, but if the Globe doesn’t do it, some kid in a Harvard dorm room could.
Michael Morisy
28. Oct, 2009
Just saw this post, but I was at a meeting the other day when I suspected that the “hypothetical” city was actually Boston … the demographics fit just too perfectly!
I’d love for a non-profit like Spare Change News to seize this opportunity, but Universal Hub seems to be on the right road itself, if it can pull all the pieces together elegantly.
The Globe on the other hand …