| Project Blog: Women’s Community News Franchise |
Project ReportThursday, January 14, 2010 Former MytopiaCafe.com editor Dr. Michelle Ferrier, one of three winners in the New Media Women Entrepreneurs awards, has been working to develop a complete infrastructure, to be franchised, for those individuals or groups want to launch hyper-local news sites. Ferrier is an associate professor at Elon University in North Carolina and teaches in the iMedia graduate program. She reports that she’s had a busy time in the projects first three months. Ferrier established a business structure as a limited liability partnership called Creative Technologists, LLC based in Greensboro, North Carolina and interviewed and/or visited six potential technology partners for the development of the content management system for the community sites. Ferrier then researched and received quotes on several different companion print products. As part of the learning process, she made contact with competing companies and products being offered in the hyper-local space to see what they were offering. And then she created nondisclosure and teaming agreements with Creative Circle Advertising Solutions of Providence, Rhode Island. These negotiations included a licensing agreement for use of their CommunityQ content management system and an exclusive nationwide right to sell the platform to potential hyper-local news operators. Then she created nondisclosure and teaming agreements with Inner Eye Studios of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Inner Eye Studios will be Ferrier’s technology partner in the development of the mobile application and other ancillary technologies to the content management system platform. She established a project blog at http://www.digitalcontentarchitects.com that details the project development along with informational content of use to hyperlocal developers. She wrote a series of blogs on the pros/cons of content management systems resulting in significant buzz and viewership that extended to the Reynolds Journalism Institute Collaboratory site and Journalism That Matters Collaboratory, two potential audiences for the franchise project content and services. Finally, she found a physical location for the business in the Wagon Works Digital Media Incubator, developed by Inner Eye Studios in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “The principals of the incubator will help establish the technological supports for the franchise project and provide marketing and business support for the development of the franchise business,” said Ferrier. “They will also assist in the development of a pitch package for local venture capital firms. “By December 30, 2009, I intend to begin the design and development of the content management system front-end and back-end systems. In addition, a design for the mobile application system will be developed in conjunction with the above partners.” For all the good things that have happened, Ferrier says that she has experienced a significant setback. Foreclosures, as well as business closures, in the West Volusia, Florida area have had a direct effect on the advertising and readership of a potential hyper-local publication that Ferrier had planned to help launch in the area. Due to the economic downturn, Ferrier and the content partner that she works with in the area both felt that the problems with starting a new enterprise in the area would serious compromise its chances of being successful. “Due to this loss, I have been assessing other locations for the viability of the hyper-local concept,” says Ferrier. “I’m going to use an online contest to solicit interested hyper-local operators, and to develop a prospect list for potential clients. The contest will held in January 2010, with the winner of will begin development of their local site by March 2010.” Ferrier plans to attend the Journalism That Matters regional event in Seattle, Washington on January 7-10, 2010. She’ll distribute promotional materials for the contest and the Women’s Community News Franchise effort. And she plans to attend the Journalism That Matters conference in Detroit June 4-7, 2010, where she will be one of the principal organizers. “This ‘mashup’ conference is designed to stimulate and incubate innovative journalism ventures,” says Ferrier.” I intend to cultivate additional contacts for content, technology and distribution.” Ferrier also plans to continue to explore a variety of funding sources such as foundation, venture and personal, to sustain the franchise development in subsequent years. The development of a venture capital package is on the drawing board. The next three months will see more work to build the hyper-local “toolbox,” including the design and development of the content management system/mobile application and contest/marketing materials for the franchise idea. Ferrier will also launch a proof of concept site and select a partner for the site. • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 01/14 at 02:11 PM
(0) Comments Reflections on Slow News Movement at JTM-PNWSunday, January 10, 2010 After several days at the Journalism that Matters -Pacific Northwest gathering, we’ve been asked to reflect on what ah-ha moments, actions and emotions we’ve developed during our time. One of the most intriguing ideas to come out of the JTM session I hosted on Locally Grown News was the idea of slow news. The first ah-ha moment for me came when I looked at what was happening nationally and the movement toward producing fewer papers—going from a daily metro newspaper to perhaps three or four times a week publication. While this has reduced expenditures and is often accompanied by layoffs, I began to think that the change signaled a difference in how news was produced. Even with fewer employees, do the news staffs feel that they can produce more thoughtful, context-filled, richly sourced stories with the additional time they now have? This thought carried into the Locally Grown News session where we examined using the locavore movement—eating locally—as an opening for conversations and sharing of news in a community. The idea is to use the analogy of the farmer’s market, rather than the town square, as the metaphor for doing news differently in a hyperlocal space.
Slow news is the deliberate, thoughtful, context-filled, nurturing journalistic enterprise. It is news as food, news and information that feeds a community. My initial thoughts generated multiple questions that we could ask ourselves as journalists and media producers:
Our collective passion for what we do as journalists and foodies led us to produce a diagram that maps our roles as media in the food cycle. • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 01/10 at 09:44 AM
(0) Comments New Year, New Name, Fresh Start for Hyperlocal IncubatorThursday, January 07, 2010 So here I am, back after a brief hiatus, taking Locally Grown News on the road. I’m roadtesting the concept of a “sustainable journalism incubator” at the Journalism That Matters “Reimagining News & Community in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle on January 7-10. The concept of an incubator morphed from the franchise idea. Why? The goal is to create a collaborative environment, regardless of name. However, the term franchise has lots of legal connotations that were not intended in the original project concept. So the Women’s Community News Franchise has morphed into the rich environment that an incubator can create. My goal is still the same: Create locally grown owner/operators of hyperlocal online communities. Give them the training and the tools to get started. Provide them with ongoing coaching to be sustainable. Create a community of operators that help each other by sharing their unique talents. Use technology to connect people and affirm the value of place and neighborliness. A virtual/physical incubator might best service the hyperlocal niche with services, support, planning, development and content. I’m here to recruit beta testers for the Locally Grown News concept and the Pacific Northwest is a great region full of entrepreneurial spirit and folks committed to quality journalism. In December, I completed several critical tasks:
So I’ve laid the groundwork and am ready to go. I’ll be sharing ideas and experiments from the Journalism that Matters conference and hopefully bring back some beta testers as well! • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 01/07 at 09:42 AM
(0) Comments communityQ: A content management system with a social networking feelMonday, November 09, 2009 Creative Circle Advertising Solutions has worked in the newspaper space for years, doing consulting work for mid- to large-circulation newspapers on content and design in both online and print products. The Chicago Tribune’s triblocal.com is built on their flagship citizen journalism platform CommunityQ. And CommunityQ powered the now defunct hyperlocal site for Volusia and Flagler counties - mytopiacafe.com—that I helped nurture to birth and beyond [http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=166004]. So let’s just say that Creative Circle’s President Bill Ostendorf and I have a history. Bill’s dedicated to saving newspapers. I’m dedicated to saving communities. I think that passion drives us to want more for both.
And admittedly, I’m a tough client. I put his software through its paces, relentlessly seeking a better user experience, a sticky environment and a technology to engage community dialogue. For me, the software wasn’t good enough if all it did was push out content. Like the watercooler, the site had to draw those thirsty for good news. I’d like to say that my persistence - OK, nagging - helped to make for a better product for the communities in which the software is deployed. And Bill and I have developed a mutual respect for the ways in which we envision the online community news enterprise. The content management system, CommunityQ, is a homegrown, proprietary platform built using php. In the basic configuration, staff and users can post:
Several additional modules allow for increased functionality including:
The system doesn’t come with its own ad server, but they do have a partner product that is an add-on with node functionality where advertising can be segregated by site. And the interface allows for an XML export from CommunityQ to InDesign or Quark. And since I last left Bill and his team, they’ve added some additional functions that give you flexibility in developing your site’s taxonomy (trust me, you never get it right the first time…or even the second time). You can tweak your “theme” and site layout in the admin dashboard. But CommunityQ isn’t free. So I asked Bill about his competitors in the open-source space. “As soon as a hole is exposed and you don’t upgrade, it can affect customer security,” Bill cautioned. I had been so focused on cost and function that I hadn’t thought about security. So it’s back to time, money, resources and compromises. What functions must I have to attract startups or existing placebloggers to a new platform? What functions could be left to version 2.0 or 3.0 and which were essential? Maybe I could set fire to this project and see which ideas make it out alive. • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 11/09 at 11:57 AM
(0) Comments Village Soup: A robust, hybrid community news platformThursday, November 05, 2009 Founder/President Richard Anderson has a vision with Village Soup. I heard him a while back at a Journalism That Matters conference where he described his Knight News Challenge grant project [audio file of Richard’s chat from JTM]. It seems he too is a philosophy in search of a platform. According to Richard, the Village Soup concept is similar to the VISA chaordic organization, where member banks collaborate with development of a “shared” product, while being co-branded with a common identity. Under the “commons” - Richard’s idea for a similar Village Soup structure—members suggest future developments to the software and may develop other cooperative relationships. Richard built Village Soup to support hybrid online and print operations. He rolled out the open-source version this past spring and his team has spent the summer building out the enterprise version. The enterprise version expands on the capabilities of the open-source version and it is built on a different software structure to allow for greater scalability and integration.
On the Knox County site, the site sports a feature story rotator, placement for small button and banner advertising and the business membership “offers” in a right-hand rail. I’ve met with Richard and his team around the franchise concept. I explained that my goal was to reach the hyperlocal operator, some of whom would happily function without a print component. Village Soup’s sweet spot is in the community newspaper niche and I think the online only operation took them a bit by surprise. Of course, the software is flexible enough to accommodate an online only operation. Just turn off that module. But was I buying more software than I needed? Being on a tight budget, I wanted to know whether the open-source platform could be deployed for my project. No. While the software is open-source, that doesn’t necessarily make it accessible to any old tinkerer. I would need a software developer to help modify the software. Plus, it’s not scalable to the franchise concept. Translation: No multi-site function to deploy content and advertising across the franchise network…a key to the larger franchise model. But the enterprise version is being redesigned to provide that flexibility…at a cost. With the larger “franchise” project to consider, I not only had to think about the affordability to the single site operator, but whether I could create some economies of scale to make the costs actually lower than if someone were to do this on their own. On the revenue side, the business membership model creates a unique revenue stream different than display advertising. Businesses pay a monthly fee to be able to post “marketing” content in the Biz Offers section of the site. I had tried a similar marketplace on the now defunct mytopiacafe.com, but our advertising department at my former legacy media organization felt that function would devalue the current print display ad buy. No such restraints are in place for the indy operator, so the business membership plan can be packaged as part of a cohesive media buy. So there’s still a larger looming question as to whether there’s a viable business in the hyperlocal space. Some like baristanet.com and westseattleblog.com have proven the concept in the microscale. However, couple that with the idea of a cooperative/franchise-like relationship on the macro level and you’ve got to scale to make it work. Monday: Neighborlogs: A blog platform with a community feel Today: Village Soup: A robust, hybrid community news platform Friday: CommunityQ: A content management system with a social feel POLL: What content management system do you use for your hyperlocal site? • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 11/05 at 10:29 AM
(0) Comments Neighborlogs: A Blog Platform with a Community FeelMonday, November 02, 2009 The platform, now in private beta testing, has been running centraldistrictnews.com for about two years and capitolhillseattle.com for about 1 ˝ years. Neighborlogs actively began soliciting beta testers in spring 2008 and is adding about two to three new sites each month. Justin, who runs the capitolhillseattle.com blog, lives the placeblogger life, building the platform along with Scott Durham, president of Instivate. “We’re out here doing the work,” he says—a key to understanding what it takes to be successful and to build good software that suits the hyperlocal niche. He believes that being successful as a placeblogger means finding a pace that you can sustain - and that means doing it every day. reJurno has done a review of capitolhillseattle.com’s inner workings. Neighborlogs.com, based in Seattle, offers a blog platform specifically for those doing hyperlocal community news or placeblogs. I spoke with Justin Carder one of the principals of Instivate, the company building the platform about what they’re growing. The platform, now in private beta testing, has been running centraldistrictnews.com for about two years and capitolhillseattle.com for about 1 ˝ years. Neighborlogs actively began soliciting beta testers in spring 2008 and is adding about two to three new sites each month. Justin, who runs the capitolhillseattle.com blog, lives the placeblogger life, building the platform along with Scott Durham, president of Instivate. “We’re out here doing the work,” he says—a key to understanding what it takes to be successful and to build good software that suits the hyperlocal niche. He believes that being successful as a placeblogger means finding a pace that you can sustain - and that means doing it every day. reJurno has done a review of capitolhillseattle.com’s inner workings. “I think the biggest key is to really be part of the community so that your community is contributing to the site. So you’re acting as editor and bringing that stuff together,” Justin says. Justin also believes that the enterprise has to start out slowly. “I don’t see this being someone’s income right away,” Justin says. “You should be building this while you’ve got other income.” Neighborlogs.com has plans for expansion by building a self-serve advertising module to put campaign management in the hands of the advertiser. After beta testing, they plan to offer the Neighborlogs/ad software using a revenue share model. Justin and Scott built the Neighborlogs platform using Javascript with HTML templates. They expose the CSS so that you can give your site a different look and feel. Right now, the templates are a bit limited in what’s available. The software does allow for multiple roles. Administrator roles give you the ability to add plug-ins on the site. Their Google beta group is very active in pointing out bugs and desires they’d like added to the system. And the Instivate team is very responsive to those concerns. But right now they’re content to soak up the feedback. “Feedback is very important,” Justin says. “And we want sites that use the tool well. Word of mouth is very important. We continue to see great growth off of that. And if people see a site and it’s doing well, they say they want one of those in their neighborhood too.” COMING WEDNESDAY: The platform search continues with…Village Soup. POLL: What content management system do you use for your hyperlocal site? (surveys) • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 11/02 at 01:19 PM
(0) Comments Fostering civic engagement in digital spacesFriday, October 16, 2009 Michele McLellan, a fellow at the Knight Center for Digital Media has started a conversation she calls “civic engagement 2.0″. She’s examining the tools and best practices that journalists and other news providers can use to foster civic engagement in digital spaces. In her recently revised post on civic engagement 2.0, McLellan asks:
Much of civic engagement must come from a mindset of servicing a community and while journalism is a “calling-based profession,” the organizations themselves have not broadly defined themselves as a listening organizations. In order to serve a community, a listening posture is required. Understanding the larger cultural movements and gestalt of our times can also help media organizations and more nimble hyperlocal operators service communities better. A good book for understanding our current cultural path is called “Craving Community: The New American Dream” by Todd Mansfield, Ross P. Yockey and L. Beth Yockey. While their primary focus is on designing physical communities that foster connectivity, they also examine the science of community…our human need to connect. These listening practices may come from a corporate America and companies that practiced a continuous improvement model to gain competitive advantage. Books like “Service America” by Karl Albrecht and Ron Zemke help to define the actions of this service posture in a consumer-focused culture. Their latest edition examines the effects of technology on service and how technological efficiency has set back customer service by 10 years. When I created mytopiacafe.com (now defunct) for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, I created a service posture and philosophy. We were an organization/skunkworks designed to service the community. All our functions, content, tools, and actions were designed to foster community dialogue and build social capital (a way to measure the effects of your actions is by looking at social capital metrics). That meant returning phone calls, getting that graduation photo scanned and up online and returned to grandma, going anywhere and everywhere to demonstrate how the site could be useful to the community. That service posture went a long way to developing a real following in the community.
But monetizing civic engagement is a difficult proposition for for-profit entities. The effects must build over time and unfortunately, the experiment called mytopiacafe.com was shelved just as it had reached its tipping point. But the lessons learned are valuable for anyone venturing into fostering civic engagement in digital spaces. • Posted by Michelle Ferrier on 10/16 at 08:59 AM
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Our group found the food metaphor a rich way to explore not only how hyperlocals might use this content niche as a focal point, but began to examine the food cycle itself and how it maps to the roles, practices, behaviors, rituals that define a different way of doing journalism. What rich, fertile ground (oh, the puns!) that helped to grow our vision of a new kind of news process.
