Your Suspect

There’s been so much excitement at CitySquares for the past few months, and the dust is finally starting to settle. Well, that’s true for me only. Now that Bob has chosen to go the Drupal route, and has hired our new engineer Justin Leider, we’re on our way towards building and launching the new and improved Citysquares.com, and the CitySquares Platform. We’re looking for an early autumn launch of the new Citysquares.com and perhaps a couple months later we’re looking at being able to start testing some CitySquares Platform opportunities. Let me break it down a little bit for ya though…

One of the biggest challenges of this hyperlocal thing is scaling it out. How do you do that? How do you bring a hyperlocal user experience to the public at large? How do you bring the benefits of a hyperlocal solution to small businesses in those communities? One could certainly envision going about it the way we are right now, with a direct model, which includes a local sales force, local marketing, local relationships, and the cash for all those things. I’ve always aid that Citysquares is about analog relationships and digital delivery. But as nice as that sounds, it might not be the most effective and efficient way to do it on a grand scale (e.g., NYC, Chicago, San Francisco). Today we’re working on getting that recipe right, here in Boston, before looking at additional markets.

Another concept is to find partners in those new markets. Let’s call them Community Partners. Some examples of Community Partners might be local municipalities (e.g., City of Springfield) or even local Chambers of Commerce (e.g., Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce), or even media partners like local newspapers or TV stations (e.g., WCVB, Springfield Gazette). There might even be local community organizations who have a specific and socially responsible message (e.g, Springfield Local Business Alliance). The CitySquares platform could be licensed by those partners and ultimately tailored to suit their needs. Perhaps one partner wants news content, or classifieds, but another doesn’t. Well, OK! Those are effectively going to be modules that can be applied to the platform. The core application is what we’re building right now.

So anyway, we’re looking for those kinds of partners. Are you one of those partners? Are you willing to pilot this in your community? If you are any of the following, and looking to bring your real-world community online, and looking to bring your online community to the people, please contact me (bsaren AT Citysquares.com).

• Local government or municipality.
• A local newspaper, radio or TV station.
• Community organization; non profits? socially responsible?
• A local community champion - are you that connector in your community?

We’d also love to hear from you if you are a potential…

• Content partner
• Media Partner
• Sales partner

I’d be happy to tell you much more about our plans for Citysquares.com and for the (currently named) CitySquares Platform. There is some very cool stuff on the way - stuff you’ve never seen before. Please contact me for more info! (bsaren AT Citysquares.com)

CitySquares CitySquares, drupal, hyperlocal, partners

Back in December I posted a piece up here about what hyper-local is (hyperlocal, hyper-local?). I just reread it and I giggled a couple times, because my perspective on hyperlocal has evolved greatly.

With the recent news about Backfence shutting down, there’s been an awful lot of chatter in the blogosphere about this “hyperlocal” space. The single least common denominator I’m seeing among these many blogs is the characterization of hyperlocal as being about news, with perhaps the exception of Peter Krasilovsky’s recent post.

It seems that while Backfence was the poster child for “hyperlocal” they were perhaps to hyperlocal what O’Douls is to beer. By that what I mean is, hyperlocal is not just about news, or “citizen journalism” - its so much more than that! My pal Mike Orren, at Pegasus News, refuses to be called hyperlocal, instead opting for his own term “pan local” because it’s a hybrid of hyperlocal and regional. I dig that, and I get it. I think Mike is smart enough to know that building a business around truly neighborhood-centric (and therefore hyperlocal) news is essentially what Backfence was, and as many people would seem to agree (based on the recent blog posts I’ve read) it’s also inherently flawed.

In my opinion, hyperlocal news (be it in the form of citizen journalism or some taking on a more editorial and/or traditional-journalism-like form) is only one of the many faces of hyperlocal…

Hyperlocal news:

1. It can take on the form of citizen journalism, where individuals within that hyper-locality (i.e., Harvard Square vs. Cambridge) are contributing news. Citizen journalism is, in my opinion, oftentimes what people mean when they refer to hyperlocal. Citizen journalism can be virtually anybody and everybody in that hyper-locality contributing content, which is a dangerous thing. This type of “news” is generally not news, but instead it’s rumor reporting. There is no fact-checking, and if there is it’s very biased, and there is no real credibility or legitimacy to what’s being reported. It’s scary stuff. The phrase Citizen journalism itself is, to me anyway, an oxymoron. It’s something that we, at Citysquares, have been adamant about staying away from.
2. Hyperlocal news can also take on a different form though, one that leads to much more legitimacy and credibility for its readers. This is the real journalistic form, if you will. This is hyperlocal news that is being reported by, well, reporters of a sort. They report the news in fact form, and they check their facts before reporting it to you, typically from a variety of sources. This true, and understated, form of journalism is inherently trustworthy and something you can depend on. It’s not rumor reporting, it’s not opinions. While a hyperlocal news site can certainly have opinion columns and editorials, it’s more than that - it’s good news relevant to your hyper-locality.There are probably hybrid forms of the above two, too.

Hyperlocal Search:

That’s what we do at Citysquares.com. We’re certainly not the biggest and best at it (yet) but that’s our thing. Hyperlocal search is, at it’s core, about finding local businesses. It’s not about doing a search online for “bars in central square ma” and ending up receiving ads or results for, a bar in downtown Boston, or Harvard Square. Ok maybe not the best example. It’s not about doing an online search for “north end barber” and seeing ads or results for SuperCuts in Everett, which is, unfortunately, the way local search typically works. If you do those searches, by clicking the links, you’ll see that there are high ranking results that link to Citysquares.com. And the results on Citysquares.com are pretty darn relevant to, if not exactly, what you’re looking for. Nobody has ever been able to do this, at the neighborhood level, well, at all. Hyperlocal search is exciting, and it’s also more than just business listings, although that’s where the money is and that’s the core of our business model. But hyperlocal search is also about other aspects of one’s hyper-locality. For example, my neighborhood of Davis Square is where I live and mostly play. But I work in the South End. My needs in both communities are different, and so is my role. I’m not necessarily looking for the same things in the South End as I’m looking for in Davis Square - my needs are very different. In fact, I might be more inclined to participate in more community events and activities in Davis Square; much more inclined than in the South End. I might be much more inclined to care about the hyperlocal news of Davis Square, than in the South End. But my life still bleeds into the South End, so I still have needs there. Ultimately, hyperlocal search can mean much more than commerce and consumerism. It can be about the library and its hours and librarians, and the church or synagogue or mosque and its community, the public school and its teachers and students, the local little league team and its players and coaches, the artists of the community, etc. There’s much more to hyperlocal search than commerce and news. That’s where we’d like to come in. That’s what we’re carefully working on as we start to build the new site and platform. Most of this stuff is additive to the business-and-consumer-centric hyperlocal search stuff, which, again, is our core focus.

There is now even geographic social networks. I just read about TOWNKINGS today. This is yet another social network focused around another niche, and it happens to be geography. Citysquares would like to incorporate some social-networking-like elements into our new site. We don’t plan on being a social networking platform but there will most definitely be social elements - there has to be.

So, I’m not sure if I’ve missed other forms of hyperlocal, and if I have I hope you’ll enlighten me! I’m intentionally staying away from craigslist here, because I don’t believe it’s hyperlocal. Craigslist is local, if not regional, but it’s certainly not hyperlocal.

I’m hoping that we can eventually, perhaps today, stop confusing hyperlocal with what Backfence was doing. I hope we can start to use the word hyperlocal (let’s even pretend it’s a real word) as if it encompasses other things. The very nature of the word itself, hyper and local, should imply so much more than …. news?

Let’s agree that hyperlocal is this: all things pertaining your geographic community (i.e., your neighborhood, or as in other parts of the country, your county, but still, your hyper locality), be it news, be it classifieds, be it search, be it social networking. Hyper-local is all things pertaining your hyper-locality.

CitySquares, Local Search backfence, citizen journalism, hyperlocal, pegasus news, search

Anyone who’s been watching the “hyper-local” space (more than just hyper-local journalism) has been keenly aware of Backfence. They were probably the first Internet company to raise a significant amount of money and then try and build a business around hyper-local journalism. Many thought it would work, many thought it wouldn’t. The first time I heard of Backfence was in the fall of 2005 from a passerby at a networking event who spoke about it very fondly. He was from the DC area and thought that Citysquares should emulate what they were doing, otherwise he thought we ought to watch out! Well, here we are nearly 2 years later and Backfence has announced they are closing shop.

Despite a recent history of management problems it seems to me that their demise was really just the result of a lack of execution, or of executing on the wrong plan. I have an inside source at Backfence, and he spoke frankly with me about the lack of open-mindedness at Backfence, a total stubbornness. Quite frankly, I’m relieved that Backfence is out of the way because if their present model did work, I think we’d all have to stop and take a very long and hard at the local advertising marketplace. Now, we just got more validation that the local advertising marketplace is not so naive, something I believe strongly in.

Peter Krasilovsky states,

“Ultimately, Backfence’s real legacy may be that it was a laboratory that helped pave the way for newspapers to seriously pursue hyper-local solutions that, notably, are not centered around local news (which it turns out, is not always very compelling). In the past several months, a number of useful, imaginative and fun newspaper hyperlocal sites have sprung up. Check out what The Washington Post is doing.”

I totally agree. They cleared a path through some very thick brush, and at the end of the path was a cliff. A trailblazer they were not.

Pete Cashmore at Mashable says that Backfence’s failure makes citizen journalism a failure. Well that’s an awfully bold headline! He says,

“The hyped “citizen journalism” trend isn’t panning out too well: Backfence, a network of 13 local sites where users could post their news items, classifieds and photos, is shutting down.”

And goes on to say,

“[Backfence and sites like it] were too ambitious, and focused too heavily on “journalism” instead of tech. Notice how the most successful “user generated writing” sites are really just about getting your users to write and rank material that turns up in search engines: success story Topix is all about good SEO, not some Utopian vision of users becoming journalists.”

I partly agree with this. Pete is right about one thing, for sure - “users” and “journalism” don’t go well together. I couldn’t agree with that more. That notion, in and of itself, is flawed. It’s almost an oxymoron - “citizen journalism.” I think that term clearly demonstrates how respect for real journalism is at an all-time low - it’s gotta be. That’s sad to me.

But in my not-so-humble opinion, Backfence’s demise has about as much to do with “tech” as it does with Britney Spears shaving her head. The reality, the apparent reality anyway, is that the execution was done poorly. It’s debatable whether or not “citizen journalism” at a hyper-local level could ever work. My instincts tell me that it can, if it’s done right. It seems to me that the problems were really that management got tangled up in itself, and according to my source, it refused to consider other methods of scaling. Hyper-local journalism can definitely work, but not in the way Backfence was going about it. It’s an exciting opportunity. Rob Curley (the poster boy for hyper-local news) is not just an anomaly, Rob Curley is a success story. And the Washington Post (now Rob’s employer) as Peter K. points out, is really onto some exciting stuff.

Hyper-local journalism can work.

I’m interested in how this affects Mike Orren, my friend at Pegasus News. Mike’s company seems to have a different approach to hyper-local news, one that makes better sense in many ways. Mike?

Amended 2007-07-16: See this article for Potts’ explanations.

Local Search backfence, business models, citizen journalism, hyperlocal, pegasus news, rob curley

Ali made a delicious dinner the other night; lobster ravioli with her own sherry sauce. It was absolutely delicious. I guessed that she handmade the raviolis all by herself, kidding of course (right?). She bought them at Dave’s Fresh Pasta, down the street. At Dave’s you’ll find homemade and handmade pastas - very high quality, gourmet style pastas, sauces, and a lot more. It’s a real gem in the Davis Square neighborhood. Anyway, Ali mentioned how nice the person was, who waited on her. She asked for a loaf of bread, but they were out. He then told her that next time she can call ahead and tell them what she wanted, and they’d have it all ready for her. Well… now…. that, folks, that is good service. And that, you only get from your local merchant.

The kind of service you get at Dave’s Fresh Pasta, the kind of care and treatment you get at Massage Therapy Works, at State Street Barbers, at Porter Square Books, is only the kind of service you find where the ownership is local. You just don’t get that anywhere else.

When I see reviews on Citysquares.com from members of the community, of local businesses,and when I hear stories like Ali’s, or from anyone, I can’t help but feel a strong sense of pride and honor. I’m really quite proud to be doing what we’re doing, for the community, for local commerce, from the members of the community across all areas. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and feeling so good about it.

I’ve learned so much from Citysquares already. No matter where my career takes me in the short term or long term, I will always make sure that I’m involved in a socially responsible business.

CitySquares, Locally Owned daves fresh pasta, hyperlocal, local, Locally Owned, massage therapy works, porter square books, social responsibility, state street barbers

It’s a funny coincidence. I was speaking with someone at a cafe the other day and I was amp’d up on caffeine. I mean, really amp’d up on caffeine. You know, like so amp’d up that I’m not really seeing what’s right before my eyes because the sun is bouncing around my enlarged pupils and distorting color and light? Right… that kind of amp’d up on caffeine. The conversation we were having was about what this ‘local’ thing is really all about, and why I, as he put it, as “founder and visionary for Citysquares.com,” seem so compelled and dedicated to it. I very enthusiastically explained that this ‘local’ thing is more than just an untapped market with big money potential. He rolled his eyes and looked at me like I was just another capitalistic entrepreneur trying to rationalize my true ambitions. I didn’t mind actually, because I will readily admit to anyone that yes, of course Citysquares is a business - not a charity. But if I may, I like to think that it’s a socially responsible business, one that’s focused on actually doing something good for our communities, one that has a real mission (not the corporate charter type either), for local business, for consumerism, for the citizens, for everyone - for, if I may, all the stakeholders. I reminded him of the story behind Citysquares, why I started it in the first place.

It’s also about the future. By that I mean that it’s about the future of our communities, my children’s future, the future of local commerce, of America, and the future of the Internet. That’s right - the Internet, that big monstrosity that’s you can’t touch, you can’t totally make sense of, that is so full of opportunity and promise that the opportunity for danger and destruction is just as frightening. The future of the Internet is about what’s right across the street from you. What’s local to you? Well, that’s the future of the Internet.

Humans need humans. Humans need interaction with each other. It’s not good enough to blog, to instant message, to SMS, to send pictures, share documents, post videos on YouTube, add another widget to your Myspace page, fly through the sky in Second Life. We, like much of the animal kingdom, are hardwired to need each other in an offline forum. The Internet, for the most part, does not help us feel more connected - it largely makes us feel more isolated. Call it existentialism, call it what you will. But these are my theories and these are my beliefs. The Internet is a great way to supplant the connections we lack in today’s society - a bandage, not a cure. We’re seeking something, as people, a greater understanding, enlightenment, a higher power maybe, human interaction, so many things. The Internet is a result of this, and will become more of an instrument for these puzzles just as much as praying is to some people, or just as the Hubble telescope or SETI is to other people.

I’ll stop myself there before I get too philosophical and ultimately keep myself awake tonight wondering if I articulated myself properly.

The funny coincidence is within a blog post that I stumbled upon yesterday. Here’s a small taste for you:

“Key to the development of a local online ad market is the identification of the local web, and this offers a remarkable opportunity for those willing to explore this territory today. In the not-too-distant future, everyone will have access to the local web, but this access is unavailable today, because the database hasn’t been created. It exists in bits and pieces, but no technology can replace the human research necessary to build the initial database. This is a task that will pay huge dividends to the one who creates it, market-by-market, and there’s no reason this can’t be done by a local media company.”

and

“The local web is where the web itself will find its real value propositions, and that’s enough to make a guy want to stick around for awhile.”

That’s enough for me. It does a great job of making the case better than I could’ve even after 5 more cups of coffee.

If you’re interested in local, community, the Internet, the future, advertising, all or one of the above, than I highly recommend you read this.

Local Search hyperlocal, Local Search, local web, neighborhood search

I’m a loyal New York Times reader, both online but also their Sunday paper. It shows up on my doorstep every Sunday morning and I often look forward to sitting in the kitchen and reading the paper, while my wife makes our Sunday breakfast. Long after we’ve eaten I’m still sitting at the kitchen island sipping a mug of cooling coffee (freshly pressed) and reading the Times.

The NY Times had a notable little piece in their Sunday edition this weekend (12/31/06), titled Seeking to Cash In On the ‘Hyperlocal’. While Manly refers to “Hyperlocal” as all news things that are hyperlocal, I can’t help but smile knowing that the term is getting more mainstream attention. Lorne Manly refers to the Rob Curley breed of hyperlocal: news oriented hyperlocal content (whether user generated or editorial). This model of hyperlocal, as the article points out, is what Backfence is doing. Another example of this is what Mike Orren is doing at Pegasus News in Texas. All of these are hyperlocal news based sites. Rob Curley’s done a heck of job in some of his markets (notably, Naples and Bonita Daily News, and the Lawrence Journal before he went to the Washington Post), and in doing so helping to shape what has has become “hyperlocal.” I look forward to a fusion of hyperlocal journalism and local search in the coming months and years.

Local Search, New Media and Web 2.0 backfence, hyperlocal, local, Local Search, pegasus news, rob curley

Local is, of course relative. But as it pertains to the Internet, local can really only mean one thing - what’s close to me. OK, OK, “close to me” is also relative, but still, all things pertaining ‘local’ herein refer to local Internet search and resources. Boston.com could be considered in the ‘local space’ as could the other countless local newspapers. Craigslist could also be considered considered local. There are some fine lines that distinguish a local site, from a non local site, and I have to say that one of the most critical defining characteristics is the site’s audience. I think that’s probably the simplest way to put it.

The Kelsey Group is perhaps the foremost expert in ‘local’. In fact, Citysquares’ business plan and investor presentations are jam packed with goodie-stats from Kelsey. Ultimately, they’ve got their fingers directly on the aorta of all this local-ness.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Krasilovsky. As it turns out, Peter and I share a few contacts. Peter is sort of a guru of the local space (Today I referred to Peter as the ‘Peter Gammons’ of local). We had a very interesting dialogue about the players out there, who’s hurting, who’s doing well, and generally his take on Citysquares.com. His feedback was immensely valuable, but what struck me more was his generosity to donate his time to me. He was in no rush to get off the phone (even though my VOIP phone was acting up), and offered up his brain power anytime. Peter has a blog called The Local Onliner. He’s respected enough that The Kelsey Group pulls his blog feed into their site. (If that’s not a thumbs-up, I don’t know what is.) He doesn’t write about local startups often, if at all, but he just posted a little piece about Citysquares.com.

What strikes me about his brief assessment is his use of the term “hyper-local.” I definitely used the term on our call, and surely he saw it on Citysquares.com, but he didn’t put quotes around it. Maybe I’m reading into this too much, but this is a fairly contentious term, because hyper-local typically refers to news - news in your neighborhood, your ward, your precinct. News from your precinct is pretty darn local. Any more local and you’re hanging out at Bingo night with the local grapevine. But hyper-local is a term that Citysquares has embraced, not because it’s sticky, but because it’s what we are. Citysquares.com can be the embodiment of your precinct, your neighborhood, on the internet. LOCAL. HYPER-LOCAL.

One of the pioneers of hyper-local is Rob Curley, whose seemingly accidental fall into hyper-local was a very lucky fall indeed. There was a great article about Rob in Fast Company last month. The title of the article? “Hyper-Local Hero.” Nice huh?

Now I don’t know if Rob’s version of hyper-local is more authentic than Citysquares’ version, or the other way around, or if we’re both hyper-local in our distinct ways. But if Peter Krasilovsky can use the term “hyper local” and “Citysquares.com” in the sentence (without saying “Citysquares.com is NOT hyper local”) than I just received confirmation. It’s sort of like Peter Gammons saying that David Ortiz is a DH - it’s just not true until The Commissioner says so.

Look at Craigslist. There is a reality out there, that CL is hurting local papers. I don’t know what the facts and figures are, but if you’ve paid attention to the local newspaper space, something is killing ‘em - that’s undeniable. Rob Curley seems to have a fix.

Know of any other hyper-local services out there in cyber-space?

CitySquares, Local Search, New Media and Web 2.0 CitySquares, consumerism, craigslist, hyperlocal, Local Search, peter krasilovsky, rob curley