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Exploring ad networks for local news blogs
I’m on a very cool project with the Chicago Community Trust to figure out whether (and if so, how) to create an ad network to support local online news outlets around Chicago. I’ve been in touch with...
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Content farms and aggressive SEO
So in a blog post today, Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer at Google, says Google is cracking down on content farms whose sole purpose is getting high ranks in search results, thus generating clicks,...
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The evolution of UGC: sites, blogs, Facebook, then what?
Interesting piece in the NYT this week, Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter, which looks at how young people’s self-publishing efforts have migrated from blogs to Facebook et al. The...
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Journalists as publishers
The Pew Center on Excellence in Journalism has a terrific article by Michele McLellan entitled Emerging Economics of Community News. Her main points are that successful startup journalism enterprises...
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Hyperlocal news – it’s happening under the radar
Recent coverage of – and commentary about – hyperlocal news has been falling into two perspectives: (1) There’s not enough money in it to sustain the business at a local level (UK’s Guardian Local...
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Facebook Comments reduces vitriol
I ‘ve been advocating using Facebook’s comments system on public sites for a while (I didn’t realize how long – 2+ years?? ). It’s been surprising that so few publishers (both traditional and startup)...
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Christensen was right
I’m glad someone is taking a five-year-anniversary look at the impact of Newspaper Next, and that Justin Ellis, a fellow Press Herald alum, has done it, as part of the Nieman Journalism Lab. The first...
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Opportunity to help small businesses with social media?
Quickbooks owner Intuit posted an infographic that could be useful to local indie publishers on a couple of levels. First, it’s good stuff to share with your customers – most of whom are probably small...
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MinnPost continues weaning off foundation money
The news that MinnPost posted a second year in the black is important not just for MinnPost, but also for nonprofit independent news sites in general. Significantly, MinnPost CEO Joel Kramer told...
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Future of journalism ≠ future of newspapers ≠ civic engagement
There’s plenty of hand-wringing about the future of journalism, and I thought a couple of pieces in the past few weeks made nice bookends showing why this hand-wringing is pointless. 1. The Christian...
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Reflecting on two years of “Grow & Strengthen”
Coaching news startups has been a very rewarding part of my recent professional life, including two rounds of a program called “Grow & Strengthen” at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair...
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