Tag Archives: local news site

Radical Press news site merges with Pits ‘n’ Pots

Independent news site for Staffordshire (featured in this Journalism.co.u interview with founder Matthew Taylor) has merged with neighbouring local news site Pits ‘n’ Pots to offer more multimedia coverage.

“The Radical Press following has been growing and growing, but running things alone meant that my time was stretched and expanding the site was difficult,” Taylor, who set up RP in April last year, told Journalism.co.uk

“But with the combination of skills we now have through the amalgamation – the broadcast, photography and technical abilities of the other partners, tied with my print journalism – we have a real opportunity now to create a genuine alternative news site for Stoke-on-Trent.

“The nature of the platform we have now also allows readers to make comments, which means that it is also a forum for debate.”

The new site aims to attract around 3,000 unique visitors per day generating around 10,000 page views, according to a release.

Bloomberg: Axel Springer plans internet and foreign expansion

Europe’s biggest newspaper publisher Axel Springer has announced plans to expand its internet and foreign prospects to recover from its loss-making move into the German mail-delivery business.

Last year the publisher bought up titles outside of Germany to lessen its dependence on the country’s economy and newspaper industry.

Acquisitions online in 2007 included women’s web portal producer AuFeminin.com SA, financial news site Wallstreet:Online and local news site Hamburg.de.

Outsourcing newspaper interaction – on Topix

Topix has just struck a deal to run the forums of MediaNews Group in the US, which owns 61 newspapers including the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News.

If Topix’s claim is genuine (and I have no reason to doubt it) that it gets over 80,000 comments a day – three million people posting more than 18 million comments since it launched its forums little under two years ago – then there seems to be obvious and compelling reasons for the union.

Marry what Topix does best with the local audience/trust that MediaNews papers have and you’re on to a winner surely?

Topix boasts again: IndyStar.com and Sun-Sentinel.com have each surpassed one million forum posts since Topix started running them.

In interview yesterday with Journalism.co.uk Yoosk consulting editor Nick Ryan said that traditional media was failing to shift from the old top-down approach online because it’s not getting involved nearly enough in user-interaction.

So all good with this move? Not all, according to Howard Owens:

“Media News signing a deal to turn over commenting functions to Topix is just dumb beyond belief

“Ironically, Media News owns the Denver Post, which of late has been doing a fantastic job of trying to become the hub of community conversation, both through its main news site and its innovative neighbours site.

“Those efforts are completely incompatible, as I see it, with the Topix business model, which Chris Tolles is quite blunt about: “We’re aiming to be the number one local news site on the web …”

“There can be only one number one, and if it’s Topix, it ain’t your newspaper.com.”

Owens adds that local should be a vertical, in the way fashion and travel are, and that the local paper should ‘own’ that space, dominating it across all platforms in a way other major brands dominate verticals, rather than letting another company get the best out of the paper’s good relationship with its audience.