Web 2.0 The Local You Know,

The Local You Don’t

Rich SkrentaCEO & Co-Founderskrenta@topix.com

Kicking and Screaming

51% of traffic, 10% of channels in 2004

We didn’t set out to do “Local”

Boring

Hard to monetize

Nobody else had it

We Built an Aggregated News Site

Getting our Feet Wet in Local

The Good NewsGeo-localizing can target the advertising as well

Local content $6.00

Local real estate $30.00

Bay Area real estate $60.00

Heck…

And it should just keep growing

Google has 500k advertisers 6M local businesses in the US

Uh Oh

The Bad News Not enough local content

1,440 Local daily papers

2,303 News radio stations

1,686 Television stations

X 6

3

4

X

X

8,640

6,909

6,744

22,293

Number of populated ZIP codes in US

Total number of local stories per day

32,500

Original Local Stories

Blogosphere ?

Blogs Breakdown

Business 16%

Cars 0%

Entertainment 14%

Health 3%

Life 12%Local 12%

News 5%

Others 2%

Politics 1%

Religion 1%

Science 2%

Sports 8%

Tech 13%

US 3%World 8%

Mainstream Media Breakdown

Business 10%

Cars 0%

Entertainment 8%

Health 3%

Life 5%

Local 23%

News 8%

Other 4%

Politics 1%

Religion 0%

Science 1%

Sports 23%

Tech 2%

US 3%

World 9%

We thought the blogosphere might fix this

Sigh.

Negative Sum Game

Local information monopoly doesn’t translate online

Internet kills revenue for other media

But doesn’t replace it

Media Revenues (in millions)*Offline Online Online percentage

Newspapers $40,400 $2,000 4.72%Radio Stations $15,203 $60 0.39%TV Stations $4,973 $283 5.38%

* Borrell Associates

Monopoly profits simply disappear

Craigslist costs the Bay Area's traditional newspapers $50-$65 million annually

It’s Getting Worse

If You Want Something Done…

Could we create it ourselves?

Topix 2006

5 Million Unique Visitors

2.3 pageviews per visitor

We added the ability to comment on stories

10 Million Unique Visitors

20 pageviews per commenter

Most active areas in small communities

Topix 2007

Local Citizen Journalism

What Worked?

Tornadoes Strike Caruthersville, MO

200 posts

pop. 6,636

Caruthersville Forum Post Volume

Tornadoes Hit

Teachers Sex Scandal

Police Chief Discussion

Web 2.0, America. America, Web 2.0

Local issues drive local traffic

Web 2.0 in Anytown USA

Comments in 19,868 towns

Daily activity in over 1,000 cities

This stuff works!

40k posts per day As many posts as local articles in system

The Conversation is Local