Hyperlocal at SXSW, on business and entrepreneurship

Don’t forsake the hyperlocal news approach just yet. Poynter has details from a panel at SXSW:

Reports about the death of hyperlocal have been greatly exaggerated.

Local news sites continue to pop up across the country, despite a high churn rate among small local sites. In 2007, one in eight Americans lived in a city or town with a local blog, panelist and Placeblogger Founder Lisa Williams said. Now, closer to half of Americans live in a city with a local blog. Data from Placeblogger, an index of local blogs, show that between 50 and 60 percent of the local blogs indexed by the site don’t make it, Williams said.

Williams also pointed out they’ve indexed 4,100 independent hyperlocal sites, small businesses with typically only a few employees producing a local news product.

As in all small businesses, these projects run the risk of a high failure rate. The problem is entrepreneurial: Most don’t have a revenue model. Indeed, the data in this panel revealed only 4 percent of local and community sites have an advertising rate card.

Running your own brand requires you to be a businessperson as well.

Related: Financial models for underachievers: Two years of the real numbers of a startup

Mobile reporting necessities

Backback journalists, one-man bands, multimedia reporters, MoJo — whatever you call that slice of the industry — is a skillset, a mindset and an equipment set. You have to be able to discern your story quickly and, just as quickly, understand and apply the appropriate medium to cover the details of the tale. You have to be able to work independently, often quickly and with several stories and moving parts at play.

And you need the right tools. Here are 10 must haves from Media Bistro.

It is a good list. I’d add extra batteries, an extra recorder and sharp, comfortable shoes.

Social media a traffic driver on smart phones too

We’ve known for a while now that a lot of news is pushed through social media — engaged by a trusted community, our friends and family, we follow the links to news and other information on sites like Facebook and Twitter. But the previous studies have been generally observable about our desktop behavior. Poynter notes some recent studies on mobile traffic use as well:

U.S. mobile or tablet app users spend 30 percent of their time in social networking (second only to games at 49 percent), while news apps capture only 6 percent of total time, according to newFlurry Analytics data.

Nielsen data from Android phones showed about eight of 10 people used the Facebook app in a given month — making it the most popular app except for the Android Market itself. Google found that social media, along with games and e-mail, were the most common activities for tablet users.

All this means social media is essential not only to your Web strategy, but your mobile strategy as well.

News apps, though, shouldn’t be considered a wasted effort. They are generally geared to the most news-hungry elements of your audience. Pew research suggests people utilizing news apps are “power users.”

“The first drafts of mayhem”

A newspaper classic is making a long-overdue return. We’re not talking about the funny pages. Why is the blotter coming back to The News Tribune?

In the pre-digital era, we ran Police Beat several times a week. It was mandatory. Readers expected it. We even ran separate versions for different communities.

At papers large and small, police blotters provided a snapshot of home: intensely local, punchy and quick. Like coverage of schools, local government, local people and local business, the blotters told us what was going on.

Why it ever went away is problematic, but there’s no escaping that work like this is vital in community journalism.

Exec gives local news tips

Jeff DeBalko has been in business-to-business publishing for decades. He recently spent a few months on the traditional news side of things, but decided his skills “weren’t a good fit.”

Good things come out of those false starts, too. Here are DeBalko’s 7 things I have learned about local media. Click through for his explanations (a worthwhile read), but here are his bulletpoints:

1. Hope is not a strategy
2. Culture eats strategy for breakfast
3. Local media begins and ends with community
4. Diversity matters
5. Selling online is not the same as building a sustainable digital media business
6. Yes, you are a technology company
7. The answer is all around you (your people)

H/T Michele McLellan at Knight Digital Media Center.