doing local right

Doing Local Right

Simon Willison - http://simonwillison.net/8th June, @media 2007

The Lawrence Journal-World

“Local”

Local Search Sucks

•How do I know if the results are comprehensive?

•How do I know if the locations are accurate?

•How do I know if the place has closed down?

What the hell does a Californian multinational know about my town?

Local flavour matters

• In London, people care about nearest tube station

• In American cities, it’s all about blocks and intersections

• In Oxford, it’s all about where I can park my bicycle

You can’t solve a local problem on a global scale

Meanwhile...

The declineof news

• Craigslist is destroying classified advertising revenue

• Business models that rely on owning the only printing press in town are no longer relevant

• News is becoming a commodity

• What’s the point of republishing wire stories when the Web has hyperlinks?

Old media blames new media

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google

to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?

Not very."- Sam Zell, Chicago Tribune owner

Two problems

• Good local sites need local knowledge

• Newspapers are finding their old business models no longer work

What happens when you put a great web team together

and get them to build sites for a local newspaper...

... in Kansas?

... Lawrence, Kansas

• Population: 80,098

• Newspaper: The Lawrence Journal-World

• Circulation ~ 10,000

• Locally owned

• Media monopoly (for about 50 miles²)

Lawrence, Kansas

lawrence.com

ljworld.com

ljworld.com/marketplace

How do you do it?

• Small, passionate team

• “Wouldn’t it be cool if...”

• Someone else to think about the money

• Intern power!

• Treat your data with respect

Use Django

The team

The team

http://www.jeffcroft.com/

http://www.b-list.org/

http://www.jacobian.org/

http://postneo.com/

http://www.playgroundblues.com/

http://mintchaos.com/

Thank you!

kthxbye

http://xkcd.com/c262.html