Planet Abell

A s a Reston resident and sometime contributor (photos) to Backfence I am curious about the implosion of the company. When it launched I thought it would not succeed because it was dependent entirely on UGC and I couldn't fathom how they could monetize nothing but neighborhood chatter. It quickly became little more than a new delivery system for local politicians and "reviews" of local businesses and services too few in number to have any faith in. Is there a lesson here on how newspapers can fend off what many regard as the inevitability of online supremacy in hyperlocal? So Backfence just plain never caught on, and Scott Karp may have it entirely right that established web 1.0 sites were too much competition for this web 2.0 wannabe to disrupt. He notes that a Google search for "Reston" would not necessarily yield Backfence hits even on the first page, which effectively means that nobody would see them -- but an older, established hyperlocal site, RestonWeb ,...

UC Berkely journalism professor Neil Henry opines in the San Francisco Chronicle about the Chron's decision to cut 100 newsroom jobs and suggests that Google and Yahoo should do something to subsidize journalism since they benefit so greatly from it: "It stands to reason that Google and corporations like it, who indirectly benefit so enormously from the expensive labor of journalists, should begin to take on greater civic responsibility for journalism's plight. Is it possible for Google to somehow engage and support the traditional news industry and important local newspapers more fully, for example, to become a vital part of possible solutions to this crisis instead of a part of the problem? "Is it not possible for Google and other information corporations to offer more direct support to schools of journalism to help ensure that this craft's values and skills are passed on to the next generation? "Is it not possible for these flourishing corporations ...