A VC - Latest Comments in Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

markbrooks — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:26:44 -0000

We summarize three hours of reading into three minutes of reading every day for our audience.

OnlinePersonalsWatch.com is a curator of news for the idating industry. But we don't just cut and link. We summarize. Its meant for the idating industry executive audience.

Cutting and reappropriating content isn't enough. Summarizing isn't enough. What really helps build readership and a loyal following is having editors who know how to summarize the guts of an article into something useful and meaningful in as few words as possible.

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:30:06 -0000

i fixed the feedflare issue on my blog and it's now active. you can share on facebook and whole bunch of other social media interactions

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:08:27 -0000

I don't get the connection between kozmo which did have an out of whack cost structure (a lesson I learned painfully but well) and micromedia

They seem on total opposite ends of the spectrum

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:29:12 -0000

Nice. We could learn a lot from korea

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

ShanaC — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:21:29 -0000

If you taught me about cost structure- I'm in the NY metro area until approximately Yom Kippur- I would research that.

I enjoy researching for fun. And I do wonder about the smallest size these groups can service too. Alongside why we choose what techonologies we do (if we are talking about the gaussian bell) in our lives...How else did I end up here?

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

Rob Freeborn — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:06:06 -0000

Doesn't their out of whack cost structure mean, de facto, it was a bad idea? If it was a good idea to begin with, the cost structure would have been in line with what could be supported. Or, I guess, that's the difference between an idea and execution?

I just emailed you a .pdf from Booz (this was in a dusty folder of the HD!!) that hit on many of the reasons the Webvans and Kozmo's of the world flamed out - email is subject line "Last Mile". To be honest, it has some parallel thought processes to the micro-media you've been talking about (scale, cost, revenue, density), something I think it would be worth having a summer intern spending some serious time white boarding/researching.

Regardless, this has been a fascinating conversation thread to follow!

ps - it would be a cool feature if we could attach things, like the .pdf I just sent, to our comments.

pps - in retrospect, I feel kind of bad about "abusing" Kozmo a number of times....I would order a single soda or single candy bar to be delivered to the girl I was dating....we would laugh at the silliness of it all

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

deancollins — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:08:35 -0000

and at what 'cost per sale', those ads dont just appear without any intervention.

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

Alan Warms — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:03:20 -0000

Excellent - that's great!

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

Chang — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:27:43 -0000

Korea's top portal also carved out a significant part of its homepage and gave it out to "digital curators": http://web20asia.com/344

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

Bostjan Spetic — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:28:29 -0000

heya,

zemanta recognizes stocks pretty well, you should just try it... ;)

best, bostjan
---
zemanta.com

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:20:12 -0000

Their salesforces and relationships with local merchants are valuable assets.

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:17:13 -0000

We've got a bunch of companies in our portfolio like disqus, zemanta, outside.in, etc that would love to work more closely with wordpress

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

ShanaC — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:54:35 -0000

I don't buy that either fred-

I do buy the following

In this system- how are we rewarding breakout editorial content? Breakout writing content? Is there a way to move up the food chain from those who product the content's perspective?

If I covered my local beat- where could I be in ten years if I wrote well? Copyedited well? Could I make it to the Huffington Post? Great my word is now out there- but is it now out there enough to get noticed to make a lateral move when I need to?

I realized the fiduciary duty is to the stockholders- but will people stay with it long term if they don't see some breakout successes for those who produce the writing?

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

ShanaC — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:39:25 -0000

Sometimes it is about knowing that we do eat soylent green.

It is about knowing to hunt and catch and cook the soylent green that matters, it seems. Maybe a local small source is better than trying the young, blase, big city folk...

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

ShanaC — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:35:40 -0000

A secret- for certain math sceince textbooks- there is already an active market in just that.

You buy the indian version, or the chinese- english version online (thanks to search via isbn number).

This doesn't help with A) school lock in with programs in textbooks (like silly quizzes that only maske sense with your school textbooks- why is that?)

orb) certain humanity textbooks (why are there humanity textbooks anyway outside of art history and maybe to a limited extend art as a reference point- read the text, and generally there is competition for editions of thoseclassic texts in your field).
or
c) certain economics book (written from certain countries perspective- Greg Makniw's for example clearly is very all American- a British student might not care. for the US's GDP)

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

markjosephson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:35:09 -0000

Hi Josh, that's where "curate" comes in. OIP lets publishers choose which stories matter and which they don't want to promote. Editorial voice and opinion matter more than ever.

Also, we're seeing very strong engagement metrics -- when people are presented with well targeted hyperlocal news, they like it and engage with it.

best, mark

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

joshuakarp — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:04:25 -0000

Mark... I posted our revenue model... high costs never bothered me if the business model was valid and achievable, and profit margins were high enough. Of course, you are right about the creation and distribution of digital moving towards zero, and that's exactly the problem. There's too much room for content... it's great for advertisers who can splash their brands everywhere, but it's bad for content providers, because the prices, too are heading towards zero (or just a little tiny bit above). Selling the infrastrucutre is a good idea... but the data... do I really need to know EVERYTHING that goes on in Logan Square (in Chicago, where I am...)? I don't, that's for sure... I'm sure you're familiar with everyblock... it's more of a novelty, rather than something that I would do every day.

Kindly,
Josh

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

mikenolan99 — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:16:38 -0000

Mark Ramsey is one of the smarter guys on radio around, and has done some decent posts lately around the subject that Radio stations have to get it out of their heads that towers and transmitters are their business models. Maybe a few radio stations will become their communities local media companies, regardless of the method of transmission.

http://www.hear2.com/2009/0...

And, you have to see the new New Nielson radio diary. Ugggggggg.

http://www.hear2.com/2009/0...

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

joshuakarp — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:24:36 -0000

Fred... I'm working on it. :) I have 250K in printing committed and 250K in cash committed , I need 250K more to move forward. At the same time, I'm about to talk to a team of investment bankers about buying the Sun Times Media Group (which is really just a collection of community papers, Chicago being the largest community). I think I can apply TPB's model and turn around the company. Cheers... Josh

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

RickM — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:37:22 -0000

Print hasn't become outmoded, the biggest problem with newspapers is that the distribution model is broken. I'm a software developer, so it is tempting to think that software is the solution, but it's not.

Solving distribution is a huge opportunity for someone and it won't be done by existing media. Entrepreneurs will start papers razor focused on local news and opinion. They will gain traction in towns that have recently lost newspapers. Software may facilitate the creation of this new newspaper model but it won't be the major factor in determining its success.

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

rick gregory — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:23:52 -0000

Interestingly, the Post-Globe, the West Seattle blog and the other site I mentioned but didn't link to - publicola.net - are all based on Wordpress. I wonder if there's a play in providing a set of tools to enhance WP for news sites. Zemanta is an obvious one, Zotero or some such on the writing/research side. But an outside.in tool, some hooks to Calais, etc could be interesting. While you can likely string together several plugins and make it work a matched set targeted at the platform might be interesting. One of the issues I can see with these efforts, especially while they're getting started and playing with revenue models, is that they won't have a real technology budget for in-house developers, etc. More research...

Oh and in time for a mayoral election, Publicola stole one of the better political reporters in town from one of the weeklies. The next few years should be interesting.

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:42:17 -0000

Maybe you shouldn't waste your time with VCs who don't get it and just get some angels to help you fund it

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:40:10 -0000

Great comment! I wonder what I can do to help denver and seattle show the way. Very exciting times

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:33:12 -0000

Yup. same thing. You made it easy by popularizing the $ tag. Stock twitters basically self tag. That's not typical of most user gen content.

But what you are doing with stocks can and should be done for everything

Re: Aggregate, Curate, Publish To Create Local Media

fredwilson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:29:11 -0000

That's what zemanta calls researcher. Its coming at some point. Not sure where it is on the roadmap