The conversation on Paulding.com, a hyperlocal media site, was decisive in the local primary election in July 15th with the site being credited as being a key influence in the landslide victories of three candidates that rejected incumbents, including a well-funded two-term incumbent commission chairman who ran the most expensive campaign in county history.

Consultant's conventional wisdom challenged

Two weeks ago I wrote here about the role of political consultants in local races. In that piece I mentioned how the incumbent county commission chairman was using a well-funded negative campaign in an attempt to win his third term. That campaign sought to define his relatively unknown opponent as a mega-developer who sought election primarily to grease the wheels for his private real estate ventures.

I mentioned how those allegations were largely an exaggeration of the consultant but that historically, with no other media around to care, much less correct such communications, such tactics were highly effective. The question was whether the presence of an active hyperlocal news/social site where conversation about the mailers was a topic of discussion could counter and neutralize this proven strategy.

I'm happy to report the direct mail negative campaign formula for victory was handed a notable defeat in Paulding County, Georgia. With that defeat is the understanding that a hyperlocal web site with reach in the 30-40 percent range is a more powerful tool in defining the narrative in a local market than targeted 'negative' direct mail.

So how did the challenger accomplish this task and, in the end, overcome a relatively solid record of accomplishment on the part of the incumbent?

First, the incumbent's record of progress is one that in most places would make his effort at re-election almost assured. Indeed, earlier this spring the conventional wisdom was that the Chairman would easily win re-election.

On its face, his campaign narrative was solid. Essentially it said, "Look at my accomplishments, what we're doing right now, I'm running for the right reasons; my opponent, a mega developer, is running for the wrong reasons (self-interest)." For a litany of his accomplishments, here is a video of the Chairman at an early March Chamber meeting presenting his State of the County address.

So what happened?

It is important to know that Paulding.com was helpful in the 2004 re-election of the now defeated chairman. He had used the site to create a narrative that characterized his opponent in that election cycle as one motivated by revenge against his ex-wife, a high-level county employee.

The chairman was accepted on the site and, with 1376 posts, was an active participant on the site from September 2003 through roughly July 2006. The self-proclaimed "Chair dude" ceased posting in 2006 because of unrelenting challenges by several folks who felt they were stuck personally with the bill for political favors he, as chairman, had performed for his benefactors.

With the Chairman now absent from the site, the posts of these individuals and others were less focused on him. Instead, their cynical commentary reinforced the well-established (in the south) narrative which paints a picture of mega developers gaining advantage by mega-marketing through their bought and paid-for good-old boy public servants. The group of gored constituents was so successful in establishing this narrative that the chairman's consultant sought to use his superior resources to cast the challenger as the 'real' Boss Hogg representative of the 'robber-baron mega-developers.'

And that was not a faint hope. The challenger, who holds a real estate license, is the older brother of mayor of the county seat. His family owns a 400-acre parcel that was zoned for over 900 homes in 2006 and had developed a subdivision in 1987. In short, he was vulnerable to the charge of being a mega-developer.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that the challenger advertised on Paulding.com (the incumbent did not). The incumbent also reached out to the group of gored constituents, two of which were personal friends and one, a long-time volunteer on Paulding.com. Indeed, the chairman's decision to not advertise on the site as well as allegedly block it from the county's administrative computers, was also taken as a personal challenge.

Paulding.com decisive in closing days

The belief is that this race remained competitive until the final two weeks. Two events changed that.

First, an email memo from the county's administrator suggesting a tax increase was in the offing and the county was seeking a waiver from a state law to postpone that announcement until after the primary election was leaked. Posters on the site suggested the chairman was being disingenuous by hiding a tax increase and Paulding.com's local news video program included comments from upset residents on that topic.

At the next commission meeting one of the interviewed citizens confronted the Chairman about the video in public session and was told that he was being played for a fool.

The video showing that exchange came across as him abusing a citizen who had the audacity to asked him about the leaked email memo. A member on the site created a YouTube video of that exchange that was viewed 1,300 times (mostly in topics criticizing the on the pcom). That video caught the eye of the head of a state ethics organization who was so outraged, he presented a litany of allegations against the Chairman the Friday before the election. Those orchestrating that presentation sought but failed to get Atlanta TV coverage but the coverage in the Paulding.com's weekly newscast was viewed some 1,200 times before election day. Here is that news video.

The result was the decisive 70-30 landslide with the challenger defeating the incumbent.

Site had impact in other ballot contests

However that wasn't the only landslide. A poll started on July 1 on the site was predictive in all cases including the other "landslide" races. (Pcom's poll predicted a 77-23 outcome in the chairman's race which was decided 69-31.) The only outcome not predicted was the six-man sheriff's race that polling on the site suggested would be forced into a runoff. (Our poll still had the eventual winner, who avoided a runoff with 50.38 percent of the vote, polling strongest with 44 percent.)

Only one incumbent won the night; that being the coroner of 16 years who won with 65 percent of the vote. (Pcom's poll predicted his victory with 59 percent). The two other incumbents, both schoolboard members, lost. In the one race where there was little buzz and the Pcom community predicted that winner with 52.4 percent of the vote compared to an actual 51.9 percent margin of victory. In the other, the incumbent was active on the site under an anonymous user ID (supporting the status quo including a somewhat unpopular defense of the commission chairman.) The challenger, who was public with a political membership, was simply more active, more well liked and while she held a 4:1 lead in the Pcom poll she ultimately won with only 61 percent of the vote.

Bottom line

Bottom line is that political contests are contests between competing narratives. In a pluralistic society - whether local, state or national - no person, politician, consultant or publisher controls the narrative. However, this case demonstrates that the community that surrounds a news/social site like Paulding.com can have greater influence on that narrative than hitherto acknowledged.

That the "campaign chest" used to create Paulding.com over the course of the past five years was smaller than the campaign chest of the incumbent chairman in this election cycle is one of those things I'm still pondering.

That key group is the political consultant. This group controls spending for most big-dollar local races such as state house, senate, commission chairman and sheriff in most mid-size to large counties in the nation.

Today a serious candidate for commission chairman in Paulding County will spend upwards of $100,000 to mount a successful campaign. Of that the three weekly newspapers, a couple of slick monthly magazines, paulding.com and cable TV will get less than 10 percent of those campaign funds.

My estimates of spending suggests that consultant driven direct mail campaigns will get the lion's share of the advertising spending. Yard signs, web sites, free-food rallies and campaign trinkets will get an estimated 20 percent. Ten to fifteen percent goes to the consultant for fees.

Central to these consultant's strategies is negative advertising using direct mail to the most likely voters. In Paulding County this is a list of about 14,000 homes who are likely voters in the dominant GOP primary. The cost to mail this list is about $10,000 or over $700/per thousand or more depending on the cost of the actual mail piece.

Negative campaigning works, but...

What is disturbing from a public policy standpoint is the utter disconnect between reality and the campaign message. Of course this is the reason consultants choose direct mail. It is effective in relating whatever message - and today that usually means negative message -- the consultant wants.

Most recognize that the purpose of campaigns, elections, parties and consultants is to win. Consultants, whose future livelihood depends on winning at any cost, have no problem running negative campaigns that distort to truth to the point is it unrecognizable as that is a proven path to victory.

However, such distortions not only mis-inform the local population as to the specific charge, but often distort the role of public officials to enact change or even govern. This is particularly pernicious as the voter is often presented with something disturbing. In the mass-media world, this means we will have to go out and literally search for the factual information to refute the allegation.

And sometimes these negative campaigns are in the form of allegations. One that was distributed four years ago in a state senate race the Friday before the Tuesday primary, led with the headline that alleged the challenger planned to open Sex Shops in (community name).

Negative campaigns fall below the radar

These kinds of campaign tactics also rarely enter the general discussion in the major metropolitan media unless it involves a major city mayor or congressional candidate. With literally dozens of state-senate races in a broadcast market or distribution area of the typical major metropolitan newspaper, the goings-on in a particular race rarely generate a story. What few stories written end up below the fold on page 6 D. While a daily newspaper may do a story on such tactics, it is relatively rare for this kind of story to get space, at least in the local weeklies in this community. Local radio might, if they had a general call in show, talk about these kinds of shenanigans but as we know, most hyperlocal radio has been programmed out of existence.

Bloggers/community sites provide immediate feedback

That leaves this 'story' to bloggers and hyperlocal news/social sites like Paulding.com to explore. In my case, the complaints appear to be making a difference. How big a difference remains to be seen.

The difference is that each of the negative mailers sent out by both commission chair candidates this primary season have generated a topics of their own within about 24 hours of them hitting mailboxes. Typically someone in the camp gored by the direct mail piece will describe it and denounce it. Others will join in; some asking questions and others even defending the allegation, half-truth or distortion contained in the original mailer.

In the past two weeks there have been six specific active topics on Paulding.com discussing the 'mailers' ... all of them critical and some very critical. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the most viewed of the topics has been read a total of 3,350 times ... by probably about 1000 total readers or only a small portion of the 10,000 who received the mailing. The least viewed was seen only 260 times.

Regardless, conversation about these despicable bits of misinformation continues to generate interest and that helps counter the obvious and undeserved benefit the perpetrating candidate reaps from their adoption of negative campaign strategies.

What upsets me most is that the alternatives to direct mail - not just my hyperlocal site but the newspapers and magazines - is they offer communication conduits that are significantly less expensive than the $700/per thousand direct mail and provide public service in times other than political campaign cycles.

The main point is those politicians who want the job so bad they go out and raise big bucks to afford this kind of negative campaigning do so for the selfish reason of a certain victory. Their choice is informed because in hiring these consultants to do negative direct mail campaigns, they must know they show disrespect for those media that support the community 24/7/365.

Regardless, it would seem some journalistic purists are using the current situation to seek wholly different business forms to fund journalism in general. While the national practice of the craft has been benefited by foundations, the idea that anything approaching hyperlocal can be funded by charitable donation alone is a pipe dream.

To me this is not a battle of nefarious forces of good and evil but rather a clear cut business reality. It is clear to me that the current crisis in journalism is based on an expanding supply of advertising opportunities that are proving both intriguing and competitive to business. As advertisers seek out those alternatives, they've withdrawn support from traditional newspapers.

The specific reasons businesses are abandoning newspapers and print are myriad but I do think those in the newspaper business ... and other traditional geo-based media ... are in a real way forgetting they are in a service business. The core of that business is communication to consumers and the means of that communication - Internet, print, broadcast, cable, point of purchase or outdoor is secondary. Advertisers pay, not for space in a newspaper or spots on a TV station, but for timely and efficient communication to the public. Advertisers are motivated in large part by reach and frequency.

The reason newspapers and other news media have traditionally had the support of advertisers is because news media provide reach.

To me it is unthinkable that those in the forth estate would even consider abandoning advertising as key source of revenue. The social and political life of every community is so closely intertwined with commerce that it is silly to consider eliminating paid placement of commercial comment.

When I walk into a local grocer, the Atlanta Journal Constitution display of Sunday newspapers advertises the aggregate dollar value of the grocery store coupons contained in that edition. Commercial comment is news.

What is at issue is competitiveness and what it takes to compete on what promises to be the premier communication utility - the Internet.

One of the advantages I've had in establishing my effort in Paulding Georgia is the fact that the local media were universally complacent of my efforts. In addition, because of my timing, the community has come to identify Paulding.com as their place on the Internet.

I've been hyped by computers and media since the days of MS-DOS but when I look around I see that newspapers in general (with many specific exceptions) are either clueless, complacent or even negative in their attitude toward the Net.

What is the source of this institutional complacency? Is it an endemic bureaucratic mindset established over decades of institutional arrogance or is it something else?

As I suspect most reading this come from the editorial side so I'll be generous and suggest there just isn't much spare time available for thinking out of the box as those in the business struggle with the next daily deadline. Is it that focus on the product actually a box that traps the industry in to failing to grasp the net or is it marketing myopia?

The mindset that the business is the product pretty much exists in every business and is legend in the business school education.

While it is almost trite to say the Internet is a game-changer; the fact is it offers a digital sister to ever analog medium from radio to direct mail. This makes the Internet the medium of mediums (and my favorite). That belief (opinion, understanding) is what informs my perspective of my little hyperlocal mediums' place in the scheme of things.

Adding an Online Video Show

So, when I saw studies that show folks trust local TV news more than they do print journalism, I chose to create a weekly news video program modeled after a typical local market TV news show. The belief is that this production will benefit the site by increasing its credibility with the viewers more than if I were to make it more 'newspaper like' in appearance.

The choice to produce news on the TV news model was a conscious decision based in part on fending off potential competitors but the main strategic reason was to better serve the county's largest advertisers who already produce video commercials for CATV distribution. This "TV" news program is a reach vehicle for these advertisers as the AT&T's package deal bundling phone, DSL and the dish leaves a substantial gap in the cable system's reach.

This new 'product' ... video commercials inserted into locally produced programming distributed via the Internet ... is actually a service paulding.com provides to give large advertisers a compelling reason to spend money with pcom.

I am also creating are other products including a new business directory and neighborhood forums designed to enhance the service of the site to its commercial supporters. Their success is my success.

These new products are all proving synergistic and remunerative as we are increasing the number of business members on the site at the rate of at four or five per week buying in out of the blue. At least half of those purchasing business memberships also purchase banner advertisements.

Adding to this is that the site is cataloged on the search engines. This means that our competitiveness extends to Internet competitors like adwords. Search the string - west metro meat market - on Google and then read the topic that comes up (probably first) on pcom. Ask yourself if that word of mouth advertising is not absolutely priceless.

We are competing in this medium and business has never been better. Had I perceived my effort as just a 'message board' or even an online news outlet with ancillary social network; I'd not have been looking at the Net as the communication tool it is and missed these opportunities to better serve our local advertisers.

Let me close with that classic question posed in Harvard Business Review observation in their article about Marketing Myopia.

What business are you really in? A seemingly obvious question--but one we should all ask before demand for our companies' products or services dwindles.

The railroads failed to ask this same question--and stopped growing. Why? Not because people no longer needed transportation. And not because other innovations (cars, airplanes) filled transportation needs. Rather, railroads stopped growing because railroads didn't move to fill those needs. Their executives incorrectly thought that they were in the railroad business, not the transportation business. They viewed themselves as providing a product instead of serving customers. Too many other industries make the same mistake--putting themselves at risk of obsolescence.

I would suggest that in aggregate, newspapers are suffering from marketing myopia ... They see the Internet as something separate from their core business when in fact, it just another new tool like the typewriter or digital camera ... except better. Making it even better by enhancing the economic, and by extension the political and social life of your local community is the business and the Internet is the tool of choice.

Paulding.com, for those who are aware, is based on a simple message board shtick. We have a front page with news but the majority of the action - some 2200 posts a day - occur within the forums. These posts are typically viewed by members who navigate to the user generated content via the recent topics page.

We describe the recent topics approach as the community's conversation and we liken the banter that goes on about businesses as that most coveted of ad-types, word of mouth.

With nearly 15,000 members, the site provides business people who can participate in the community, a tremendous opportunity to network, make friends and find new customers. Because our mediation of person-to-person conversation is public, our assertion that we've packaged "word of mouth" and sell it to businesses is not without foundation.

The opportunity to solicit and benefit from word of mouth advertising is available to those who purchase a premium commerce membership on Paulding.com and represents, I believe, one example of the type of creative partnerships possible when a hyperlocal news/social site seeks to compete in the advertising marketplace. If only the execution were as clean and simple as the concept.

Businesspeople Interacting on Forums

The Paulding.com commerce membership is an annual license that provides the business with permission to post commercial messages in the proper forums as well as include an advertisement (banner ad, business card, youtube video business card or other graphic/image/display of less than 50kb and sized less than 200 pixels tall by 500 pixels wide.) in their 'signature' on the site. They may also have a business related graphic in their avatar. These permissions mean that they are distributing their 'business card' with each post they make. Commerce members, on average, have about 470 each to their credit and their posts represent about five percent of all posts on the site. The average member accounts for about 125 posts.

This means that participating businesses, rather than sitting in their business (or home) waiting for a customer to arrive, have discovered they can go on Paulding.com and drum up business in real time. (With a different 200-300 people on line from 9a to midnight, there are people always around to talk with.)

They may post a specific offer but then they may just do a little networking by posting a congratulations to this person, comfort a member who lost their pet in another topic and join in the righteous indignation another member feels because someone ran a stop sign and hit their car. It is all networking and getting known ... and getting known in more than the one-dimensional manner that is common in todays fast-paced life.

They can also encourage their customers to go on paulding.com and talk about what a great deal they got from them. These customers are also available to recommend the businesses (both commerce members and non-commerce members) they work with and use. While far from a structured database, this information is searchable through the site's database. In many cases, the recommendations also show up on a search on Google.com.

There are a few other perks including a free personal premium membership (the member might want to say something that is too controversial and they might not want it associated with their business), the ability to post HTML code (formatting and even items like paypal payment code), a gallery, a blog, significantly larger uploads and storage limits and an extra large private message box. Commerce members can edit their posts forever, close their own topics and even delete their own topics. We also offer meet and greet events to allow our commerce members to network with each other in person.

Protection from Negative Posts

Commerce memberships, as the biggest dollar memberships, also earn those subscribing to that membership level some 'protections.'

The first and most important protection regarding commerce members is that regular members are not allowed to post a negative or derogatory post in a commerce-related topic started by that commerce member. This simply means that if a member wants to rain on a commerce members' parade s/he must start their own post to do so. They may not 'ruin' or compromise the advertising started by the licensed member in a post started by that commerce member.

For instance, we have a new fresh meat market as a member. If they come on and advertise Rib Eye Steaks for $8.99/lb. and another member came on and said that another store had them on-sale for $6.99 as a reply to this commerce members post, they would have their post set invisible and be sanctioned.

Under our rules, there would be no sanction if the member had started their own topic with "Ribeye on sale at Hiram store." However, if the situation were reversed and a member noted that a store that was not a commerce member offered their steaks at $9.99/lb and West Metro posted they offered them at $6.99/lb; as a commerce member their post would be okay. Competing commerce members are prohibited from posting in each other's topic.

The second protection provided commerce members is that for their real world competitors to post on the site or even have their business name as a member name, they must also become commerce members. This means that commerce members are protected from their competition as long as they are the only business in a particular field. When we have one business as a commerce member, it is common that a few other competitors will also join.

Complaints about businesses have been one of the tougher areas to moderate -- commerce member or not. Indeed, during the first year before we offered commerce memberships folks would trash some businesses regularly suggesting all sorts of behavior, both legal and illegal.

Because of the section 230a exemption, I wasn't not concerned about being sued successfully for statements made by a member about a business. In that time members had broad leeway. However, in the tradition of give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile the fall-out from that lassez faire policy had created in the minds of some in business that the site was bad for local businesses.

Dealing with Complaints and Reputation

As I envisioned this as a commercial venture that reputation had to change. Early efforts to curtail the complaints lodged by members toward any businesses (members or not) put the site's management in conflict with many of the more vocal members on the board. When push came to shove, I removed the offending posts and went toe-to-toe with the complainers on the site to explain my action. These kinds of conflicts continue; in fact they just come with the territory. Here is a recent topic. I consider these teaching opportunities.

The policy that has evolved is one that allows members to comment on most businesses both with recommendations and criticisms over elements of service and style. For instance, it is not considered improper for a member to post a health department score on a restaurant.

Businesses that are not commerce members are prohibited from having their business names in the titles of the topics regardless of whether it is a kudos or slam. I reserve the right and may exercise it in the case of a commerce member to remove their name from the topic title if they are being mercilessly slammed. I would also move the slam against a 'current and paid' commerce member to an optional (password) forum if for no other reason as to deprive Google the content on a supporting member.

Allegations of tortuous actions on the part of businesses are, however, handled differently. As the site is in no position to judge the merits of a legal case in which a person alleges real money damages, our rule is such complaints may not be posted on the site without evidence that a civil (or criminal if that level of activity is alleged) complaint has been filed in magistrate or superior court. I should add that unlike national sites where literally hundreds of jurisdictions may be in play, the hyperlocal setting means generally that recourse in local courts is usually available.

A relatively recent example was the complaint by a car owner that the brushes used at a local car wash had scratched her car. She came on the site to complain and allegedly warn folks not to use the car wash. Among my concerns when I hear these kinds of stories is the motive behind such complaints may be to gain a competitive advantage for another business. None of the businesses involved were or are commerce members. Regardless, I removed the post and invoked the 'file a case before you complain' rule and I've heard nothing more about this incident. Bottom line: If you want to talk about it, go swear out a formal complaint and bring the filing by and then I'll either do a news story on the incident or I'll let the complainer post.

It should be noted that when one follows the "file first" protocol the poster is also protected in that court filings are privileged and the republication of the information contained in them are not subject to libel.

As an open forum we also have a few businesses that fall into the category of persistent leeches. Either they or their employees come on and plug their business in an effort to circumvent the site's commercial nature. I've dissuaded a few by threatening to put in a word filter that exchanges the business name for the name "advertising cheat." The really good news is that in regard to enforcement of these rules, the existing commerce members are diligent in reporting violators.

Revenues and Retention

With over 135 current commerce members I can report that revenue from these memberships pays the rent, phone, electricity and the T1 Internet connection.

Our retention rate for commerce memberships is greater than 70 percent overall. I'd have to estimate that 95 percent of those who are active posters renew.

In addition, more than half of those who sign up for commerce memberships also supplement their premium memberships with banner ads and directory listings. I should add that commerce members are not required to enter into a contract for banner ads. Non-commerce members who wish to purchase banner ads are required to purchase a three-month minimum contract.

It is important to know that commerce members are almost all locally owned and operated enterprises and some are quite small ... at least in the beginning.

We've had limited success with national or regional franchises largely because there are so few successful 'hyperlocal' media outlets that this genre of advertising business is largely unknown outside the county.

Entrepreneurs Get Feedback

The $99.95 membership is a great first advertising tool for the fledgling entrepreneur. I've seen it used by several members to get instant feedback on the product(s) offered. Using the instant feedback of the forum is a tremendous benefit for the startup and it can easily help determine things like operating hours.

That use has helped one of the most successful commerce members expand their business. In the beginning they offered general handyman services and focused their effort at networking around volunteer work with the local humane society. Active in those topics and others, this member has expanded her business and, with help from feedback, now holds an additional commerce membership for a new pet furniture product line developed with feedback from the consumers on the site.

Another sells home-made soaps, lotions, salts and the like and is known to offer 'gift baskets' at auction on the site for charities including the Humane Society. Heck, they created an ecommerce site for the Humane Society that provides that group with profits from sales that site generates. This business member also markets their goods through other retail commerce members on the site and they've created a sort of mutual admiration society where they help promote the businesses that stock on consignment their goods.

In one of the recent discussions, this member Bruce wrote: "I will also add to Scarlet's sentiment that pcom is 90% of our business. pcom brings more buyers to our site even though I get more referrals from Google. My bounce rate (those that leave the site after one page view) from pcom is 48%, with google it is 64%, the national average and target range is a 77% bounce rate from search engines."

Indeed, that bit of word of mouth touting the success of paulding.com sums up what commerce memberships are all about ... which is word of mouth.

GP Hughes

As the firing of editors at places like the LA Times over newsroom staff cuts demonstrates, out-of-work journalists are totally divorced from the decision making that affects their lives. This is because the big decisions in this industry are being made by corporate management types whose primary goal in life is a seven figure bonus.

These titans of industry are not just in the media companies; they are also in advertising and marketing. That the opinions of a few carry such weight is simply a distortion caused by over-consolidation of the traditional media.

Still, this is not a battle of nefarious forces of good and evil but rather a clear cut business reality based on an expanding supply of advertising opportunities that are proving both intriguing and competitive to advertisers.

Advertising as an industry has changed from a very competitive field where the majority of expenditures were in the mainstream media to one infinitely more varied and increasingly hyper-competitive. Always a supply and demand game, today, options and alternatives abound.

Ad spending on alternative media, including user-generated Web content, Internet search, mobile, gaming and branded entertainment, this year is on pace to jump 20.2% to $88.2 billion, even if there is a recession, according to a PQ Media report published by Mediaweek magazine March 26. Overall ad spending is up just .02 percent for the year according to a report in the same magazine a day earlier.

In this kind of environment, selling is the challenge. That those pitching alternatives that don't include news means they are simply being rewarded for their creativity.

The problem with newspapers is not so much that sales are declining but rather that readership is declining. One also cannot ignore that the price newspapers charge for their advertising is at historical highs. This further erodes the industry's competitive position on any supply and demand chart. Combine that with plain physics - it costs a ton of money in an energy-limited future to move all those tons of paper around daily - and the cost side of newspaper publishing is just going to get worse and margins tighter.

Yes, eyeballs are going to the Net and the Net, because of the ability to let a user sift through haystacks of information for that needle of information they seek, is making it 'the medium of choice' in ad-cluttered 21st Century America. None of this should be news to the folks reading this.

But let's not roll over like a puppy dog and pad the air in abject awe. The Internet is just a medium, which means it is nothing more than a new way to distribute that highly spoil-able but innately valuable commodity: news.

The real question in this new media environment is whether the large, lumbering corporate structure can adapt the fast-moving Net or whether leaner, more entrepreneurial efforts will emerge to meet those needs.

I'll leave it to others to opine on the likelihood of who will have the most success among the major players. Rather, I suggest the "new" business model we should be actively encouraging is actually a rather old one. That model is that of the locally owned and operated newspaper.

I first became aware of this business model when I was a young sprout growing up in a small Mississippi River town just north of Memphis.

Yep, it was the 1963 and Phillip "Moon" Mullins, who along with his older brother owned the weekly in Oxford, Mississippi. Mullins had to leave that 'University town" because he was ahead of that state (and his advertisers) on the issue of race. Rather than shut up or even abandon the industry, he sold the Oxford newspaper and bought the Osceola (AR) Times. In Osceola he found a progressive community with enough support from the local merchants to continue his crusade for positive race relations and frankly helped transform and lead that small town to a brighter future.

From a young teens viewpoint, it was obvious that Mullins was opinionated and that everyone knew him and knew that he owned the paper. He was a big fish and that was his new pond. It was at that time that I decided I wanted to be a publisher.

Mullins was a publisher because that was what he wanted to be. I can hear the collective sighs but before you go harrumph, the more important point is that communities need publishers to push, prod and help shape the future. Communities need that big fish and opinionated guy who is accessible and, in the context of the community, as powerful as he was independent.

With the consolidation of media including weekly newspapers and local radio, that local leadership role no longer exists. Corporate types don't cut the mustard because, with obvious exceptions, as a rule they lack the essential commitment to the communities they earn a salary to serve.

The recreation of this role is an opportunity offered by this new media. Barriers to entry are low, server software such as Drupal is available for free and no community can afford to send all its advertising money to NYC or Silicon Valley. The new media, because of its low barriers to entry, creates that opportunity.

Will this model work for Chicago or New York? Richard Anderson of Village Soup, Geoff Dougherty of the Chi-Town Daily News and Gail Robinson of the Gotham Gazette are three newschallenge winners whom I suspect not only share, but are, like me, actively working to realize that dream in one way or another.

We can intellectualize about the business models and plot exit strategies and even calculate risks until the sun sets a thousand times but the plain fact is the new media (in all its interactive, audio-video-text glory) gives communities is the opportunity to reclaim their own independent voice. All it takes is for those who have guts and gumption to just step forward and do it.

G. Patton Hughes

These changes in privacy policies are the result of a new marketing approach endorsed by the Internet Advertising Bureau establishing tighter integration of data collected by media sites with databases of advertisers and others who serve ads to the public on the Internet. Members of the IAB are a who's who in the Internet industry including Google, Yahoo!, double-click, AOL, the NYTimes, Cox Communications, and others who have accepted the vision of major marketers who are interested in maximizing their advertising dollars by using all the data available to minimize advertising waste and maximize their marketing punch. This means you and I are going to have our on line activities sliced and diced finer than that latest kitchen gadget offered by Ron Popiel.

The IAB said its members will follow five basic privacy principles henceforth:

1. Consumers should be provided meaningful notice about the information collected and used for interactive advertising
2. Consumers should be informed of their choices regarding interactive advertising and empowered to exercise those choices
3. Businesses should implement appropriate information security practices and procedures
4. Businesses should be responsive and accountable to consumers
5. Companies should educate consumers about the benefits of interactive advertising

Basically this sounds reasonable on its face but the constant use of the word 'should' is bothersome. These guidelines are voluntary as are the privacy statements by every website around. I feel it instructive to see how these principals are implemented in one of the new privacy notices I received via email Monday. It reads:

If you do not agree to the new terms of use, do not continue to use our sites. Continued use constitutes acceptance. If you object to the changes to our privacy policies, you can opt out of the new policy below with respect to your PII collected under the old policy. However, any new PII you supply us will be governed by the new policy.

The slick thing here is that all prior information collected, including personally identifiable information (PII) offered in the past, is automatically included under the new privacy policy unless you read that email and opted-out.

Privacy is something that as a small town publisher I have to grapple with frequently, although I have to admit the issues are different on the hyperlocal level. For instance, I have been asked dozens of times about the identities of various members by politicians and others who had been questioned pointedly by an individual hiding behind a screen name. My privacy policy requires that I honor the decision of the individual to remain anonymous unless that information is the subject of a subpoena. In my privacy policy I reserve the right to fight the subpoena or, at my sole discretion, to cooperate.

Indeed, my privacy policy suggests that if I feel a member is committing a crime that would bring disrepute to my site (or if I am the target) I reserve the right to be proactive and even initiate an investigation of a member.

Of course not all members on the site are anonymous or seek to be. We offer a membership license to businesses and politicians who, by definition, seek to promote themselves. Anonymity in those cases would defeat the purpose of the member being on the site. Other individuals, because they choose to participate in public events hosted by the site opt out of their anonymity as they increase their prominence in the community.

Notably, my site provides several password protected forums designed to prevent national search engines from cataloging sensitive personal information deposited there by members. Restricted forums include those where transcripts of emergency radio traffic are placed; where adults interact in a way that might be considered a little racy and even forums where members talk about their health with others. These forums are hidden from the search services by password because if someone is taking a particular drug, that information need not be cataloged for retrieval by the search engines.

Perhaps more important is the reality that as a small, independent operation, we are in no way capable of parsing our own database to pull lifestyle pointers and deliver them to large-scale marketers of any kind.

That doesn't mean the lifestyle information provided by members in conversation is not being used for marketing. I dare say that if a person wrote on the site they needed a washing machine repaired, they'd have two or three posts from local appliance repair or handy man service in a matter of minutes. Heck, extend the time to a couple of hours and they'll likely have been offered a used replacement washing machine, a link to a new one on sale, a neighbor's offer to do the 'babies clothes' tonight if needed, and at least two recommendations for yet another repairman.

This is because, on the hyperlocal scale, the marketer - whether it be a real estate agent, appliance repairman or car salesman - is a human being interacting with their neighbors. This is the essence of high-tech, high-touch that John Nesbitt explored in his 1982 book Megatrends.

This approach contrasts with the IAB marketer driven approach simply because it is human and real. What is the individual going to get when visiting, say Yahoo! with his need for an appliance repair after marketers have sorted through tetra-bytes of data? My gut is he'll get an ad delivered by some web-savvy key word bidder who lives two counties away and won't be able to serve him for three days.

Do recognize that in the grand scheme of things, I know my little hyperlocal site is of little more importance than a zit on the butt of stray bulldog in the suburbs of Atlanta. But when I look at the direction those who have the advantage of these kinds of economies of scale, I see my mind boggled by the super human sophistication represented by the marketing geniuses of the Internet Advertising Bureau..

I mean, we're talking about the most private, most intimate information imaginable -- from the types of prescription medications (does she have AIDS) kinky sex toy purchases and credit cards used to pay for speeding tickets. No wonder Nesbitt, in his latest book entitled "High Tech, High Touch", suggested we were running away from the high-tech aspects of the computer.

Think, too, of the disconnect regarding privacy when we protest our government's use of the Patriot Act to review the reading habits of people in public libraries but ignore the collection of the same data by corporate entities who will share or sell it to each other (or the government) with at most, self-interested, self-regulation the only barrier.

I'm a competitor in this 'game' of new media and I think that, because the Net finally has 'reach' into geographic markets, hyperlocal media makes more sense because its scale is simply more human.

But as I look at the advantages the big players bring to this competition, I shudder as I utter "I don't like it." As a small town, community publisher, as a citizen and as a consumer, what they are doing is a threat to my freedom, my privacy and my business.

So what am I going to do about it?

That is a tough one. As I look at it logically, the data is there; it has been given freely by the consumer and it lies there begging to be used by those who collect it.

There are no particular legal constructs that I am aware that says all personally identifiable information is protected by copyright or trademark or otherwise inherently restricted or protected. Indeed, the constitutional prohibitions regarding privacy largely restrict government in its use of this data most particularly in court, not private enterprise. (Even today the information the government collects in its Census data is a key marketing information tool.)

Don't forget that the major players in the media and marketing industry are on board in exploiting this resource (IAB) and, other than feeling rather lonely in my dislike of this direction, I see little hope. Maybe, events, like the 18th Annual CFP: Technology Policy '08 conference hosted by Yale Law school this coming May 20th -23rd could provide us a clue as to a direction.

For the uninformed (and until I received an email about this Knight funded event as I was writing this, I was among them) this event touts itself as "an opportunity to help shape public debate on those issues being made into laws and regulations and those technological infrastructures being developed. The direction of our technology policy impacts the choices we make about our national defense, our civil liberties during wartime, the future of American education, our national healthcare systems, and many other realms of policy discussed more prominently on the election trail. Policies ranging from data mining and wiretapping, to file-sharing and open access, and e-voting to electronic medical records will be addressed by expert panels of technologists, policymakers, business leaders, and advocates."

This thought from EFF.org site regarding privacy:

bq. "Technology isn't the real problem, though; rather, the law has yet to catch up to our evolving expectations of and need for privacy. In fact, new government initiatives and laws have severely undermined our rights in recent years."

I don't know that the law can 'catch up.' Can the law can even parse this issue considering the data in question -- customer lists with notations regarding preferences -- are about as basic a data set as exists in business. How can government write a law to restrict its use or even how well one maintains the data.

Still I don't like it.

G. Patton Hughes

I really don't like blogs. They are not conversational and they don't build a community.

I love forums because they are conversational and with a little nurturing, they can blossom into a full-blown on-line community. This is true whether the common interests are cars, collectibles or a geographic community.

Another reason I love forums is that, unlike a blog, I could have stopped writing at the end of the last paragraph. On an active forum that assertion would have been enough to effectively start a conversation that possibly would be just as informative as this column. Certainly it would include the perspectives of two, three, five or ten knowledgeable people, each with an opinion on the subject.

With a blog the writer has all the responsibility. Typically the blogger is stuck creating something more akin to a lecture than a discussion. While the blog may get some responses, its success or failure is based on its content; not on the conversation that it ignites.

My task on Idea Lab is to write about Paulding.com as a small business owner, entrepreneur and journalist. Presumably the idea is to inspire other folks to emulate this 'successful effort,' by building a hyperlocal communities in other communities.

Let me say I am painfully aware forums just aren't a tool most practiced journalists are comfortable using. Forums are also relatively rare on news sites of all kinds these days. And forums seem to have fallen further from favor as the NYTimes, Washington Post and a host of other newspapers suspended 'forums' as one of their on line 'service' offerings in 2007.

Was this decision by the biggies in the news business the death knell for forums? Will the 'forum' approach now be roundly ignored as non-journalistic by journalism organizations and the journalism experts with whom I share this stage?

You know what, I don't care. I'm convinced that the message board approach is the best way for an entrepreneur to build a hyperlocal community - especially with limited capital and manpower.

The main reason paulding.com has succeeded is that message boards are conversational and conversations that revolve around local news suck people in. Many call their involvement on my site addictive but the truth is that it simply fills the basic human need to talk. That basic human need is the essence of social media. Furthermore, talking - conversing - is the most common form of human communication.

You can see it in the popularity of sites from myspace to youtube where folks actually put their mug on the screen and talk at you -- folks want to participate in the conversation.

One key element of being a successful entrepreneur is to see what folks want and give it to them. With some 2100 large forum-based communities on the net each with a half-million posts - the top site has over 1.2 billion posts - people really want to talk.

But there is more to recommend forums as a path to hyperlocal communities than just giving people what they want ... although that is important.

First forum-based on line communities are notoriously sticky.

Stickiness is measured both in time on site and page views and almost always, forums will win. For grins I'll did a little comparison of the top blog according to technorati.com and the top message board according to big-boards.com.

Engaget.com is the top "URL" sourced blog with reach an estimated 1.6 million visitors. They have great reach but according to compete.com the average visitor reads 2.1 pages and spends two and a half minutes with the site.

Gaiaonline.com, which is a role-playing social site, engages almost 1.2 million visitors monthly. While this gaming/leisure board's reach is smaller, each average visitor spends over 40 minutes on average reading some 69 pages (source: compete.com.)

That is really sticky. And while that stickiness is exceptional, stickiness is an observable trait of all successful forum sites. Stickiness adds value to those who advertise on a site as they are more likely to have their ads seen and their posts seen. Second, the mere choice to spend time at one site over others builds loyalty and that builds the community network.

Another intrinsic feature of forum-based communities is they self-generate content. The value of this aspect to the entrepreneur publishing on the cheap is undeniable. Your customers come to the site and give you their content for free. This donation of time by members who generate content effectively lowers the barrier to entry into this new media... tremendously.

A second consideration here is that when you get community members to contribute, their very contributions literally tell you what they want. Consider also that commercial members can ask a question and get answers from their customers almost immediately. Being able to time-shift communication and broadcast conversations to hundreds if not thousands quickly and efficiently is a valuable service the site provides its business members (and itself.)

These aspects - free content and a sticky audience and real time research - makes forum software a killer application for the low budget hyperlocal startup. It is certainly explains why forum I chose forum software was for my venture.

But as to the reason I love forums, go back to the beginning paragraph.

Time is money and money is why I really don't like blogs and love forums.

G Patton "Pat" Hughes

That is a gross oversimplification. What my 21st Century Newchallenge is all about is building a sustainable business model based on connecting a community. That means it is always about the network. Sales and revenues impact sustainability but are secondary to the core mission, which is to develop the community.

If challenged to say what is the community, I could just smirk and say, read the site; all 1.7 million posts. If you were to ask, how do you know you have a community, that could be answered objectively.

Obviously, one of the key metrics defining the success of a web site is the amount of time spent on a site. According to the compete.com analytics for Paulding.com, the average visit on Pcom last 17 minutes and 33 seconds as they view an average 14.6 pages. This compares to a typical local news site - I'll choose Macon.com (Macon Ga) which has an average visit of 4 minutes 51 seconds and 4.9 pages, also according to compete.com. The primary reason for the difference are the social networking aspects of paulding.com.

Indeed, paulding.com's figures in the social networking world pale in comparison to myspace.com which compete.com puts at the head of the pack. Compete.com says each visit to that site consumes 24 minutes and 26 seconds of the visitors time as they peruse 36.6 pages. Paulding does compare favorably to Facebook in terms of time on site (14:09) but those college kids tear through 43 pages on each visit according to compete.com.

When thinking about these figures, it is important to consider the demographics of the audiences involved. Myspace has a reputation of skewing to younger people ... literally high-school age and even younger. Certainly these kids have more time to burn than their college age brothers and sisters and of course, Paulding.com members tend to be marginally older - I.e. adults living in a hyperlocal community.

Regardless, the ability to gain such high levels of involvement are a distinct advantage common to successful social networking sites. That paulding.com competes favorably in terms of time spent shows it is possible to overlay a social network on a hyperlocal geographic environment. (Kind of a 'duh' moment it seems to me.)

Key to this success in the hyperlocal environment is the audience. The most desirable computing component in these local deep networks is the wetware - the people who come together to form these networks. For myspace it is the peers of the tweens and teens; for facebook, college peers constitute the largest draw. Frankly, one of the main reasons both sites are a success is that most there are probably on the make.

While there is some of that on paulding.com, the draw is infinitely more community minded. Many come to this hyperlocal community because they need the knowledge of those who live and know the community.

The point is each kind of social network targets a different demographic group - and most are places where 'people like me' congregate. That the large national social networks seem to target the youth is unmistakable. What is equally obvious is that in the hyperlocal sphere, it is geography rather than the common angst of being pubescent that is at the core of the social mortar.

This meas the hyperlocal network naturally targets adults living in a community. The prom is decidedly less an issue than is deciding the communities future by passing a fire tax. The challenges they face are politics, dealing with government, dealing with the schools, dealing with fulfilling the needs of the family to shelter, feed, clothe, educate, entertain and keep its children safe. All of these processes are at the core of adult involvement in a community. It is their interests, presence and experience and their willingness to share that knowledge that are at the core of the value proposition of the hyperlocal social network.

It is no secret that news is one of the primary draws for the most desirable network members ... those being adults who have a deep understanding of the community and its politics.

Their value to the network cannot be minimized. News or even sales; while as essential to the hyperlocal network as the heart, mind, liver or kidney to the life of an individual, are just part of the whole of the community - the network.

The power of this network is that as it forms and grows it begins to write the narrative of the life of the community. In doing so it naturally challenges the schools, the newspapers, the politicians and the business community - any and all who previously controlled the public debate. The authority of those who head local institutions will likely find themselves in the midst of unanticipated conflicts.

And it will get worse before it gets better, particularly in the south where authority is particularly jealous of its prerogatives.

Remember the Gail Sheehy's book "Passages?" Consider that people in the Internet age are going through one of many stages in life. As they age they will not so much change their media habits as adapt them to the new demands they face. I'm pretty certain they will move on from these national peer group networks and with the nesting instinct, instead turn to tend their gardens in their own backyards. My gut is they will migrate to a hyperlocal social network if one exists in their community and that migration will be an element of their passage from being kids to adults.

This does not imply that they will adopt the media habits of their parents and read the newspaper; rather they will find themselves attracted to new media forms that fulfill these predictable interests and give them voice.

I fully believe that hyperlocal networks will become integral to the communities. Part virtual tool, part social network and part news, their function is to aggregate the knowledge and understanding of the adults in a community. As in all networks, it is the people who are the most valuable resource. It is their local knowledge that adds value.

Building and maintaining the local network is a differrent task than that of publishing a newspaper or producing local news for radio or TV. It requires that those seeking to create these hyperlocal-social-news networks provide the individual a voice as unrestrained as that they have had on facebook or myspace.

To gain economic viability it must also easily incorporate local commerce as seamlessly as it does local politics, religion, and all the other local social aspects of living and dying in the community. All these topics will be the topics of discussion and interaction.

Local news is the glue that brings these largely disparate elements of community life together and only a fool would expect the result to be quiet order. Strife and conflict are as natural an element of the network as are death and taxes. Those who create these hyperlocal social-networks will have to be adept at managing them.

Managing that and bringing together a new kind of community that has more cohesion than dissention is the challenge of the hyperlocal community network builder.

For those who might say, but it is the sales, stupid, I can't over-emphasize that commerce is the life-blood of a community network and permeates all aspects of the community. The task of the 21st century hyperlocal publisher is to build a virtual social, economic, political and spiritual network that transcends the conflicts of individuals and ultimately unites all elements of the community by telling their individual stories.

The tool is radically different from a newspaper. There will be hundreds or thousands of individual writers conversing. Still, when it is all distilled, the product of the hyperlocal network is just a new kind of journalism.

GP Hughes

No it is not ... it is the network (Check the companion entry It is the network stupid) that determines if you attract a viable audience that generates monetize-able journalism ... I.e. journalism that attracts a salable audience.

My belief has always been that sales will come when you have a viable audience.

I'm here to report that it does even when you're barely competent at sales. Yep, I've had sales ... although any reasonable businessperson would say that sales I've generated so far are lackluster.

The secret of good sales is a good salesperson and personally, that has been my downfall.

Yep, what is needed is one of those folks who sets a goal of getting cash every day and makes it happen.

I hate to say it but a good salesperson could make money selling a plain static Internet directory site with no audience....they'd just have a hard time retaining advertisers. Still, they do it every day, much to my amazement.

But give a good salesperson a product like Paulding.com with our average 10,000 daily visits, average 15 pages per visit and 13 minute plus average visit and money will come.

Yes, I'm celebrating a bit because we've had our best month yet. Not great but we're now at about 20 percent of target in revenues up from about 12 percent. Our target revenue is $25,000/mo.

A salesperson makes all the difference in revenue and in a new hire of mine, Laurie Penney, I've got one.

Let me digress a bit. In the companion piece I was talking about the importance of having older folks who know a community being involved in the network. This particular person is also highly involved in charitable efforts locally and has been around the community in that and similar roles for more than a decade. In fact I first met her as a client on the site who was promoting her personal training service. It took me three months to recruit her to sell for the site. Part of her experience in the community involved helping build a chiropractic practice for her husband including the difficulty of advertising in the community. That experience and the reach, cost and interactivity she now sees at Paulding.com make her a true believer in the capacity of the medium. Add to that her roots and credibility in the community and sales for her are a cakewalk.

As a publisher and creator of a hyperlocal network site, it is my task to find these folks. I just wish I'd found her sooner.

I haven't been totally slacking in my role as national sales manager. I can report that a bit over ten percent of the current revenues are now coming from national sources ... I.e. National advertising.

Anyone involved in hyperlocal advertising knows that the biggest problem any local medium has selling nationally is the size of the 'deal' ... It takes an advertiser or his agent as much time to sell and close a $200 deal as it does a $20,000, or $200,000 deal. When looking at the ad buying resource, in terms of agency commissions (or just work load), fifteen percent of $200 or even $2,000 is not worth it.

That means for a hyperlocal site to get national advertising revenues they're going to have to either go with Google adsense or find some other kind of national representation.

Now, at least for the time being, I'm declining Google (adsense) and any pay per click routine.

Why? Many reasons but one of them is that Google's publisher contract could disallow all legitimate revenues unilaterally if one of my members, thinking he'd be doing me a favor click, click, clicked. Add to that my not unreasonable concern that one of the smaller competing sites (also wise to this pitfall) could organize a group to do the same. This may seem paranoid but anyone who has competed in local media knows that things can get nasty in unexpected ways.

And why should I when I have found two great alternatives that sell space on a shared CPM (cost per thousand) basis and are both capable of generating real revenues without those inherent risks. (I also know that my competitors aren't going to come and refresh pages incessantly.

The first is http://www.thenewsroom.com. These folks package national content from news services like AP, CBS News, BBC News, McClatchy-Tribute, AFP and other sources (campaign feeds) and bundle an advertisement with that content. I pull selected text articles from the site and place them on my highly trafficked front page earning $1.00/M. This is generating about $250-300/month with my traffic and has given me access to those local stories, like the Michael Vic dog-fighting ring story, that I would not otherwise have been able to include. I have a couple of special interest news feeds and I continue to experiment with this service. I am trying to figure out how to provide content for them and could conceivable switch to them for delivery of my local news content if the final product they provide meets the requirements. Like many services out there to help the fledging hyperlocal site, this one continues to evolve.

The second national site is http://www.adsdaq.com which is serving the purpose of a national advertising representative. As their domain name suggests, they're billing themselves as a markplace for advertising along the lines of a stock market.

So far I've made available to them one share of my front page wide-tower ad space. This space runs next to my weekly news video presentations is also adjacent to the content I take from thenewsroom.com. This effectively gives them an inventory of about 200,000 banners a month that they sell at my stated price of $7.00 per thousand through their marketplace. They are selling about 25 percent of that inventory and and I'm netting over $300/month from the arrangement.

This helps me establish a value the value locally for these front page banners at about $1400/month which, while they don't sell for that locally, makes for good conversation with locals over the value of advertising on Paulding.com.

And do know that establishing that value proposition is a critical task in local sales... but not nearly as important as a good salesperson.

GP Hughes

It was in one of the breakout sessions at the conference where the future of the media was being discussed. There was one of the blindingly bright twenty-something man of Asian descent that seems destined to get $20 million in backing from an equally inscrutable venture capitalist. When he spoke, people listened and it is a vision of the future we've all heard.

The narrative is that we'll all have our little personal devices that we've programmed with widgets that take our orders and deliver us just the news and content we want.

Everyone in the room was doing the 'damn, we know, this is the future and how do we adapt to it."

Adopting my 'incredulous freak' personality, (It is not mental illness, I promise; it is just a gut level reaction.), my voice went up three octives and I blurted out, "Whooopeee, I always hated civics and now I can my Brittany Spears news 24/7 with out so much as an interruption, Yaaah," ... then returned to my normal self and asked, "How in the hell are we going to inform a public of their civic responsibilities if we have no way to get in their face."

I'm not quick enough or glib enough to have this answer ready and no one else seemed to have it either. What I do know is that something about my little hyperlocal site works and I instinctively think it may hold at least part of the answer of how we keep news - the news that some might consider boring but is essential to each of us performing our civic duty - in the public's face.

Now my site is hardly a work of art. Frankly it is pretty much a cheap, low end commercial message board installed right out of the box. Still, the site has gained traction and a level of participation that defies all current expectations. The only logical conclusion is that I'm doing something different and maybe even something right.

Most message boards have a single link to allow readers to view the recent topics. Typically this is just one of many links available and, in my research, is only rarely used in most other boards. But I highlight this link, putting special emphasis on it and it appears everywhere I can put it.

At anytime of the day or night, a reader on Paulding.com can click on this button and see, not the latest new topic, but the last topic to receive a comment. The readers, by their act of replying, determine what topic leads this page.

In a strange way this fulfills the same function that the much more sophisticated software employed by Slashdot.com, which requires its users to rate topics giving those with higher ratings; greater prominence. My recent topics list mimics this because posting a comment to an existing topic acts as a vote of interest in the topic. It says simply that what was said was worth the time of another to reply.

On typical weekdays, the site will have over 400-500 topics active in the past 24 hours (started or commented) . When topics fail to generate conversation (comments) they are aged from the recent topics page(s) and settle into a quasi-archive status in one of the more than 200 active forums.

This function, more than any other, defines what the conversation on Paulding.com is 'right now.'

And that simple search page is by far the most active single 'page' on the site..

This means that a citizen news report - SCHOOL BUS WRECK AT 92 & 278 - is placed at the top of the queue the moment it comes in.

When that kind of topic appears, a different dynamic - the element of the immediacy of the news comes into play ... When reading that topic, members are now in what I can only describe as the virtual newsroom of the site.

I'll create a simplified exchange that illustrates how this simple topic is played and let the reader see how it memics a newsroom when a new story breaks but before the story is actually written and reported. (This example would never make it into most newspapers.)

------------------------------
Headline: (Newstip) SCHOOL BUS WRECK AT 92 & 278 (TIME 2:12 P.M.)

OP: (original poster) I just heard on the scanner there was a school bus involved in a wreck with a pickup truck at 92&278. Clarks, Fire Dept, school, SO and gsp notified. (Clarks = ambulance, SO=Sheriff's office and gsp is Georgia State Patrol.)
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1ST POSTER: oh my God ... I hope no one is hurt. (2:12p)
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2nd poster: I hope there weren't any kids on board. (2:12p)
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3rd poster: Me too ... its early before release, maybe there aren't ... hope no one is hurt either. I wonder what color the Pickup truck is, my hubby comes through there about that time and he drives a red chevy. 2:13 p
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OP FD back in station, Clarks reports no injuries. GSP on scene 2:18p
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4th poster: Anyone heard anything? 2:31
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5th poster: I just drove by there and it was a blue Ford pickup and they nipped the rear bumper of the bus and took out the left-front fender. It didn't look bad and I bet the guy doesn't even get it fixed ... probably will have to pay the ticket but the bus wasn't hurt at all. 2:34
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1st poster: I'm so glad that it was nothing. I hate it when I hear these kinds of calls. I remember the one last year where the bus was a mile from the school on its way to pickup kids and had that headon collision that killed both drivers. That was so sad. 2:35p
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6th poster: Me too, my grandchild rides the bus through there every day. 2:45p
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7th poster: I was right behind the guy In the pickup and let me tell you that old POS pickup needs some brakes ... he damn near turned the truck sideways because they were so out of whack. And no, if wouldn't put a nickel toward the repair of that safety hazard. I hope the trooper cited him for having an unsafe vehicle. 4:55 p
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8th poster: I think the police ought to do safety roadblocks .. heck I want them done at my subdivision cause the teen nextdoor has this old Honda Civic that he drives like a maniac and it drives me up the wall when he pulls it in the drive with the brakes screeching like fingernails on a blackboard. 5:43p

------------------------------------------

The topic continues to get reads for the next 24 hours but falls of the recent topics as it is pretty much a non-story. In the end, this topic has 10 posts and 350 reads as school bus wreck is always a hot topic among the moms.)

This was a minor, minor news story that was told in really pretty good depth as far as the essentials. Everyone's curiosity was more than satisfied and then some. The topic could have gone on as a hijack on the efficacy of police check points where issues of civil rights and the right to stop and search are discussed but ... that happens only some of the time.

If this were a bigger story it would generate a lot more replies and I'd probably go to the scene, get some pictures, do a little reporting, put it in a multimedia format with a slide show and audio actuality and that piece would be read and gain comments as well. I might even call the eyewitness for a phone recorded intereview.

But the point is the conversation at Paulding.com includes news topics of this kind all the time along with ads for goods, political and religious commentary and passionate discussions of local, state and national events, some jokes, tips and more all happening now. All kind of like sitting in the newsroom BS-sing about the weather waiting for the bomb to drop.

Paulding.com is that virtual newsroom for Paulding County Georgia. The readers, who have been starved for news, are into the immediacy of what is happening. People who don't even have a computer, if they hear a series of emergency vehicles travel by their home, will call someone they know is on pcom and ask them, what's happening ... and expect to find out.

I used to say that the recent topics page was the reason for my success ... but that really isn't it. The success comes because what the recent topics represent ... a special kind of conversation that is like the kind of conversations we in journalism have always had in the newsroom.

So, the epiphany is that the way to trump ME is with NOW. This happens naturally when the conversation memics the newsroom. It doesn't require that we turn the readers into citizen journalists as much as by letting them eavesdrop on the newsroom's conversations. Incidentally, when you do that, they'll feel free to contribute when they can.

My 21st Century Knight News Challenge is to write about how I am going to make money out of this hyperlocal new media venture. My goal is to share with you observations of a lone entrepreneur who had a new media idea and is trying to make it work.

I feel it important to set the stage for what will follow so bear with me while I present a little history. I'll use a "QnA" format.

Q. The first question is how I came to start Paulding.com?

A. I was a writer and later editor for one of three weekly newspapers. I began playing with new media as early as 1994, becoming a forum geek in the days of Compuserve and the old AOL. I parlayed an ezine I started called Auctionland Online Report (about eBay and the online auction industry) in 1996 into a job as 'auctioneer@auctionuniverse.com' with the Times-Mirror's Hartford Courant in 1997. When I went full time with auctionuniverse.com - I was no longer with the newspaper -- I bought the domain Paulding.com as a 'fall back' if the Internet bubble burst. It did and that is how I came to start Paulding.com.

Q. Why Paulding County Georgia?

A. When I first came to Paulding county in 1989 the county had a population of about 38,000 residents, three stoplights and no four-lane. It did have a good location. Paulding is located 30 miles northwest of Atlanta. It has consistently ranked in top twenty fastest-growing counties in the nation since 1989.

Today the county has an estimated population of over 120,000 residents, two four-lane roads and more than 100 stoplight controlled intersections. It still has three weekly newspapers. One is locally owned, has the county legal business and hasn't changed much since the 1950s. The others are free-distribution advertisers that use primarily local features as filler. There are a few quasi-slick monthly magazines, a handful of shoppers and coupon books. There are no radio stations and as it is dwarfed in population by the other metro Atlanta counties, it gets limited attention from the metro's major media.

This has allowed Paulding.com to fill the niche as the main daily news source for this community.

The most distinctive aspect of the county is that it is a bedroom community with over 70 percent of its residents commuting to larger counties in the Atlanta MSA. About 16 percent of the county's tax digest is commercial and balance residential property. Until recently, adjacent counties were host to the primary commercial centers serving the county.

I chose Paulding county as where I would 'make my stand' back in 1990. I figured back then that where there is growth; there is opportunity.

Q. What kind of software does Paulding.com use?

A. Paulding.com is based on the forum or message board approach to web 2.0. I use Invision Power Board, which is a relatively inexpensive commercial forum solution in a field where there are many vendors.
I chose it because it is customizable, provides a relatively easy method for members to upload pictures and otherwise interact and communicate. Another reason is that it was easy enough for this 50-something non-code warrior to install and administer.

The problem most in the media have with forums is that they typically are more demanding on those who run them than are blogs. Some have equated the task of keeping an open forum from self-destructing is a task somewhat akin to herding cats.

In many ways message boards are simply blogs with enhanced freedom for the reader to comment. Blogs are more popular because they restrict the freedom of those replying in a variety of ways; the most notable being replies are given second-billing (assuming replies are allowed at all). They are just more orderly.

In my mind, forums are just another variation of the content management system concept designed to provide enhanced tools for moderating large groups of content providers. They are naturally chaotic which to me helps them more accurately reflect reality.

The decision to use this software has in some ways turned the community into a mass of citizen journalists posting incidents as minor as a boom in the night.

That said, had Paulding.com been an aggregation of blogs, it would not be as popular in the community as it is today.

Q. How Popular is Paulding.com?

A. Paulding.com has 13,300+ registered members who have started some 123,000 topics and made some 1,553,000+ posts. Other stats here: http://www.paulding.com/usage says that the site's main server delivers about 5 million pages a month delivered to some 350,000 visitors.

What this means is that Paulding.com is a community conversation. The breadth of the conversation is amazing from impromptu restaurant reviews to comments both pro and con on Al Gore's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The members have come to rely on themselves for breaking news stories from the high school coach who struck a student, to the posting of rough transcripts of the local emergency services scanners. (We have an entire forum just for these reports.)

The statistic I'm most proud of is that of the 13,345 members, some 6,868 (51.5%) have posted one or more times. Of that number some 1160 (8.7%) have posted 100 times or more. This suggests a participation rate of 48.4 - 42.8 - 8.7 which is much higher than that predicted by Dr. Neilsen and his accepted 90-9-1 participation metric.

The down side of this is that only a portion of the 1.5 million posts qualify as newsworthy. Instead, we find ourselves too often the scene for drama as personality conflicts in a group of 13,000+ folks are inevitable. Controlling this drama is one of the major challenges of managing the site but in a perverse way, the drama can make it real and contributes to the popularity.

Q. Has that popularity made Paulding.com a financial success?

A. I'll be kind and say that Paulding.com's financial performance is falling short of its potential. As owner and publisher of the site I am to blame.

Every small business is enormously dependent on its owner's personal strengths and weaknesses. That makes the issue of making money from Paulding.com as much a personal challenge as it is a business challenge.

While I'm confident of my abilities as a new media visionary, the greater reality is that I'm an editorial and publishing geek, not a slick salesman.

Hence my challenge and my blog will detail how I get from here (popular success with lackluster financials) to there (unqualified success or crashing and burning). The outcome is not crystal.

Still, the idea is that if Paulding.com were to reach its potential, that success should be truly inspirational.

Q. How so?

A. Easy. Here is a site started by a small town writer/reporter/editor without a print component, without much of a bankroll and just a few new media skills who enlists and creates a community to cover itself, communicate with each other and even help the needy, chastise the greedy and keep their politicians in line. ... That's nice but if you add the line ... and making good money while doing it; the narrative truly does become an inspiration.