The online community news business is exploding thanks to publishers who believe they are filling a massive void in the market. Driven by both investment backed commercial entities, as well as individual journalists and community activists, these sites are attempting to prove that there is money to be made, while at the same time serving their communities by replacing the print newspapers shuttered by large newspaper chains.
In addition to AOL-backed Patch, which now has news sites in five states, and Southern California based U.S. Local News Network, a wide array of independent local news sites have launched -- the Ann Arbor Chronicle, have now been around for almost two years, for instance. (The Chronicle was profiled here back in February.) AOL is said to be committing $50 million to facilitate its rapid expansion, proving that there are those that are willing to commit big dollars to reach the reader of local community news.
One company that is quickly expanding in its core region is Main Street Connect (MSC). Founded by Carll Tucker, MSC currently has four live local news sites -- all serving communities in Fairfield County, Connecticut, part of the New York City DMA.
From community newspaper owner to Main Street Connect
Tucker was the former editor and publisher of Trader Publications, which included
The Patent Trader and
The Putnam Trader, and other weekly newspapers. In 1999 he sold out to Gannett, and clearly Tucker was not happy with the way things turned out. "It took them three years to kill it, and five years to put it down in a mercy killing," Tucker complained. "It's because they don't understand the community news business. They've never sung songs at Rotary, they don't put their arms around the local business leaders, they're not at the PTOs or the youth soccer games -- they're not invested in community in the way that you have to be to understand what community news is."
So earlier this year Tucker launched the first of a series of community news sites that he believes will fill the void created by the demise of the local print newspaper.
"When the newspapers all started to meltdown, and either vanish or become moribund, the question obviously that came into my head was: well, what's going to replace the 3,000 community newspapers that are going to go out of business?" Tucker told me last week.
Backed by an impressive list of names such as current board members Peter A. Georgescu, Chairman Emeritus of Young & Rubicam Inc., and Stephen I. Sadove, Chief Executive Officer of Saks, Inc., Main Street Connect was established. Also on board are John Falcone, formerly SVP Mobile Network at SmartReply, who serves as President, COO, and Jane Bryant Quinn, the personal finance columnist, who is Tucker's wife, and is listed as Editorial Director.
The new company is currently the owner/operator of a series of local news sites for Connecticut communities that include
The Daily Norwalk,
The Daily Darien and
The Daily Fairfield,
The Daily Westport (all currently live). Sites for Wilton, New Canaan, Weston, and Easton will go live soon, and by the end of the year Tucker promises his own network of sites will spread south to Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties in New York.
←
Three of MSC's community websites.
Like Patch, the Main Street Connect formula is to link sites, each site identically designed., within what Tucker believes is a unique, robust content management system.
What differentiates the MSC sites in appearance, however, is the amount of local advertising that can be found on each of them -- unlike Patch sites, MSC sites appear to be better monetized. Tucker said that MSC sites does not sell regular online display advertising, per se, but something Tucker calls "annual visibility packages".
Comparing Patch sites which are established by an individual editor, assisted by the editors from surrounding Patch news sites, or the regional editor, the MSC sites appear better staffed. Nonetheless, a comparison of the staffs of all four live MSC sites reveals that each are identical.
Dorian Benkoil, founder of Teeming Media, a digital media business and editorial consulting company, says that the company's websites are doing extremely well growing traffic. "In a community of 25,000 English speaking homes in Norwalk, we're up to about 14,000 monthly uniques," Benkoil said.
"The loyalty stats are also really impressive, even though we are ramping up as quickly as we are -- growing thousands per week -- we're getting better than 55 percent repeat visits. Among these repeat visits, 70 percent of them -- between 68 and 70 percent -- are coming at least twice a day," said Benkoil.
Posts
and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, both of which sell for $259. The 
