I’m a news devotee—I admit it. I keep the news on the radio while I’m working at home and
get push notifications on my iPhone from both AP Mobile and the New York Times
to keep up with what is going on around the globe. I regularly watch NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, yet I
never watch local news on television.
However, over the past year, I have found myself fascinated
by, and at times relying upon, local on-line news. I often read Patch before
I look at the world headlines.
What do I find so compelling? While watching a weather
reporter leaning against the wind in a blizzard in the plain states can be
entertaining, finding out when my power will be restored after a local blizzard
is invaluable. Knowing how housing
sales are improving nationwide helps me gauge the national economy, but seeing
local house sales is far more relevant.
Hearing that Spiderman is drawing huge audiences despite its dramatic glitches
getting off the ground so to speak, is interesting. Yet knowing when an author will appear at the local
bookstore is pertinent to my personal entertainment schedule.
I don’t know if AOL will be successful with their business
model for Patch, but I do know that there is an important need to be filled in
providing local, relevant news to individuals on-line. Being able to post our
own community announcements is a valuable and low-cost service if there is a
critical mass of readers. Hard to
say if critical mass has yet been reached—it depends on your community. Six million unique Patch readers is not
an insignificant number, but it’s not the right number to consider when the
value is all local. How many
readers can Patch or any other local news source garner in an individual
community?
Regardless of who finds a compelling business model, I hope
a local news offering continues. I
can use the global news to help me decide which leaders to vote for, improve my
understanding of how unrest in the Mideast will affect the economy and influence how I can help make the world
a better place. But I will be even
more influenced by the local news to let me know when I can talk with my local
leaders, point me in the direction of the lowest gas prices in town and give me
an outlet to recruit volunteers and supporters for my local causes.
