My Own Pirate Radio

Backfence.com, a “social media” site that billed itself as “Do it yourself local news”, is shutting down operations. Mark Potts, one of the co-founders, posted his learnings a few days ago. Very interesting, particularly on the business model challenges.

One bit in particular from Potts struck me: “Partner with a media company or some other distribution source. Because of the critical need to market to and engage the community, it’s better to piggyback on a print or broadcast partner’s existing community relationships and marketing power.”

Backfence actually didn’t partner in this way, and I find it strange that Potts would recommend this as a strategy. Relying on old media to jumpstart an online community seems wrongheaded to me. Look at Toronto Star’s OurFaves, for example, launched May 2, 2007. It’s a promising notion — “amplify local opinion on what’s great in the city” — but after playing with it briefly I find it empty and unappealing. Part of that is the look and feel: it’s slick, polished… surely passed muster with Star execs, but too stark and corporate to attract the customers they’re seeking. More importantly though, the content seems to come from a very small number of people (forgivable for a while; you’ve gotta start somewhere), appears to be editorialized, and focuses on city-wide popularity as the key vector for discovery. Add that all up and it’s hard to trust as a source for recommendations. They missed the mark.

Partnering with an already-trusted social network like Facebook — the way iLike.com did — is a much better recipe for success.

P.S. I found Potts’ post through Greg Sterling, who often writes about local search and related trends. This morning Sterling put up a post on local and social media. It includes a long-yet-not-exhaustive list of sites in this space. Worth reading.