1. Local blogs will flourish if the local advertisers used to seeing themselves in print are educated about web advertising. Large corporations are already embracing the shift by buying space on Yahoo! AOL, MSN, etc. But the smaller shops have no idea about this; and trying to convince them to buy a web banner is a challenge. Trust me, I know.

Suppose you are a local plumber that has run a 1/16 page ad in the weekly, black and white, pennysaver for the past 10 years. Assuming that the plumber has done ok, (after all, he's been around for 10 years:) how does one convince him that he should spend his advertising dollars on the hot, new local blog?

Posted at 5:33PM on May 7th 2006 by Chad Pensiero

2. Seems like everyone forgets that Weblogs Inc. is considerably successful as a blog company. How many major blogs are now in the limelight because of their affiliation with Weblogs, inc? I dare say that if anyone will be successful at it, Weblogs is the one to do it. Who was that little tiny media conglomerate that just bought Weblogs, Inc? Some ma and pa shop? Oh, no, wait, that's right it was AOL. No one has ever heard of them...

N-kay?

Posted at 5:37PM on May 7th 2006 by Ryan Carter

3. Searchenginejournal.com has an interesting blog entry about Yahoo essentially auctioning off top ranking on Yahoo Local search results. see ... http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3351 "Yahoo Local Featured Listings : Flat Fee Search Marketing"

With respect to ranking on Google Local ... What's the deal? Does AOL already have an "understanding" with Google that AOL's Blogs will be the "featured content" on Google Finance and Google Local? see "Jason Calacanis Drops the 'Bloggers as Local Guides' Bomb" http://www.tempcity.com/bitchless/index.php?showtopic=1287

Posted at 8:15PM on May 7th 2006 by Marion Paige

4. Jason, Why these two markets first? Especially my Ohio? :)

And answer this question if you would. Do you feel your plan will put the small local blogger out of business?

Posted at 10:01PM on May 7th 2006 by jim kukral

5. I don't see how you could call the Ohio blog a "local blog". A regional blog perhaps, but I don't see someone living in Marietta reading a blog post about happenings in Toledo and considering it local to them. The cities are a five hour drive apart. It might touch the big metro areas, but the rural and suburbian areas of Ohio are vastly different from the big cities they surround.

Posted at 10:27AM on May 8th 2006 by Chris

6. >> Do you feel your plan will put the
>> small local blogger out of business?

Jim: Are you nuts?!?!

We're going to do two things:

1. get bloggers paid for doing what they are already doing for free (the ones who choose to blog with us)

and

2. get local bloggers who don't write for us more traffic (paid again!) because no one is going to "own" any space.

Look at the gadget or video game spaces... we may have the largest blogs in those spaces (by far, in fact), but we send traffic to hundreds of other blogs all day long.

In some ways we are the bridge between the mass audience and the blogosphere.

Posted at 10:35AM on May 8th 2006 by Jason

7. I totally agree with you on your first point,Jason, although I think if people worked hard at it, they could easily be earning a lot more than you may think.

I estimate even a relatively small niche blogpaper or newsblog, such as I am planning, could earn in excess of 50,000 Euros a year if developed properly. Spinoffs from that initial project could easily double that or more.

However, I think your second point is wrong. Scaling up is relatively easy but I fail to see the need for either millions of dollars to be invested nor to wait that long. It's a question of implementation...

As to the middle ground, well, I believe in both the long tail and the theory of niches; they can never be exhausted so there will always be a middle ground available for those that can see it.

I know of some people that built a multi-million dollar a year business out of a love for the old movie "Anne of Green Gables" for instance. Who ever saw that coming!?

In response to comment #1 above, as I wrote above, it's in the implementation. The right balance of stick and carrot can get many businesses to advertise.

I don't see that as a problem so much as the technology. I've spent the last few months researching the right platform to base my newsblog on and it doesn't exist. Yet...

And to #4, Jason's two sites don't actually have a lot to offer compared to what I want to do. It was seeing them that prodded me into writing the letter to Jason that he replied to above.

It's not about budgets, it's about vision and implementation, so you don't need to fear anything.

Posted at 11:28AM on May 8th 2006 by Christopher Rose

8. BloggingOhio first perhaps because some aspect of the Netscape Portal is maintained at the old CompuServe campus in Upper Arlington/Columbus, OH?

Posted at 12:06PM on May 8th 2006 by Rob in NoVA

9. It does depend on how smart the local businesses are and how quick they adopt it as an advertiser solution. Of course local blogging in larger population centers wil be easier.

Posted at 4:01PM on May 8th 2006 by mr steel