I played around with http://www.localism.com for month’s — the little communities on the local level never take off.

Some of the most active ones don’t get any traffic either, or as much as you would expect, so they are kinda pointless.

Unless Google sends traffic to this patch thing, it will see some activity while it gets some press but at the end it will never work or do what it is supposed to do.

I’d love to be wrong on this though

Mike

You are right it’s not a new idea and it’s a challenge. We’ve focussed on rural/regional Australia and while our traffic has grown strongly getting advertisers to care has been a huge challenge.

Another challenge is when it’s truly hyperlocal there is not always enough news to go around. It all makes sense but it’s harder than it looks.

Most of them already have committed bloggers to chronicle the events and businesses that comprise the community – what real value is added by the introduction of journalists to do the same thing?

It’s an interesting idea, and I hope there are eventually some Patch correspondents in Boulder, Colo.

Timing is as important as execution, and now that a majority of the population have understood how many journalists do a poor job, and their role in the production of news, this might take off. I’d also argue that having anything newsworthy about the launch (someone who no one ever heard about, but who happen to work for *the* company)