Why Not Monopolize Localization Services?
The major media, especially print news media, are struggling. Their ad revenue is tanking, their circulation is shriveling, and most people appear to be indifferent to their plight. I wrote previously on how the “freemium” model for online content access is currently the free-market idea du jour to address this situation. However, I also believe there are many other things that prestige publishers like the New York Times could be doing to generate revenue and recapture market share, and they are all in the arena of localization services. Remember back before the Internet in the early-mid 1990’s, when you read the newspaper to get restaurant reviews, concert information, job postings, open houses, for sale items and more in the classifieds? Why haven’t these major papers re-flexed their muscle in the wave of localization-specific and regional services like Yelp, Hopstop, PropertyShark, Dice, and of course Craigslist, that have come marching in to fill this void? New York Magazine, in a
