Loudoun County HyperLocal News Online – What’s Next in Loudoun Social Media and Blogs in Suburban Washington DC

Quite a lot of news, analysis and conferencing has been going on lately about the challenges of the traditional news community, both online and in print. The advances of “citizen journalism” catalyzed by Internet social media tools like Twitter and real-time search are contributing to far-reaching outcomes - from the demise of long-lived newspapers like Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News and the shuttering of the Washington Post’s hyperlocal LoudounExtra.com experiment, to interesting conversations at the recent REBlogWorld and DC Twitter Conference regarding both opportunities and competitive animosities between journalists and bloggers competing for online “eyeballs”.

When we first moved to Loudoun County in the late 90’s, comprehensive local news was an afterthought to the large newspapers and regional broadcast media, and seemed mostly relegated to the entrenched local papers like Leesburg Today and the Loudoun Times. Of course, the citizen and business population was quite lower, too. Actual or “near real time” news was only gained via local radio and special TV reports, perhaps a radio-shack emergency band scanner, and the growing proliferation of neighborhood online chat, discussion and email groups. Very few non-personal blogs existed, but picking up the phone was still useful to contact local authorities and reporters.

Today, our “situational awareness” of local and regional events is multi-channel and immediate, and can be filtered to precise interests, sources or level of abstraction. This past Friday night, for example, large explosions permeated our neighborhood – a bit odd for this time of year, but immediately provoking both memories of a deadly natural gas explosion in 1998 and our latent, persistent homeland-security uneasiness. Finding out what was happening was pretty efficient – a few searches on Twitter, a look at the local events calendars, a call or two to the neighbors…a homecoming football game fireworks display was the culprit. “Traditional media” coverage was to be found the next day, in game reviews and search engine results…but event-to-analysis lag was at least 12 hours.

Where then, and why, should we be going to find the best “hyperlocal” news as a Loudoun County resident? Is “hyperlocal” truly relevant, particularly in this area of interstitial communities, long-ranging commuters and multi-county politic, economic and government service dependencies? Can traditional publishers of general interest news and the journalists they support coexist with or ultimately become the “Internet Media” Geoff Livingston alluded to in his prognostications for the future of social media?

This particular blog is an example of a constantly evolving solution to our Loudoun County and regional news interests. While started many years ago in response to a hyperlocal “Comprehensive Planning Amendment” (CPAM) issue in the Braddock Road/Dulles South area, it’s grown to include and syndicate information about mostly business, education and community interest items not only in the Loudoun County/Dulles South region, but in Western Prince William, Western Fairfax, and other Northern Virginia areas. We broadcast information through most online social media channels (such as @loudoun on Twitter), aggregate and curate great material from Loudoun-centric news sources, citizens, businesses and nonprofits (for example via @loudoun_news), and syndicate this material as necessary to regional and national channels (for example through BlogNetNews.com, our Loudoun Times blog, @northernva_news, and many social media sites including Mixx and LinkedIn.).

We asked other prominent local bloggers and journalists who’ve routinely covered Loudoun County local and regional news what their perspectives were to these questions. For example, Dan Sousa, a self-described “old newspaper guy who has worked for newspapers for more than 30 years” relates; “When I speak to high school journalism classes and ask how many kids read a paper daily and not a single student raises their hand - then the writing is indeed on the wall! What will replace the newspaper as the "hyperlocal" news deliverer? Probably not 1,000 competing blogs, but the future may lie in a collaboration or network of these new journalists into portals that present their niche offerings to the public as part of an overall patchwork of Loudoun coverage.”

Sousa’s broad and detailed coverage of local Loudoun sports (prep/high school and youth) at http://www.vivaloudoun.com and LoudounPrepSports reflects his opinion that “even though Loudoun is home to far-flung commutes and a wide array of interests and cultures, "hyperlocal" news still matters especially in those areas closest to home such as education and high school and youth sports. Where is the next high school going to be built? What about recent crime in my neighborhood? How did the local football team do Friday night? What time is the local book fair Saturday? These are all questions that tie a community together, whether the neighbors are transplants from New Jersey, lifelong Loudoun residents or a family that recently emigrated from India.”

A very similar perspective comes from Erin Rice at http://www.suburbanfizz.com (and the organizer of the very successful Loudoun “Bloggers for Good” charity support events), who says “I've found hyperlocal news to be incredibly helpful in ad hoc but frequent and repeatable situations. I use local sources to learn about community events, opportunities, and news events. When there was a violent crime in my neighborhood, local news was extremely important. I relied on it to find out what happened, the status of the investigation, and how it affected me. As rumors circulated and panic mounted, it was local -- and reliable -- news websites that kept me informed and even influenced my behavior, suggesting ways to get involved and stay safe. The importance of local news grows as community ties grow stronger. The more skin we have in the local "game," in areas like schools, public safety, access to health care, traffic, government, taxes, real estate values all increase the dependence we have on hyperlocal news. National news is critical, but access to local information is equally important. Frankly, on any given day, construction on Route 7 or a new school lunch policy can affect my world more than any bill before congress.”

Here at Gateway to Loudoun, we’re not journalists in the formal professional definition. We are, however, recognized subject-matter experts in many areas (mostly enterprise systems engineering and architecture, social media, internet marketing and business management), and we know many other SMEs who have much to add to the intellectual conversation and analysis of Loudoun-related material. The timely and relevant insight available from these SMEs ranges from widely-covered technology issues to very local Loudoun politics, sports, education, real estate, business services and wine making. This network of SMEs and contributors is a hugely valuable source of information, and does include trained journalists. Much of our own analysis and research for use in publishing (whether for business, marketing or community use) certainly leverages the work of journalists, and much of it doesn’t – especially the more “real-time” material, or very subject vs. event-specific topics. I’ll point out that information posted by SMEs, journalists, media, bloggers and everyone else on the Internet is equivalently classified as “unverified open source” by the government when it comes to authoritative sources of information for real-time incident management operations – it’s all scanned, it’s all considered and much very quickly does become “verified” in context, on merits of trustworthiness and substantiated relevance.

Therefore, we’ve created a citizen-sourced “Loudoun Internet Media” hub of sorts - that while somewhat subjective to our interests, is published, personalized, accessible and syndicated in a manner that it can quickly, in near real-time provide a broad cross-section of Loudoun news and information from citizen and business perspectives, and routes to find more. It’s also helpful to include some advertising – this ensures the capability to keep the hub operating and brings local businesses and nonprofits to the table to communicate their own events in an equitably recognized manner. We’d expect other blog-centric Internet Media hubs to develop, and the network of blog hubs with attending links of relationship-vetted contributors and SME-vetted material to become a truly verifiable source of news as you need it in Loudoun.

While Internet search will continue to be a primary channel find a lot of this, as Google and Bing move towards more “real-time indexing” of sites like Twitter, the need for a constant destination site or “dashboard” will remain (as will, we predict, the need for the armchair dashboard – i.e. printed newscopy). Some local news sites are evolving this way, for example the Loudoun Times with its local and well-known blogger corps mix of employed and citizen journalists, its balanced use of multi-media and granular RSS feeds, its not-too-intrusive advertiser promotion, and its quickly growing and conversational Twitter presence.

Keep up with Loudoun County Internet Media AND Traditional Media sources here at Gateway to Loudoun County, through the sources and web channels of those mentioned in this article (we’ve conveniently assembled a list of notable Loudoun-news tweeters here; all media sources are aggregated under @loudoun_news), and through subscriptions to other Internet Media services who cover or syndicate what our hyperlocal knowledge community produces.

The Loudoun News BlogRoll

Here’s The List of notable, active, general Loudoun news-centric blogs to follow – not just from Loudoun, but about Loudoun.

• Gateway to Loudoun County (http://www.dullessouthonline.com/loudoun_county_gateway/)
  
• Loudoun Stats (http://loudounstats.com/) – by Tony Arko, Realtor
  
• Our Loudoun Schools (http://blog.loudounschools.org/) – by John Stevens, Loudoun School Board
  
• Loco Musings (http://www.locomusings.com/) – by Heather Flynn, Realtor
  
• Suburban Fizz (http://www.suburbanfizz.com) – by Erin Rice
  
• Viva Loudoun (http://www.vivaloudoun.com) – by Dan Sousa
  
• Living in Loco (not the old LoudounExtra one) – (http://livinginloco.blogspot.com/) – by Vicky Chrisner, Realtor
  
• Loudoun Times (A whole gaggle of great Blogs) – (http://www.loudountimes.com/blogs/)
  
• Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents (LEAP) (http://leapforloudoun.blogspot.com/)
  
• Every Restaurant in Leesburg (http://every-restaurant-in-leesburg.blogspot.com/)
  
• DC's Wine Country/Visit Loudoun (Loudoun Convention and Visitor's Association) (http://dcwinecountry.blogspot.com/)
  
• Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy (http://www.loudounwildlife.org/blog/)
  
• Loudoun Landscapes (http://www.loudounlandscapes.com/pastoral/)
  
• Realtor Ramblings (http://ginatufano.blogspot.com/) - by Gina Tufano
  
• Loudoun Scene (Real Estate) (http://loudounscene.com/) - by Danilo Bogdanovich
  

There do exist other blogs, directories and websites associated with Loudoun in one way or another, though not as focused on actually delivering news and information about Loudoun - or simply not very well-maintained or delivered. KME Internet Marketing has the entire list of Loudoun-centric online traditional and social media websites, blogs and directories, along with the return-on-investment estimates (ROIs) for local advertisers to use them (if they accept advertising)...contact us if you'd like to take advantage of this.

- Ted & Kelly

First Blood in the Consolidation of Loudoun News Started Online

A small article in last week's Easterner caught our attention - the fact that the Loudoun Independent, a small local newspaper in Ashburn, is in bankruptcy and has been sold. This isn't a surprise at all, and, frankly, took a bit longer than expected.

The last couple of years saw a proliferation in local rags hitting our driveway and mailbox, all striving in parallel for more "hyperlocal" coverage, as well as expanded delivery across Loudoun. Some appeared to be generating the right mix of good, unique content and volume of sustaining, paid advertising. For example, Leesburg Today and the Easterner have sustained their thick advertising sections, while the Independent and Connection's share have seemed abnormally thin. Here's the consolidation chain of events (a brief history, from our perspective - no doubt leaving out many more detailed items we'll let you fill in) in local news that seems to have led to this first blood, starting with the Washington Post's online adventures -

1 - Early last year, the Post focuses its considerable clout and financial backing squarely on Loudoun County, significantly upgrading its online presence and printed content on the hyperlocal scene - opening LoudounExtra.com. This immediately drew off large and smaller advertisers, once solidly the domain of the established locals. This also slowed the rapid growth of other online-only, local news sources (like loudouncounty.com and some local blogs, subsequently wrapped into the Post's stable of blogs).

2 - The Independent, also a little over a year ago, launched its own slick new website to accompany its mailed papers (vs. driveway-delivered) - but the outcome was an utter misstep from the perspective of all reasonable online advertising and marketing standards - no user feedback or online subscription capabilities, all in "Flash" leading to slow performance and nonexistent search engine visibility, and little thought to inline advertising placement. Its traffic and online exposure slowed to a crawl.

3 - In apparent defense of its turf, the Loudoun Times embarked on a considerable overhaul of its own user-generated content, adding RSS feeds, user blogs and other features - resulting in a very much improved online presence...seemingly catching up to the more established Leesburg Today, and eclipsing all other local, online destination sources.

4 - The Easterner's online presence didn't change much over the period, except to include more automated, 3rd party advertising network feeds among a set of mismanaged ad spaces across the website, which (1) aren't necessary targeted or of added value to the local content, and (2) seem only to indicate a void in online advertising and marketing capabilities of the paper. This situation led to a window of opportunity to claim solid 2nd place in the online news turf (2nd to the Post, and thereby attracting many lower-cost, local advertisers) - the Times stepped up an made a solid grab at this from Leesburg Today (and in our opinion won with its capture of the local blogosphere stars, though they've not yet achieved the traffic or online participation statistics of Leesburg Today, with its extensive user commenting activity, polls and photo submissions).

5 - The Connection's online presence and content management/usability capabilities continues to be abysmal, though still easier to locate and use than the Loudoun Independent.

6 - From a Google Pagerank perspective (an indicator of online popularity and presence), the war for #2 is still awaiting a clear leader - as all the local rags, plus online-only destinations such as Dulles South Online and LoudounCounty.com, hover between 4 and 5 in their page rank metrics. Only Loudounextra.com achieved a "6" at one point last year, though has dropped back a little since.

7 - Beginning with last year's local election activities, the Independent made a decent push to overhaul its online presence (having taken a run at this the previous year, with a partnership with the now defunct Backfence.com), and broaden its advertising base - with the launch of a set of online videos of candidates (the only news site to do this), some minimal efforts to introduce feedback and RSS subscription options, increase its online presence through a few SEO-driven changes, and a limited expansion of advertising space options...outside of this, complete managed overhaul and conversion of the site from fully Flash-based to a more user and search engine-friendly html/text-based format never materialized as expected.

Nor did the Independent fully manage and leverage a number of proprietary digital content additives - these "inserts" and extra content produced as standalone PDF files could have been leveraged and distributed much more widely through many more online and offline channels. Note also it partnered with the Purcellville Gazette to extend advertising reach - but didn't take advantage of this cross-county partnership online in any way to share advertising, news or user-generated content.

8 - Search in Google today for "Loudoun News" or "Loudoun County News" - you'll find the Times and Leesburg Today having fully re-established themselves in the face of the Post, with the Observer, WTOP, the Easterner, the Connection and even the Independent still hanging on the 1st few pages of search results (along with the online-only sources). This is most apparent searching for the term "Loudoun County Newspapers", plus "Loudoun News Online".

We think the message here is that the significant and coordinated online push into this local advertising and news market by the Post resulted first in a rapid consolidation and drawdown of medium-sized advertising first from existing online outlets (i.e. papers), and second from existing printed publications. The more established and Internet-savvy papers rebounded fairly well, due mainly to their local "connectedness" with local advertisers, businesses, readers and community organizations (which Loudounextra we think really only achieved through its "Living in Loco" blog and local sports reporters) - as well as their complete online focus on the County (vs. the Post, which, although it claims "hyperlocal" focus, still works in a lot of more regional and even national content and advertising).

Without taking its cues from the Post and the Times, nor simply modeling its basic provision of advertising content and online accessibility after the solidly established Leesburg Today, the Independent seems to have quickly tumbled as the first major casualty of the contracting news outlet market.

There's a whole lot more analysis and themes to discuss about this (we're not obviously paid journalism professionals, but we are online marketing and technology professionals), but it's a great lesson to local newspapers - adapt quickly and smartly, coordinate online and offline activities and advertising, use metrics to attract advertisers, embrace "Web 2.0" and your eager hyperlocal community, seek partnerships in advertising and content networks, manage your proprietary digital content and copyrights as the valuable and extensible assets they truly are, and deliver true usability and accessibility to both readers and search engines. Driven by LoudounExtra's lead, the Times appears to understand most of these points, and Leesburg Today is getting them (albeit slugglishly); but the others seem to be falling behind, with the Independent as the first casualty of probably more to come.

Fairfax is next on the Post's radar - therefore, other locals, heed these lessons (Chronicle, Times, Connection, Sun Gazette).