There are some fundamental differences that must be taken into consideration:
1. I visited the Sapulpa Herald website. It features a much better layout than most local online news sites I've seen. There is a serious design gap between the large, national online news sites and the local ones. A typical smaller news sites looks like it was designed by a 10-year old...my current local newspaper site is no exception to this rule.
2. Hyperlocal and community-sourced news sites are on the rise. There are many success stories out there.
3. Print news may not be dead (yet) but it has been obsolete for years. With Kindergarteners having access to iPads, the wave of the future is not in print news. I agree that "seasoned citizens", who are the bread and butter of the newspaper industry, do not read online news. Current and up-and-coming generations do.
4. And this is the big one: People in my community are fed up with the local rag. It's biased and half of the content is from the Associated Press, not local news. The articles they do manage to cover on their own are downright ridiculous. The publishing company is in receivership, aka bankruptcy. Service is horrible, and there's an ongoing scandal 3 years running where they have inflated circulation numbers in order to keep advertising prices up, and they refuse an audit.
Will I be able to monetize this effort? I honestly don't know. This is a small community, and even though faith in the local paper is shaky at best, it's hard to break through the technology barrier. This isn't Silicone Valley. I have begun to send out some feelers into the community, and thus far the response has been positive. At this point I wish I was independently wealthy so that I could dedicate more time to it.
