On Monday, Rob Curley and his team at the Washington Post launched their “Hyper-Local” project LoudonExtra.com. On Tuesday the WP conducted an online discussion with Curley and Caroline H. Little, WP-Newsweek Interactive CEO and Publisher. It was a good discussion that helped to shed a little more light on what LoudonExtra is not yet, and what it hopes to become. It is clear from the transcripts of the online discussion and this posts on Curley’s website that LoudonExtra is a work in progress. They have been working on the site for 6 months and put out the initial version with many new features to come.
My only concern is if perhaps they jumped out of the gates a little too soon, as it appears there are fundamentals missing from the site. Don’t get me wrong, the design is beautiful, but as the saying goes, “You only get one chance for a first impression.” After spending some time on the site for the first time I am forced to ask;
Where is the Interaction?
O.K., now every place I have seen any comments from Mr. Curley about this project he has said these features are to come. I have no doubt there will be some ‘cool’ new tools launched through LoudonExtra. I am willing to guess we will see some new Facebook Apps in here. I am just amazed though that this site was launched without a single interactive tool ready on the site. In fairness, yes I can comment on stories, but I mean, I can’t even send an email to a reporter from a story on the site.
Where is the integration with WP?
This may be the biggest challenge for this project. The site is smartly integrated with the WP. For instance, if you type http://www.LoudonExtra.com into your browser you will be redirected to http://LoudonExtra.WashingtonPost.com. As well, the LoudonExtra site is clearly branded in the upper right corner as part of the WashingtonPost.com. You'll be hard pressed though to find any mention and/or link over to LoudonExtra.com from the WashingtonPost.com. Even if you go to the Community Guide for Loudon County there are no links over to LoudonExtra.
Further, stories are being kept separate to the two sites, even when they are the same story. Today LoudonExtra leads with a profile of the upcoming Loudon County fair, "Final Preparations Underway for Fair". This same story is on WP.com as "Going Through Hoops".
I posted a comment on the WP version of the story directing readers to the LoudonExtra version. In the comment I directed readers to all of the additional content that was available on the LoudonExtra version. (I posted the comment knowing if it would also appear on the LoudonExtra version. My guess was right, it did not appear.) It seems it would have been smarter for WP.com to direct their readers there in the first place. This is especially true seeing that I found the article on WP.com by going to their Loudon Extra page. Interestingly this page had a small banner above the headlines for LoudonExtra.com. Why wasn’t I sent there in the first place??
The biggest advantage of integrating with the WP.com is taking advantage of their solid existing viewership. I am sure that a number of those site visitors are actually from Loudon County. It is clear that the WP wants to be branded in front of the visitors to LoudonExtra.com, perhaps WP.com could return the favor.
Where is the Sense of Community?
Now, I am not familiar with the Loudon County area, but I am going to take a guess that most residents of the county identify more with their individual town than they do with the county. According to the county website, Loudon is a county of an estimated 271,987 residents, living in a 571 square mile area with 68 public schools. Well from this guy who has spent the previous 10 years living in a small coastal town in Maine, that’s huge!
If my assumption about where Loudon County residents identify with is true, then I would guess LoudonExtra will probably need to get down to that level. I am not suggesting there needs to be a “LoudonCountyTownNameHere”Extra for each community, but the site at least needs to get residents to that level. I would also say this is important even from an outsider’s point of view. Say for instance I woke up and decided I wanted to move to Loudon County. Well, if I visited the new LoudonExtra moving page I would not even know which towns I could move to if I wanted to be a Loudon county resident.
Where is the money going to come from?
So, now I get to my biggest concern I have with LoudonExtra. The only revenue producing source of the site appears to be banner advertising. By the way, I hope Long Windows is getting one hell of a rate as they appear to be the only advertiser on the site.
According to their online discussion dialogue, both Curley and Little plan for the site to get to profitability. But twice I’ve heard Curley during conference presentations asked, "How do you pay for this stuff?" Both times, he dodged the question with "I am an editor and that’s not my end of the business." This is my only criticism of Rob Curley, he does not seem concerned about how to monetize his projects.
For instance, in Curley’s Welcome Letter he explains the efforts they went through to build the restaurant Guide.
"There are more than 300 restaurants in Loudoun County. We should know because we called them all and asked each of them more than 10 questions, including when they start and stop cooking. The reason for this was simple — sometimes you need to know more than an address or a phone number. Besides, knowing where you can still get a steak at midnight can be useful information from time to time."
I wonder if one of those ten questions asked if the restaurant would be interested in having a sales representative contact them about ways they could promote their business through LoudonExtra.com. I would be surprised if it was, but if I was the owner of a restaurant in Loudon County as was asked that question. I know what my response would be
"No, I think you pretty much covered everything I need to let my customers know with your previous nine questions, but thank you!"
I will continue to visit LoudonExtra to watch how it evolves. I just hope the residents of Loudon County will also continue to want to visit through its evolution and that someone there can figure out how to pay for all this "cool stuff" they are doing there.
