Reno And Its Discontents : Place Blogging In Reno
Okay, I lied earlier about not blogging this weekend, but its not my fault! First, I didn’t want anyone to worry that I was going to pull a Gilles Deleuze and throw myself off the balcony after the tone of my most recent post, “Its Just Overkill” Second, it seems that D. Brian Burghart, editor of the Reno News & Review, mentioned moi in his Editor’s Note this week. In his musings on Reno and Its Discontents, he described my efforts to create a community blog as “relatively successful.” Okay, I first, I screamed and started pulling my hair out over not being seen as an unqualified success, but then I calmed down (a simultaneous foot and neck massage by 2nd husband Luigi and Houseboy Bjorn helped in that regard) and reflected on the truth of Burghart’s description. All that massage-induced reflection led me down my own primrose path toward a new term–Place Blogging. Whew! I was worried for a while because I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Thank god Lisa Williams and Scott Schrantz helped me clear that up.
Place blogging is the new political blogging (which I obviously do too). But every blog is a place–what makes Reno and Its Discontents a place blog? Ulitmately, its because people who live in Reno write about living in Reno. Okay, I can telepathically hear you thinking, “But that’s what the Reno Gazette Journal and Reno News and Review do.” And I guess that’s true, but its not the same thing we do here. They just take your story suggestions and letters to the editor–here you can respond to what you read by commenting or contribute to the community by posting instantly. Discontents is open to anyone that wants to contribute as long as they follow the house rules (we’re open to all comers and all but draw the line at getting sued). I know it seems like my show, but that’s only because I’ve been uable to convince too many others to join in–yet. So in that sense, Burghart is correct. Reno and Its Discontents is “relatively successful” as a community blog. We’d be more successful if more of the community joined the effort. There are plenty of other joints that have professionals writing about us, the movies we see, the places we gather. Discontents wants to be the place in which you and you and you tell us about your Reno experiences.
Post your events, join our Flickr group and get your photos featured in Reno Blow-Up, write about something strange you saw in your neighborhood recently, tell us about a restaurant you like, attend a concert and send us your review about the artist or the venue, tell us what you like or don’t like about living in Reno, submit a CD review. Really! We really want you to. We want to be your repository for all things fashionable and unfashionable in, around, and about Reno. We even put up that trashy ad featuring Paris Hilton sucking on a popsicle begging you to help us. How could you not notice that? Help us already! Can’t you see we’re groveling? Its so undignified.
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OK, how about “wildly successful local blog”? To be perfectly honest, when I wrote “moderately successful,” I was thinking about the whole blogosphere where bloggers like Drudge or Kos get millions of hits. I think you are probably the most popular local blogger, but I only think that because people mention your blog to me, which only rarely happens for other local blogs. How do bloggers measure success anyway? Number of links to their posts, comments on stories, amount of advertising or hits? It must be difficult for you. You can look at site stats and know people are looking, but because you’re anonymous, unless they post, you can’t know what they are thinking. It’s a two-edged sword, I get pretty constant feedback from e-mails, phone calls, strangers on the street, but mostly the opinions aren’t out there for public consumption. You’ve got me thinking about some changes on the “letters to the editor” front, though.
Absolutely, we get close to 700 unique hits a day–3000 non-unique. So, of course, success is measured in hits if you are trying to grow an audience. Discontents would have to get 14,000 a day to equal the circulation of RNR. With the hits come the ads and links.
One time I asked people from out of state for reasons why they read the blog in comments and no one gave me an answer, but someone did write me a poem which was cool. Its strange to have consistent readers in Plano, TX for instance. About 40% of our readers are from out of state but I chalk it up mostly to hits on posts about movies, music, TV, and books. But you also get hits from mentioning celebrity names and posts about politics.
I think in my quest for links, I sometimes lose sight of the mission of Discontents which is to be a community site. YOu get hooked on growing your readership as quickly as you can. Its addicting. So now I have rededicated myself to maintaining a mostly local focus. It may be the slow and long haul, but in the end, its really the community we want to grow. Who cares about people outside of Nevada (unless you’re reading already, because you know I love you!)
I measure success in two ways, hits and the level of discussion/contribution. The more discussion, the better because its a signal that members of the community are interested in what’s going on in this space. I certainly hope for more, but I think as long as this blog is structured as it is, discussion and contributions from others will be limited because it seems like my show. I would love love love love to have more contributions and comments.
OK, but the Reno N&R Web site had 49,600 unique visitors during August and 156,685 hits. So I guess that means we had 1,600 a day over and above the newspaper. Still, I only rarely offer these readers any “Web exclusive” content (mostly additional photos on photo essays and the occasional story that’s too long for the paper), but it’s my intention to do so with the Web redesign, which we talked about a little on that interview on your 12 Horses advertiser’s link.
If I were to move to another town, I’d probably check your site at least as often as the RN&R or RG-J. RN&R’s content is essentially weekly, so yours can be fresher. In a strange way, the Gazette is more your competition for timely content, but nobody would consider you to be direct competitors, except in the way I mentioned in that Editor’s note. You certainly kick ass over any of their blogs. Still, when I came home from Burning Man, I checked all three sites before moving on to Google News. Strangely, the biggest story of the weekend, the turnaround on the Lazy Eight thing, I passed over on the RG-J site. I don’t really have an explanation for it. I wonder who usually leaves comments on your site. Is it usually people who agree or is it people you’ve pissed off for one reason or another?
Both kinds of people leave comments and its about equal. Ah, what an established product can accomplish. Perhaps in 12 years, Discontents would have that many hits. Imagine the possiblities if I could actively promote the blog as well?
You’re right about the sheer volume of content and maybe the RGJ being the real competition. I can tell you that their blogs dont get much traffic, especially when you consider the kind of power behind their total site.
But when you add web exclusive content, you are entering the same territory Discontents lives in but I don’t think we’re competing really because as you note, people visit serveral websites for information.
But why can’t you promote the site? I think that Minxy vixen would make a great spokesicon for a Flash movie to promote the site. I don’t know the identity of Geico’s owners.
To offer a variation on that competition comment, I’m not sure competition can exist among news outlets in the way it used to. Years ago, the daily papers would have competing stories on the same topic. Think, for example, of the judge shooting. The morning paper would come out and, generally speaking, it would be the following day before the afternoon paper or TV stations could take advantage of the morning paper’s reporting. Obviously, the news cycle was longer, and those factors were also true for the morning paper’s use of the other news sources’ advancement of the story.
Back then, it was obvious who beat whom to the story, and readers would pick up the paper most likely to the best, most accurate coverage.
Nowadays, sophisticated reporters and media consumers have access to the information as quickly as reporters (be they newspapers, TV, bloggers) can post it.
So, where’s the payoff? “I posted that story at 18:37:08, you didn’t get it until 19:00:00.” Who really cares? The readers don’t. The advertisers don’t.
Bloggers recognize this. Look at the column on the left side of your page? Are you promoting the competition by “publicizing” their location? No. The one thing those other sources can’t have is your voice. But how is linking to your voice different from owning your voice? It’s not. And it’s not like readers don’t know how to use the “back” button.
The key to competition or survival is to have a small infrastructure (bloggers, of course, have an infrastructure of one)that can survive and thrive on an ever-thinner-spread amount of advertising dollar.
So, when our website comes into the 21st century, does that mean we’re a daily newspaper? And who cares if it does? If the important kind of Internet evolution happens, content will appear on one site and be instantly reflected on the next site. It’ll be like a set of strobe lights that blink from one to the next so quickly that eventually it appears to be a single, continuous beam.
I like your strobe light image–it reminds me of the way armies use to send messages across long distances using fire and smoke in ancient times. That seemed like the speed of light then.
The ABC/Disney debacle is a good example of what you’re talking about sort of. Its not a mirror image, but blogs across America are spreading the news about Disney’s rather stange choices involving the 9/11 docudrama–something very few mainstream news outlets are doing. I think the NYTimes and the LATimes as of this morning. Its always interesting to see a story bubble up from the blogs–this one definitely is as it should.
I guess I could advertise, however, I have made the decision not to spend any more of my own money at this point because I can. If I were trying to run a traditional business, I couldn’t make that same decision. However, I might actually do a bit better than break even this year so advertising may be in my future. However, I’d rather spend the money/time on a website redesign first. That’s my priotity. This site has got to change its presentation if its to fulfull its mission.