'Nashville is Talking' no more

Nashville is Talking, one of the earliest (if not the earliest) examples of a station partnering with its local blogosphere, has closed down. The site was started in 2005, when WKRN’s then-General Manager Mike Sechrist hired local blogger Brittney Gilbert to staff the original site. The move was, as near as we know, unprecedented. At its height, Nashville is Talking served as a hub for several local blogs and was very popular. As A.C. Kleinheider of Nashville’s The City Paper writes, Nashville is Talking started to hit some snags in 2007 once WKRN saw a change in leadership. Gilbert quit, and moved to do much the same work in San Francisco. She was replaced by Christian Grantham, but he quit last week. That was the death knell. (Update: Christian writes that he did not replace Brittney. As he puts it in the comments below: “Had that been the case, I can assure you things would be much different today.” We apologize for the error.)

Kleinheider quotes WKRN’s General Manager, Gwen Kinsey:

“[I]f digital technology is teaching us anything, it is that specific platforms, unique technologies and the next cool thing all are born, reach maturity, and fade or evolve in what feels like a nanosecond of time,” Kinsey wrote in the blog’s final post. “NIT is a quaint reminder of how we all got started. Now, we find ourselves using Twitter, Facebook and live streaming to enhance our connections with our viewers in ways that blogs do less and less. It’s time to move on.”

Terry Heaton was the consultant on the project. He writes at his PoMo Blog:

That site is a part of my life, an innovation in local media that accomplished much in teaching us about aggregating and curating a local blogosphere. However, the site didn’t meet the economic needs of its owners, Young Broadcasting, who were going through a severe financial season. In that way, what happened to it is a sad reminder that innovations by companies with serious bottom line issues can’t compete with those funded by venture capital….

In today’s fire hose of content known as the Web, we need curators more than ever. The value proposition of Nashville is Talking always was it was one RSS feed that could give you insight into 400. Who will do that tomorrow (or today, for that matter)?

It’s ironic I’m at a conference in New York with local media companies who are discussing ways to make money locally via the Web, and friendship with local bloggers seems to be high on everybody’s agenda.

There are certainly points to be made here. Many technologies – such as social media – have evolved since 2005. But there is no reason why NIT couldn’t have evolved better along with them. The goal is, indeed, to keep moving. Blogging has not gone away. It may be mature, but it’s not dying. NIT had built quite a brand for itself and it will certainly be missed. A visit to the site now brings a blank page. If that’s intentional, it’s a big mistake. There is a five-year archive of material that would be valuable to its community, if only as a record of what once was.

(Disclosures: I worked with and am friends with Terry Heaton, and am friends with Mike Sechrist.)