AOL’s local website initiative, Patch, has announced it now has 100 local sites up and running. And that’s not all. According to a press release out today, Patch wants to be in 500 communities by the end of the year.
That process, it says, makes it the single largest hirer of journalists in the country right now. Ken Doctor at Newsonomics breaks down the details and questions facing Patch. Of particular importance he writes, is the matter of sustainability:
“Certainly, there’s the question whether Patch can sustain itself, as its parent AOL struggles to find a new identity and growing business model. Then, there’s the question of the sustainability of hyperlocal journalism already being done from coast to coast. These are true start-ups, often one-man (or -woman) bands, invented by journalists truly passionate about community coverage. Pre-Patch, it’s been the fledgling blog ad-and-distribution network experiments that gave hope that more money could be found to support these ventures. Now, we have to wonder whether Patch – which will link to other sites it finds useful, but won’t network them – will make the sustainability of these more organic, non-templated local blogs more questionable.”
Patch isn’t saying whether it’s bringing in any money yet. We’ve written here about the company’s efforts to hire (or “poach,” depending on how you look at it) existing town bloggers. I’m not especially troubled by that. If I were recruiting local bloggers, I’d want to start with the best, too. What I’m not seeing is how Patch will be a financial success.
The company talks about national ad sales, and this is a classic play for the aggregator. You get lots of pageviews and then put a banner for “Coke” on all the Patch sites. The trouble is that this doesn’t do anything for local merchants. Local sites, in order to be successful, need local advertisers.
Remember: advertising is content, and we have to make it relevant to our local audience. Sales need to be done as sponsorship plays, and that requires relationships. In this regard, the existing, non-Patch sites have the edge. If I’m a local merchant, I don’t really care that you’re going to have me on three or four sites; I just want to be on the one people in my neighborhood see. If you own the site and you have the relationships, you’re simply more incentivized to work harder to make your company a success.