(Steve Duke)

As I've written before, some newspapers are finding ways to add niche Web sites to their portfolio to use their vast resources to serve niche audiences. Gannett has been particularly aggressive in doing this, creating sites for moms and pet owners, for example at several of their papers.

When we show these and other examples at our regional ASNE workshops about growing online audience, participants inevitably ask how to copy these ideas. But the most successful products are going to be homegrown to serve a local need, not copies of what someone else has done.

To that end, we conduct rapid-prototyping sessions at the workshops in which we ask small teams to come up with their own local product ideas. In 45 minutes or less, the teams come up with the concept, the content and sometimes the revenue sources for products that might appeal to a target audience and that draw from the information the newspaper is equipped to collect.

At a recent workshop in New England, the teams came back with these ideas:

Weddings. National brides' magazines are as thick as a metropolitan telephone book, chock full of ads – but lack the detailed local information that a newspaper can provide. The team said their site would include vendors, advice, wedding locations, and places for users to share information, post pictures and videos. Is this a viable business? As it happens, WXII-TV in Winston-Salem is already publishing such a site, and President and General Manager Hank Price says it is a profitable business for them.

Yard sales. The team proposed taking a database approach to the newspaper's yard sale ads so they would be searchable by type of article for sale, by day, by time, by location. They would be mappable. (See the recent New York Times article on the ease with which Google, Yahoo and Microsoft map mashups can be accomplished. And see how the BBC put this to use in covering the recent flooding in England.) The site would include social networking components, including "my great find" from the buyer's side and "my great sale" from the seller's side.

Home repair 911. Everybody does it and everybody needs help at it, and the only truly valuable information is local. The site would include local utility information, such as regulations, permit requirements and fees, in the vein of the "Living Here" information on the Pocono Record Web site. "Should I or shouldn't I" would help readers figure out what tasks they should turn over to the pros; tool swaps and material swaps would enable readers to share with each other; and lists of vendors would help speed the search for professional help.

Boat owners. The team from an area with a vast waterfront proposed a pro/am site with the pros providing solid reporting on marinas, restaurants, hostelries, and boating advice and guidance. The amateurs could blog, contribute to forums, post photos, upload GPS maps of routes, fishing areas, weather conditions and other site-specific information.

Go Green. Tapping into the growing mainstreaming of the environmental movement seemed obvious to this team with members from New Hampshire. They would include a green directory for local food, work, play, learning and shopping. Tips and guidance would come from both pros and users, with rankings on "how green is your": car, computer, home, etc. Listings of green events, top green businesses, links to carbon counters and other utility information would be found here. Users could brag about "My Green Space" or confess "My Carbon Sin."

The point of the exercise, and the point for you, is to identify a local target audience big enough to build a business around – perhaps an audience you aren't regularly getting in the print product – explore its needs and interests (the "jobs to be done" in Clayton Christensen's terminology, and identify where those needs intersect with your capabilities.


By Steve Duke (s-duke@northwestern.edu)
Steve Duke is managing director for training at the Media Management Center and Readership Institute, and an associate professor at Medill.