

Social News Fail: Great local journalism goes unnoticed on major social news sites - brandnewlow
http://thecitizenspeaks.windycitizen.com/2009/04/10/social-news-fail-great-local-journalism-goes-unnoticed-on-major-social-

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jerryji
Semantically/Geographically hierarchical category ranking is exactly what I've
been working on.

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ggchappell
How refreshing.

As a recent refugee from Reddit, I've seen far too much of the tiresome
practice of using "fail" to mean "let's belittle & humiliate someone". So I
was a bit worried when I saw this on the front page of HN. It's nice to see
the word used to mean "this didn't work well; how can we do better?".

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brandnewlow
Thanks. The word "fail" is actually an allusion to the parking meter story,
which used it to great effect.

I am a huge Reddit/Digg fan (though the new Digg bar is indefensible.) I think
what those two sites have done is unleashed a generation of writers and
publishers, confident that they now have a tool to find an audience when they
make something really great.

But for those writers who want to dig into local issues, there is no tool like
that. When I came to Chicago for j-school and was pumping out stories every
day, I had no way to put them in front of people. And my stuff died a quick
death on Digg because it just didn't belong.

That's not a bad thing, it's just how it is. So I've spent the last year
creating a solution in Chicago. This post was written to celebrate a bit of a
milestone and also to point out to local publishers that they should stop
chasing the fools gold of Digg's front page and come join up with us. :)

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shafqat
Brad Flora has done some really great work here. He always has interesting
things to say. I'm really curious to see how his efforts to find a commission-
only ad-sales guy for the WindyCitizen on Craigslist panned out.

Has anyone else tried to hire sales people via Craiglist? Any success?

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brandnewlow
You and me both! By the end of next week, we hope to have some results to
report back.

Media Kit? check.

Spreadsheet of leads? check

Salesperson who knows what they're selling and is pumped about it? check

Time to start hitting the phones...

