April 2009
2 posts
Exploring new models of local news
I moderated a panel this week at Seattle City Hall about neighborhood news and several other promising approaches to creating sustainable local news businesses on the web. Among those on the panel: Tracy Record from WestSeattleBlog, Scott Dunham from Neighborlogs and CentralDistrictNews, and Mike Davidson from Newsvine.
I posted a quick summary here, and you can watch video of the event...
MyBallard.com surpasses 50k uniques
We’ve been astounded at the growth of MyBallard.com, Next Door Media’s first neighborhood site to launch. At last check, we cracked the 50,000 monthly unique user mark. How can that be, you ask, in a neighborhood of 30,000 people? Well, Google Analytics treats unique users as unique computers, so if a Ballard resident reads us both at home and at work, that’s two unique users....
March 2009
3 posts
Follow Next Door Media on Twitter →
Because everyone is doing this Twitter thing now.
My Ballard mentioned by Time.com →
As a possible future model of local journalism in light of the Seattle PI’s switch to the web. Our first national press!
January 2009
1 post
MyBallard.com sets traffic record
After Seattle’s epic week of snow, MyBallard.com shattered its old traffic record with 215,000 page views and 26,500 unique users for the month of December. Wow! PhinneyWood.com and QueenAnneView.com also set new traffic records. This proves a universal truth of news: weather is always a big story.
A little about the founders
Next Door Media began when Kate Bergman registered MyBallard.com shortly after moving to the Ballard neighborhood with her husband Cory in 2007. Both of us worked for KING TV at the time — Kate as coordinating producer for the morning news and Cory as the head of KING5.com. Since then, Cory has moved on to msnbc.com as director of business development, and Kate still works at KING. Both...
December 2008
3 posts
Welcome to Next Door Media's blog
Next Door Media is a network of five neighborhood news sites in Seattle, including the flagship MyBallard.com. If you’re curious about this sort of thing, we’ve created a blog so you can follow some of our lessons learned and new developments in the brave new world of hyperlocal.