Comments on: It's not too late to prevent Wal-Martization of the Web http://www.oldforestnewtrees.com/2006/02/25/its-not-too-late-to-prevent-wal-martization-of-the-web/ Entrepreneurial local journalism Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:49:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anonymous http://www.oldforestnewtrees.com/2006/02/25/its-not-too-late-to-prevent-wal-martization-of-the-web/comment-page-1/#comment-16 Anonymous Tue, 06 Feb 2007 04:01:00 +0000 http://www.howtowalkacrossthecountry.com/treetest/?p=12#comment-16 Hey,<br /><br />If you have a complaint regarding Walmart in your area - you are welcome to post your comments on this site:<br /><a href="http://www.pissedconsumer.com/consumer-reviews/consumer.html" title="Consumer reviews and complaints" Alt="Consumer reviews "> Post Your Walmart Complaint here</a><br /><br />or you can also visit our blog:<br /><a href="http://pissedconsumer.blogspot.com/" title="Pissed Consumer Blog" Alt="Consumer Blog"> Consumer Blog </a><br /><br />Regards, Hey,

If you have a complaint regarding Walmart in your area – you are welcome to post your comments on this site:
Post Your Walmart Complaint here

or you can also visit our blog:
Consumer Blog

Regards,

]]> By: Josh Yockey http://www.oldforestnewtrees.com/2006/02/25/its-not-too-late-to-prevent-wal-martization-of-the-web/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Josh Yockey Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:21:00 +0000 http://www.howtowalkacrossthecountry.com/treetest/?p=12#comment-15 <i><br/>If a newspaper can provide a better restaurant directory than Google, it's certainly not too late to notify the neighborhood.<br/></i><br/><br/>No, but the <i>if</i> requires a lot of scrutiny. How can a local paper provide a better restaurant review service? One way is by providing better technology, but this is simply the opposite of what local papers can do. Technology encourages efficiency and consolidation, and every paper in every metro in the country hiring developers to design a restaurant review section would be suicidal.<br/><br/>So if it's not better technology, it must be better content. But how can a local paper guarantee it has better restaurant reviews than the aggregated reviews on consolidated sites, and do so without superior technology? I'm not sure it can.<br/><br/>Score x for restaurant y by reviewer z is simply not that complicated a piece of information, and it can be stored and aggregated anywhere in the world and be equally useful.<br/><br/>A paper can certainly be more attractive to local advertisers by cleanly defining the market of its readers, but advertisers won't care if the readership drops, and increasingly localized online advertising will more efficiently solve the same problem.<br/><br/>I don't think you can get away from the clear advantages that local papers have: 1) a significant number of people don't want to read local news online, and 2) they have a team of professional journalists to cover the local region, and a team of editors who can make local prioritization decisions.<br/><br/>What I expect to see in the medium run is those teams of professionals increasingly using third-party, centralized technologies to handle the work of presenting the content to their readers, letting them focus on the content.
If a newspaper can provide a better restaurant directory than Google, it’s certainly not too late to notify the neighborhood.

No, but the if requires a lot of scrutiny. How can a local paper provide a better restaurant review service? One way is by providing better technology, but this is simply the opposite of what local papers can do. Technology encourages efficiency and consolidation, and every paper in every metro in the country hiring developers to design a restaurant review section would be suicidal.

So if it’s not better technology, it must be better content. But how can a local paper guarantee it has better restaurant reviews than the aggregated reviews on consolidated sites, and do so without superior technology? I’m not sure it can.

Score x for restaurant y by reviewer z is simply not that complicated a piece of information, and it can be stored and aggregated anywhere in the world and be equally useful.

A paper can certainly be more attractive to local advertisers by cleanly defining the market of its readers, but advertisers won’t care if the readership drops, and increasingly localized online advertising will more efficiently solve the same problem.

I don’t think you can get away from the clear advantages that local papers have: 1) a significant number of people don’t want to read local news online, and 2) they have a team of professional journalists to cover the local region, and a team of editors who can make local prioritization decisions.

What I expect to see in the medium run is those teams of professionals increasingly using third-party, centralized technologies to handle the work of presenting the content to their readers, letting them focus on the content.

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