An article in the Wall Street Journal takes a look at AOL’s troubled Patch. While traffic is up at some of the major Patch sites, so are the losses. The AOL division is reducing paid staffers and freelancers and starting to rely more on user-generated content.
According to the WSJ:
[M]ore than a third of Patch’s content now is generated by users uploading announcements, photos and other content, helping Patch shrink its budget for freelancers.
In other words, Patch is evolving into Examiner.com. The company is also starting to syndicate or distribute more content to third parties.
I suspect we’ll see the majority of content on Patch become user-generated over the next year or so. That is, to the extent that Patch survives. Some AOL shareholders would like to see it completely shut down or spun out as part of a joint venture where a partner shares costs.
I suspect the latter is more likely than a complete closure of the site in the near term. This is Tim Armstrong’s baby.
As I argued last year, making Patch into a local news destination is a long-term undertaking that major investors can’t stomach.
May 23rd, 2012 at 3:54 pm
I have worked for Gannett while I have seen the rise of “HyperLocal” sites. Patch being the most popular. But as an outsider to the so-called hyperlocal movement but an insider to publishing and social web, I saw this trend being nothing more then a merger of local blog popularity influencing local news/culture outlet. Gannett’s Metromix was an example. Examiner another. But most of those survived on contractors or minimal staff at the very least. They required UGC and social engagement.
Now working at Village Voice Media, I see our advantage being local legacy and brand awareness “in the streets.” My task, to build community and UGC around these local proporties. I am seeing the need to restructure the thinking of what journalism and critics do. The great thing here, is that there is massive organizational support in this direction.
Editors need to evolve and adapt to the transparent and engaging web. Editors, critics, journalism at the local level needs to evoke user generated content. Thus management of editorial requires community management.
Community health metrics will be key to understand as this world evolves. You can’t just make the switch to UGC for the sake of lowering cost. Community Architecture is needed, and the measurement of success if not just volume of content, but quality and influence of that content.
A lot more could be blogged about this. Thanks Greg for putting this out there.
- @kspidel
May 23rd, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Thanks for your very thoughtful comments. Brand is key in the space.
May 24th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Ahhhh, the news about Patch just gets better and better. We had hoped that it would just be turned off and its editors fired but it looks more like Patch will just wither and fade. That’ll be OK, too.
May 24th, 2012 at 8:02 pm
With Patch not having a Hyperlocal presence across the entire continental US, it makes it harder for Franchises and SMB’s to get their presence boosted where its needed. There’s a need to implement a custom strategy to rollout anything related to Patch in terms of map listing distribution and fresh content based on where they currently have hyperlocal reach.