The secret ingredient which makes hyperlocal pay

Has someone found a hyper local model that generates revenue?

This guest post from Richard M. Anderson,over at Reflections of a Newsosaur suggests that this may indeed be the case.He

has found a way to generate as much as a fifth of his ad revenue through hyper local websites featuring, among other things, blogs that are sponsored and maintained by local merchants.

So what is the secret.Well Richard says that he has

stepped back and re-focused on hyper local population centers of 20,000 to 50,000 people in four communities in Maine. Why? Because it is in these places, whether urban neighborhoods, suburban villages or ex-urban towns, that citizens are most closely engaged in the practice of democracy at its root level.

The model consists of two products – branded web sites called VillageSoup and separately branded weekly newspapers.The secret ingredient is

sponsored postings that businesses can buy. The posts, which run right next to the ordinary editorial content, are not controlled by us. No fetters, no filters