The typo has been fixed. Thanks!

Robert

I think it’s great that Patch is investing in a business that I believe has so much opportunity. And I have to say, I think they’re doing good job, hiring a lot of smart people.

My only concern is the AMOUNT of investment in such a short period of time — unprecedented in the history of local online news. By extension, AOL has the potential to be abnormally disruptive among the mom-and-pops (indie blogs) and legacy companies (newspapers) struggling to gain/regain profitability.

I think competition is terrific. It’s natural that corporate competitors come into the picture with emerging business opportunities. But there’s a responsibility that emerges when a business expands faster and more aggressively than the business opportunity has proven to date. If you’re right, you’re a genius. If you’re wrong, well, you’ve left an unnatural trail of destruction behind — all the talent scooped up, all the indie blogs that could’ve been, all the local media companies that diverted investment to compete on a new front, without a clear business plan to sustainability.

It’s also worth noting that in the traditional life cycle, we should be entering a time of consolidation. But Patch has (to date) shown no interest in buying/investing in promising startups or legacy companies in the space, amplifying the disruption. Perhaps that will change, as AOL CEO Tim Armstrong hinted a couple weeks ago.

Nothing you wrote makes sense. There are ads all over Patch sites where I am.

And … “it’s advertisers” … that’s a typo.

Amy from Corona del Mar voices what I feel. If your mission – which is what AOL boss Armstrong declared at ONA 10 – is to go serve communities that aren’t being served (he told a heartwarming tale about happening onto a community event that hadn’t been publicized by legacy media where he lives), then why are you swooping into places where there’s already plenty of news coverage? Our area is not posted for a Patch gig yet BUT there is a community less than 10 miles south that already has its own community newspaper and a community-information website.

Also, disingenuously, Patch will not discuss traffic publicly. They got a bunch of unquestioning media coverage for claiming they tripled their traffic on Election Night – but what did that really mean? 500 people in Altadena, Calif., (another town where they opened despite an existing grass-roots news site plus at least one local newspaper) tripling to 1500?

Most of all, they are doing everything the big dotcoms (of which AOL of course was one) did in the dot-boom. Building layers of management infrastructure, giving away tchotchkes, marketing marketing marketing … One of the new Western Washington editors tweeted a link to a blurb with a photo from the regional gathering they had this week … a stage with a big splashy logo, very glossy, very corporate, very 2000 dot-boom.

Honestly, I’m not as anti-capitalist hippie as the anti-corporate sentiment may sound. But all this is just so dissonant with serving your community with a small news organization. It’s one thing if they were coming into each town and opening some big glitzy enterprise, then corporate would make sense. But if someone’s going to work hard, and largely alone, then why not be a community based business, keeping the money in the community, being responsive to the community, letting things grow organically …

My only hope is that when it falls apart after AOL has burned tens of millions of dollars, some of the community journalists will have built enough of a base – in communities not otherwise served – to open their own sites. Patch will live on as an automated aggregator but somebody will still need to cover the community councils etc. They really should just cut to the chase and do it now.

Will be conversing, I’m sure soon, with the new editor for Echo Park, and the I guess we’ll see how it goes…

I’m surprised to see that people are wondering why Patch came into their neighborhood, when their neighborhood is already served well by local media. Is it news to them that the goal of corporations is to make money? Obviously, AOL is going where the money is, in the form of advertisers. If you try to credit them with wanting to “serve communities” or something along those lines, your thinking is way off. This is not a “startup” born of someone’s passion to do good, or provide something of value. This is a major corporation being greedy for a profit. That’s all.

For the reasons I mentioned above, I think Patch is a detriment to journalism as a craft, and an insult to journalists who are sincere and passionate about serving society.