BoomTown » Chicago

More Local Heat: MSNBC.com Buys EveryBlock for Several Million Dollars

Kara Swisher — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:00:29 +0000

It looks like the local market is heating up even more, with MSNBC.com announcing the acquisition of Chicago-based EveryBlock.

MSNBC.com–a joint venture of Microsoft (MSFT) and GE (GE) unit NBC Universal–paid several million dollars for the “hyper-local” information site, which is up and running in 15 cities, including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and Boston, sources said.

In June, Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL paid about $10 million to buy Patch Media.

The New York-based start-up is a platform that does deeply localized coverage of communities on a range of topics, from announcements to news to events to obituaries. It is aimed at competing with local newspapers and other media.

EveryBlock takes a slightly different approach, scouring a mass of publicly available data in a variety of U.S. cities from a variety of public records–such as crime stats, building permits and restaurant inspections–and reassembling them into more comprehensible and geographically relevant news feeds, depending on what a user asks for.

It also pulls up related Flickr photos and information from Web sites like Yelp and Daily Candy and can get very granular, down to keeping track of what is happening on your block or neighborhood.

Maps are also deeply integrated into EveryBlock, as it was on an earlier effort–ChicagoCrime.org–of founder Adrian Holovaty.

The innovative little start-up has a tiny staff of a half-dozen, still calls itself a “project” on its Web site and was started with $1.1 million in grant money won from the Knight News Challenge, an annual contest held by the Knight Foundation.

MSNBC.com is the news channel for Microsoft’s MSN portal, whose execs are very interested in weaving more local results into the site, as well as into the software giant’s new search offering, Bing.

The aim of having EveryBlock data integrated, for example, would be to create a local information dashboard on MSN.

Here’s a screen grab of EveryBlock’s take on my zip code in San Francisco, below (click on the image to make it larger)–and a video interview with Holovaty on YoChicago in early 2008:

Back to the Future: AOL Goes Local With Two Acquisitions (Including CEO's Company)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:29:55 +0000

Adding the final leg of its new strategy to reinvigorate AOL, the Time Warner online unit said it was buying two small local start-ups, Patch Media and Going.

Each acquisition–which focuses on hyperlocal community news (Patch) and events (Going)–is small, about $10 million.

Ironically, local has previously been a big arena for AOL, which launched its Digital City unit with great fanfare more than a decade ago. AOL still runs Digital City, as well as its CityGuide listing offering.

But, in a move that will surely be scrutinized, Patch is a company whose principal investor has been AOL’s new CEO Tim Armstrong. AOL declined to say how much he had invested in the company, but sources said it was less than $5 million.

Armstrong addressed the issue in an internal memo to staff about the deal, noting he would forgo any profits from the AOL transaction for Patch and get back the seed money he put into the start-up in the form of AOL shares:

“On a personal note, I was an early investor in Patch and committed significant dollars to the vision of improving local communities with deeper online information, accountability through journalism, and a platform for communicating. In discussing our local strategy, AOL and Time Warner looked at Patch as a possible acquisition and I recused myself from that process. At the Time Warner negotiated acquisition price, I was in a position to earn a return on my investment in Patch. However, I have decided to forgo any profit from my seed investment in Patch and I have asked to receive just my seed capital in AOL shares once we separate from Time Warner.”

The New York-based Patch is a platform that does deeply localized coverage of communities about a range of topics, from announcements to news to events to obituaries. It is aimed at competing with local newspapers and other media.

In another interesting twist and blast from the past, Boston-based Going was funded–its last investment was $5 million in mid-2007–by two Web 1.0 portal execs, George Bell of Excite and Bob Davis of Lycos.

Both are now venture capitalists–Bell at General Catalyst Partners and Davis an Highand Capital Partners.

Going, which was originally called HeyLetsGo.com, connects its users with events and each other in a variety of big cities, such as San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and New York.

The focus on local will round out Armstrong’s new push for innovation at AOL, the final piece of his ongoing 100-day evaluation of the much-beleaguered company.

Armstrong has been busy in that time in making massive changes to the structure of AOL, sweeping aside its current set-up almost completely as it prepares for a spinoff from Time Warner (TWX).

That spinoff was announced recently and will result in AOL becoming a standalone company.

AOL’s new business strategy under Armstrong includes keeping its longtime access business, which many thought would be sold off, and putting many of the companies it has recently acquired–including its pricey Bebo social-networking site–in a separate ventures unit, which will try to attract outside investment.

The strategy will focus AOL on several key areas, including access, media/content, “scaled” advertising and communications, and now, local.

Local is also a big focus for players like Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) again. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz specifically mentioned adding more community news, especially about local sports, to its offerings, in an onstage interview two weeks ago with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.

Here’s the internal memo and press release about Patch and Going below:

AOLers –

Our strategy to win in the five areas we’ve discussed starts with innovation and passion. Of the five areas, Local remains the largest white space and offers us an ability to improve the lives of many consumers. It’s a space that’s prime for innovation and an area where we already have strength with a local network that reaches more than 54 million UVs a month and a valuable brand in mapping services, MapQuest.

Our vision isn’t just about optimizing what we have–it’s about overhauling how we approach this space, drawing on our legacy of connecting communities and our long history of organization through DMOZ. It’s about taking one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today and making it truly quick and easy for consumers to find the local information they need.

Today, we’re announcing two acquisitions that will enable us to better serve audiences by providing experiences that are highly focused on users’ own neighborhoods–Patch and Going.

Patch.com was built to provide local towns with a robust and interactive platform to publish news and information, with full-time journalists for each town covering government affairs, education issues, and community events. One of the AOLers in our All Hands meeting on May 29 asked what our plan is to help towns, like his, where the local newspaper has gone out of business. Patch is an acquisition that may eventually help that town. Under the leadership of co-founder and CEO Jon Brod, Patch has been able to launch five initial town sites since February and has just announced four additional communities. Moreover, Patch has already received over 230 user requests for “Patches” spanning 39 states and 12 countries.

The second acquisition is a small company located in Boston–Going. Going has developed a local events platform to discover and share information about things to do in a number of leading cities across the country. Under the leadership of CEO Evan Schumacher, Going has launched sites in 30 cities–including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami–and provides users with RSVP tools and advertisers with self-service event advertising.

On a personal note, I was an early investor in Patch and committed significant dollars to the vision of improving local communities with deeper online information, accountability through journalism, and a platform for communicating. In discussing our local strategy, AOL and Time Warner looked at Patch as a possible acquisition and I recused myself from that process. At the Time Warner negotiated acquisition price, I was in a position to earn a return on my investment in Patch. However, I have decided to forgo any profit from my seed investment in Patch and I have asked to receive just my seed capital in AOL shares once we separate from Time Warner.

Overall, I believe both Patch and Going will add strength and talent to our local efforts and give us an ability to have a unique and defendable local offering that helps people improve their lives. I’m excited that we’ve reached the stage where we can begin implementing in our five key strategy areas, and with today’s announcements we’re off to a great start in Local.

Please join me in welcoming the employees of Patch and Going to AOL and the future of AOL Local. –TA

AOL Acquires Two Local Services, Patch and Going

Acquisitions Add to AOL’s Leading Network of Local Services with a Community-Specific News and Information Platform and a Local Event Platform

NEW YORK, NY–June 11, 2009–AOL today announced two acquisitions in the local space: Patch Media Corporation, http://www.patch.com, a local news and information platform aimed at serving local towns and communities and Going, Inc., http://www.going.com, a local platform for people to discover and share information about things to do in a number of leading cities across the country. Both Patch and Going offer local experiences, content and self-service applications for consumers and advertisers.

“Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today–there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and CEO. “It’s a space that’s prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest. Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for AOL. The acquisitions of Patch and Going will help us build out our local network further with excellent local services that enable people to stay better informed about what’s going on in their neighborhood.”

The acquisitions extend AOL’s network of local services, the largest online local network,* reaching more than 54 million total unique visitors per month.** Both acquisitions also leverage a consumer and marketplace trend toward greater consumption of news and information online.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that more people now say they get most of their news from online sources than from traditional newspapers (40% vs. 35%).***

In addition, local searches grew 58% in 2008 year over year, while overall searches climbed just 21%, according to research conducted by the Yellow Pages Association in March 2009.

Local advertising (online and offline) represents an approximately $103 billion market (approximately 39% of total U.S. ad spending), according to Borrell Associates in 2009.

Founded in December 2007 and headquartered in New York, Patch combines localized, professional journalism with community contribution and a platform that puts all town assets online – in effect, digitizing the community. Patch, which expects to be available in a dozen communities by the end of the year, currently has “Patches” in five communities with four more in development.

“We are excited to join the AOL family,” said Jon Brod, CEO of Patch. “AOL’s substantial network will help us extend the reach of Patch into more and more communities. And Patch, as part of AOL’s local strategy, will create new opportunities for AOL to delight consumers and provide marketers access to highly targeted and deeply engaged audiences.”

Launched in September 2006 and headquartered in Boston, Going is one of the leading local communities for 20-somethings looking for things to do in cities across the country. Going is available in 30 leading U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Boston, with several more planned this year. Going also provides local promoters, event organizers and venues a fully automated, self-service RSVP, ticketing and advertising engine to maximize the attendance and value of their events.

“Going allows young people in leading cities to discover upcoming events, parties and new hot spots – and most importantly connect with others who share a similar lifestyle. By joining with AOL, we have the opportunity to greatly expand the reach of our platform to more cities both in the U.S. and around the world,” said Evan Schumacher, Going’s CEO.

“AOL has a legacy of connecting people to the content, community and services they care most about,” said Armstrong. “Patch and Going, combined with our existing network, will enable the company that got America online, to connect consumers around the globe to their communities online.”

* April 2009 U.S. comScore Media Metrix; Local Networks category is a custom built category by AOL.
** Custom AOL-defined Local Networks report, based on comScore U.S. Media Metrix Audience Duplication report (April 2009).
*** Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Outlet,” December 2008.

BoomTown Asks "Ask Amy" for Some Web Advice

Kara Swisher — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:53:38 +0000

Several years ago, my longtime friend and colleague Amy Dickinson suddenly became, well, Ann Landers.

Well, not exactly Ann herself, as that would be weird–but she took over the famous syndicated advice column in the Chicago Tribune, which changed the name to “Ask Amy.”

So, BoomTown did just that on my recent visit to Chicago, interviewing Dickinson about what questions she gets about the Internet from readers.

While they now mostly send her emails instead of letters seeking help for their troubles and tribulations, the problems still are mostly about relationships, jobs and similar issues.

But, as the Web insinuates itself into people’s lives, there are also sticky situations galore, digitally speaking. To friend or not to friend, for example, that is the question.

Dickinson gets a lot of questions about Facebook and social networking, in fact, and uses a lot of such tools herself, including Twitter.

In other words, this is not your grandmother’s advice columnist!

Here’s the video interview I did (and you should also click this link to learn more about a marvelous new book by Dickinson called “The Mighty Queens of Freeville,” a memoir about raising her daughter as a single mother with a little analog help from her family and friends):

[ See post to watch video ]

BoomTown to ChiTown: No Posts Today, but Enjoy These Lovely Chicago Videos

Kara Swisher — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:16:42 +0000

BoomTown is winging it across the country for a Dow Jones event in Chicago–we do our part for the mother ship here at All Things Digital!–so there will not likely be posts today.

That is, unless Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) merge, buy Twitter and mount a cavalry attack on the Googleplex (GOOG).

One can dream!

Until Friday then, here are some lovely Chicago-related videos:

Blues Brothers, “Sweet Home Chicago”:

“All That Jazz” from “Chicago”:

What Chicago News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks:

Tom Cruise Attack on Oprah’s Couch:

Viral Online Videos, the Funny Edition: Doombas and Anchors Away!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:01:16 +0000

Here are two very funny online videos making the viral rounds of late.

The first is from “The Daily Show” earlier this week, in which Samantha Bee perfectly mocks products from iRobot (IRBT)–best known for the automatic vacuum called the Roomba–as killerbots.

In the second, local Chicago anchors from WGN News, Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange, do a very impressive Las Vegas-style routine during the commercial break. It is hard to look away.

Here are the videos:

Future Shock–Roombas of Doom

What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks

The Beam Me Up, Scotty Hologram on CNN: Cool or Creepy?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:15:09 +0000

BoomTown has finally gotten used to the silly gee-gaws television networks use on election night, like touchscreen maps and drawing all over the screen and jump-up numbers.

But one used by CNN last night–a hologram of various people beamed into the studio to look like they were with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper–was downright freaky.

Using lots of high-definition cameras, fancy computers and, I guess, magic, CNN reporter Jessica Yellin (see video below) was the first one to get the “Star Trek” treatment, beaming in from Chicago to New York.

Later, hip-hop musician Will.i.am was beamed in and preferred a “Star Wars” analogy. But the encounter was still kind of awkward, although you honestly could not look away either, as you can see from the video below (also coming in from Chicago).

Jessica Yellin:

Will.i.am:

The McCain and Obama Speeches: Gracious Both in Defeat and in Victory

Kara Swisher — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:11:14 +0000

Both President- Elect Barack Obama and the man he beat in an historic election, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, gave the kinds of speeches at the end of last night that make one proud to be part of a country where stark differences still can mean grace can prevail when it's all over.

But don't take my word for it--the Internet makes it possible to consider them again and again.

Thus, here is a video of McCain's concession speech (try hard to ignore the inane booing at the start by some very sore losers in the crowd at the Biltmore Hotel in Arizona, which McCain quickly tamped down), as well as Obama's appropriately calm victory speech in Chicago below it.

They serve as perfect bookends to each other and is an amazing example of how to fight hard without killing each other, which is--in this fractious world--still a modern miracle.

Or as Obama quoted our greatest president (in my estimation, at least), Abraham Lincoln: "We are not enemies, but friends, though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

Here that is, in living color:

McCain:

Obama:

Video Condolences to the Hudson Family

Kara Swisher — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:48:18 +0000

Today, the news was the worst possible for Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson, an impossibly talented and obviously lovely singer and actress, after the body of her seven-year-old nephew was found after an intense search of the Chicago area.

Julian King was murdered, along with Hudson’s mother and brother, in a horrific crime police are trying to solve now. The main suspect in the case is the estranged husband of Jennifer Hudson’s sister and the mother of Julian.

Hudson used her MySpace page to encourage fans to help in the now tragically-ended search for the boy, and news stories broke all day long, fast and furious. Hudson’s mother and brother were found dead several days ago in the family’s home on the city’s South Side.

No surprise, Internet video is popping up all over, many in the form of condolences to Hudson and her sister in the form of songs and music mashups.

The first and second videos are typical, while the third is Hudson herself singing her signature song–”And I Am Telling You”–from the movie, “Dreamgirls.”

Words cannot express the pain of her family’s loss. But her singing, as you will see, expresses so very much.