As you may have noticed, Decatur Metro now sports a new section in the right sidebar that features local sponsors/advertisers.

That’s right!  Decatur Metro is now offering advertising opportunities to businesses looking to gain exposure to a local Decatur/Atlanta audience.  If you’re a business interested in learning more about advertising on DM, stop by DM’s new “Advertise” page or shoot me an email at and I will be happy to forward along our ad-rate sheet.

This has been a huge undertaking and I want to thank my first advertisers, the DDA, Little Shop of Stories, Decatur First Bank, Heliotrope and The Wren’s Nest, along with my wife and the great folks at Lampe-Farley Communications, who helped get this months-long effort off the ground.  There is a real desire among many local businesses for an outlet to advertise to their target audience at a reasonable price.  Decatur Metro hopes to fill that niche and develop a sustainable business model for itself in the process.

Now, just a couple of housekeeping items.  With the addition of this new section in the sidebar, I’ve had to make a few adjustments on the site.

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times has created “The Local“, which features two blogs; one that covers a couple Brooklyn neighborhoods and the other that documents a few towns in NJ.

Descriptions on the two sites (description 1 and description 2) make them sound like they’re aiming to be very similar to sites like DM.   A little FAQ created by the Brooklyn blogger asks the perennial question “How on earth does the Times expect to make money off this?”  Here’s his response…

We’re not sure yet. This is very much an experiment. As this venture grows, we’re hoping that a business model will emerge from it. If you’re a fledgling Internet entrepreneur and you have an idea – well, you can contribute to The Local, too.

Hmm.  Doesn’t sound too like they found the magic formula just yet…but I think just jumping in is the best way to figure it out.  A big part of the problem thus far has been that news folk everywhere have been attempting to find a business model that can be applied to every community.  Just the act of attempting that shows they’ve already missed the point of local blogs.  The best ones are molded to their individual communities.  That includes how it would possibily make revenue.

Regardless of the eventual outcome, good for them!  I’m obviously in full agreement that local blogs are of great value, and I think they’re on the right track by having bloggers blog their own neighborhoods.  In terms of being self-sustaining…that’s something everyone is still working on.

Even though there are rumors out there that I’m highly “elusive”, I still jumped at the chance this past week when the Georgia Podcast Network’s Amber and Rusty asked me to come over to Java Monkey and talk about DM and blogging in general with Dave of InDecatur.

The interview is now up can be found over on the Georgia Podcast Networks’ “Mostly ITP” page.

Here’s Amber’s summery of what we rambled about…

DeKalb County, particularly Decatur, has one of the more vibrant hyperlocal blogging scenes in Georgia. We discuss why this is the case and more in this interview with Dave Kell, proprietor of the inDecatur blog, and Nick, who runs Decatur Metro.

Also discussed:

• The origins of their respective blogs
• The Atlanta Journal vs. Atlanta Constitution vibe between their two respective blogs, and the nature of their (friendly?) competition
• The tedious topic of what will happen when newspapers go belly up
• Advantages and disadvantages of partial anonymity versus full public disclosure
• How Carl Black seems to be everywhere. (Now he’s in our podcast too)

We’ve known Dave through other various functions in the past, but this was the first time we’d met the elusive Nick.

This is the first interview they’ve given together. You heard it first on the Georgia Podcast Network!

(little joke there, you’ll have to listen to get it)

Thanks again Amber and Rusty!  Had a great time!

The venerable GriftDrift recently wrote up Decatur Metro and InDecatur as his #5 Blog Story of 2008.

We sure are getting a lot of love this year!  Thanks Grift!

He accurately notes that this blog was called “Blogging in Decatur” for its first three or four days before quickly switching to its more hip and slightly confusing current name.