I’m delighted to see CNN investing in Outside.in – and in local and in the notion of distributed, scalable networks of content. AOL, Yahoo, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, and other big guys are investing in local. But local doesn’t need big guys to succeed and Outside.in is the proof: it is a curation of lots of independent local ventures that do what they do because they can and want to. I have immense respect for Outside.in’s management, Steven Johnson and Mark Josephson and I’m delighted to see an endorsement of and support of their vision.
I hate to say it (or maybe I don’t) but the number of comments would appear to be a reflection on how much interest there is in local. That means not a lot. So while I would agree that there is some untapped potential in local, it’s by no means an easy business. You have to get the interest — whatever it is — right. You can’t just assume that everyone’s interested and not being served whatever it is they’re supposed to be interested in.
Jeff, I also have great admiration for Steven and Mark and OutsideIn, but I don’t quite get why you would conclude that they are proof that local doesn’t need the big guys to succeed. A deal with CNN would suggest just the opposite. OutsideIn has also attracted great investors because they see the opportunity for it to be BIG. Small local sites are very, very difficult to make into viable enterprises, I can say from some experience, and there is no indication that is going to change. Small, local independent ventures are not going to exist in any meaningful way unless they are tied into something big or can otherwise achieve some level of scale. Even OutsideIn, with a great idea and a great team and great technology and great investors, can’t provide that on its own, at least not at this stage.
Outside.in is a great site, but it is by no means successful just yet. And without the backing of CNN their future would be much more marginal. A lot of people seem to like the idea conceptually, but would never actually use the site.
I tried using it. It was okay, but I can set local news preferences on Yahoo! or google. On outside.in, the ads are overpowering (and unfortunately includes teeth whitening, which I’m sick of seeing, no thanks!). So what am I missing? What’s potentially so great about outside.in?