Is the idea of a new "city portal website" any good?

This is definitely a viable business model. There are many sites like these that exist already and making good money.

You could run a portal about a popular local village in the city and once this one is up and running start another in another village. You could get businesses in the local village to advertise on your sites in a business directory.

Once you have a number of these you could perhaps start the main city portal and link it to all your other local portals and charge companies a lot more to advertise on that one.

To promote the site, offline promotions such as leaflet drops, press release, free ad directories etc would work well

To get businesses interested in advertising initially you could offer them a free trial to advertise on your sites for 3 months, 6 months etc. This will give you a chance to get traffic coming in. Although it will be a while before you start seeing the money come in businesses will be much more receptive of your offer.

Get them to sign a standing order too so that the money will automatically go into your account on the agreed date. This way you won't need to chase them up for the money later.

I was going to run a business like this myself some years ago but where I was employed I just didn't have the time to go out and approach companies.

Hope this helps

Kev

A portal for a whole city is too big in my opinion. Better to focus on a smaller section. Check out the West Seattle Blog.

West Seattle Blog… - West Seattle news, 24/7

Seems like a good idea to me...based on the fact that there is a lot of this kind of work being done in India.

I've looked into this with considerable zeal. I loved the idea of building something like that, but big companies and media syndicates are already doing it big, and have all the resources and staff.

Unless you could get free bloggers and admin to build your site and manage it, or pay for them to look after sections and create and content, to create something with massive appeal, it's not worth it.

Of course, there are lots of bloggers out there in big cities with their own little blogs with unique takes on life in that city and there own following, on nearly every subject available (here in london, there is anyway), and I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to provide a unified platform for them gain a wider audience and convince them to be feature writer for your team. But you have to invest in the right platform that would be like moving them from a bedsit to mansion, optimised with website architecture and on-page seo, great design, great brand, great concept, great unifying theme, a USP, and you can then compete with place like timeout, or londontown, because you have talented writers and contributors, and an expanded network to tap into to build traffic from, a usp, etc, all the things you need to have a chance of getting of the ground.

Otherwise, forget it.

I have a local site, with quite a bit of content - nearly all curated. It looks shit, but first goal was to have somewhere to post feature interviews I do with offline businesses. I intent to invest in the whole thing when I get the money, so it looks slick, modern, has great fresh content so as to build a brand that can do what timeout london is doing and expanding well beyond just a city what's on magazine publication into things like it own offers sections, special sponsorships with businesses, joint venture deals, but you won't get much if you don't invest and do things properly. People will visit your site and see a wannabe, not an online publication they simply have subscribe to because no-one else does what you do and provide. Most portals are based on the old magazine model city guides, just online. They have a professional team and organization of hired people. There is a gap for a portal that unites all the cult, obscure but very talented bloggers in an area under one umbrella and common ethos, I feel. An alternative to the conglomerate and corporate backed blogs, which can still be as professional with the right leadership and structure. And I have plans to discover whether that hunch is right but putting that phase into action when I get the chance.


Yes, it's a great model if you can build it up to something worthy of a repeat and growing audience, and then actually attain that asset. There's a lot of competition. But if you're an opportunist rather than an entreprenuer, who flits from one thing to another if there is a hint it could make them money, then it's not for you. You won't be able to build an audience that sticks around and grows. Which means no real way to generate revenue or money.

This is a good time to start a local site because so many big companies walked away from the hyperlocal market. NBC's Everyblock and others closed down--they couldn't make the math work.

Don't make the same mistake as the big corporations. Don't try to take over the world. Get one good local site going and making money. Then expand slowly if you want.

There are local sites making money including:

West Seattle Blog
West Seattle Blog… - West Seattle news, 24/7

BaristaNet
Baristanet*|*Your Local, Homegrown Online Community Since 2004 – Covering Montclair, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, West & South Orange, Maplewood, Millburn

The Batavian
The Batavian | Online News. Community Views.

Here are some resources:
Hyperlocal Magazine
6 Tools Local Publishers Can Use to Build Business Directories | Street Fight

http://www.alexgamela.com/blog/2010/...nd-be-times-5/

How I Created a Hyperlocal Business Directory That Generates a $50,000 Income

If you insist on one portal that covers a whole city, I would curate content from local bloggers and news sources, and then add in your own content in the mix.

Forget about throwing up some local RSS feeds and hope to get any readers/viewers. Viable local sites are a ton of work. Be prepared to put in lot of hours. Good luck.

Good idea if:

- you get updated events
- you get a 50% plus coverage on local business listing
- you get an edge which hasn't been covered by tripadvisor or similar portals
...

What city is this for?

partner with the local ISP's to be the default login page.

There has been a lot of talk around this business model, just use the search function and you will gather usefull info i guarantee.

I looked into doing something similar for my own town. The amount of work to create the content made me nervous but I thought it might be a good door opener to local businesses. Has anyone felt like their local site helped them get introduced to business owner easier?

There is a lot of competition in the U.S. Many similar sites are vying for attention here, but maybe you could get things rolling in India as this is a viable idea if you have the time to get the proper listings such as restaurants, recreational sites, culture centers, museums and the arts, as well as general points of interest.

really a nice idea ..worth trying.