Problems at Patch.com

Good analysis. At this point they're only trying to sell the sites with the most traffic, which obviously makes sense. Then at the end of the year or sometime in 2012, Patch will jettison under-performing sites that are of no interest to advertisers. That makes sense.

 

It does, and it's the primary reason I didn't think I should take the position after interviewing and learning a bit more about it. As I said earlier in the thread, it feels like they're just doing as many of these community sites as possible at first to see which ones work and which ones don't. Give them some amount of time to build a following. If they don't, adios.

The thing for local editors is, your site's poor performance could be no fault of your own. I looked at the community I was interviewing for and just didn't see the sort of community identification among the residents I think is necessary to really make one of these sites work. I could report the hell out of it, but everybody identifies with Big City Down the Road, not little suburb town without much to make it stand out.

But, of course, it COULD be your fault if it fails. The interesting thing will be how they'll distinguish between sites that are underperforming due to an uninterested community and those that are underperforming due to a local editor that just doesn't know how to reach the audience that's there.

 

Guys, put down the Kool-Aid.

Starting hundreds of sites with no advertising is not a good strategy. And, starting hundreds of sites with plans to close many of them won't instill confidence in employees, customers, or potential advertisers.

Selling advertising is not easy -- especially for a new property. It takes time. And, if they're not even trying to sell advertising in many markets, they're going to have a very hard time.

Also, if they're going to focus on small businesses, they're going to need a huge sales staff that will have a hard time covering even their own salaries & expenses.

When you're dealing with business that don't currently buy a lot of media or have an advertising budget, you're looking at a much longer sales process. You're looking at multiple face to face meetings.

These folks also don't have advertising agencies or creative prepared. Is Patch prepared to do the creative for their potential customers?

Larger companies use media buying firms. They have budgets established. A good sales person with good contacts can land several sales through one or two contacts at one firm.

That's not going to happen at Patch.

This is an entirely ego driven operation. And, at some point, the plug is going to be pulled. No one here has explained a business plan that makes any sense. When do they expect to turn a profit? Ever?

It's going to be very sad, but they're going to put a lot of people out of work.

 

If you look at a company like GroupOn, it's a company that has boots on the ground in the markets it covers.

I see Patch is starting to hire local ad reps, which is a start, but the site is not transparent. I don't see the Patch using Quantcast.

I don't want to pick on anon, but she thinks since the money is good now, it's going to be good in six months. With Huffington taking control of AOL's editorial staff, Patch will move to the HuffPo model. She didn't sell HuffPo by building a site with several hundred full-time employees.

 

None of us knows in any job what will happen in six months. Did I ever say this is going to be around forever? NO. It's around for right this minute, that's all any of us can ask.

PS - I worked in print for 23 years- 17 of them at the same place. Laid off anyway. No job is secure.

 

Fallacy of equivocation. Just because no one knows what will happen and all jobs are at risk doesn't mean that some ventures aren't a lot shakier than others.

 

I thought you said you were only in the business for 10 years? Keep your lies straight.

 

All of the free drinks are getting to the anon211 sock puppet.

 

I don't see that in any of anon211's posts.

 

I would subscribe to this guy's newsletter every day of the week. Except his political ones. Those suck.

 

Yeah -- guys? You've drifted from being appropriately skeptical about Patch to sounding quite a bit like you want it to fail. Shouldn't we be rooting for it to work just so *something* will work?