It’s hard to believe, but the Village Green will begin its third year of operation at the
end of this month. Our experiment in hyper-local Internet news coverage launched
on Memorial Day 2006, and while our early tries at web design were truly cringe-
worthy, we have evolved into a functional and reliable source for local news. Far
too often we are your only source for local news coverage.
We have a regular readership of 1,000 unique visitors to this site every month. I
have heard from many of you over the past two years, and am gratified to know
that you have come to depend on the Village Green site and visit it regularly.
Our mission statement will remain the same over the upcoming year. We want to
provide an easily accessible venue for the sharing of information, and we want that
opportunity to extend to the small business owners who operate in our
communities.
Our ad rates are low, and we want to keep them that way. To do that, we have to
explore additional sources of revenue, and for a web-based news site, they are
limited. We are not an approved publication for legal notices, a major source of
revenue for newspapers. Readers also don’t pay a subscription bill to read the
site. So as a web-based news source we are shut out of two of the three revenue
sources available to print newspapers.
It would seem the only alternative open to us would be to jack up our ad rates, and
we won’t do that. If small businesses can’t afford to advertise, they can’t compete
with the corporations that can. We want to be part of the solution, not become part
of the problem.
So we’re going to try something new, and let me be the first to admit that the idea
is a blatant steal from another area hyper-local news site - www.permbertonvoice.
org.
They had the idea first and it’s a good one.
From now on, we will carry a Pay-Pal link on our home page. If you are willing to
pay 50 cents a week to buy your local weekly newspaper, we are asking you to pay
a comparable amount to read our site.
While we originally suggested a 50 cent a week subscription rate, several people
have let me know that putting 50 cents on a credit card every week - is more
trouble then its worth. So lets try this - $2.00 a month. If you choose to subscribe
your credit card will be billed by PayPal once a month for $2.00. Of course you
may cancel your subscription at any time.
It’s completely voluntary of course. If we limited site access to those who paid for a
password we would limit the audience our advertisers can reach. There are also
those who can’t pay a subscription rate or chose not to, and that’s okay. But those
who do chose to, will become a stakeholder in this effort and an important part of
what we are trying to do.
Whatever subscription income we receive will allow us to hire free-lance writers
and photographers and increase our coverage of local news.
It will also allow us to hire local residents to reach out to local businesses and sell
advertising. In short it will give us the revenue we need to do our job better, and to
continue to grow this site into what it truly has the potential to be.
As a special thank-you subscribers will be entitled to free classified advertising
space. If you’re having a yard sale, or if you have something to sell. Let people
know here, for free.
So let us know what you think. We’ve added a direct comment link to the top of the
home page. We’d love to allow direct posting, but we can’t. Troll engines pick
these comment pages up and post links to inappropriate material. By approving
comments I can screen them out. The rest will be posted, as submitted.
So thank you for reading…The Village Green continues to be a work in progress,
and this experiment in local news coverage goes on. It will be interesting to see
what the next year brings.
Sue Gazzara
end of this month. Our experiment in hyper-local Internet news coverage launched
on Memorial Day 2006, and while our early tries at web design were truly cringe-
worthy, we have evolved into a functional and reliable source for local news. Far
too often we are your only source for local news coverage.
We have a regular readership of 1,000 unique visitors to this site every month. I
have heard from many of you over the past two years, and am gratified to know
that you have come to depend on the Village Green site and visit it regularly.
Our mission statement will remain the same over the upcoming year. We want to
provide an easily accessible venue for the sharing of information, and we want that
opportunity to extend to the small business owners who operate in our
communities.
Our ad rates are low, and we want to keep them that way. To do that, we have to
explore additional sources of revenue, and for a web-based news site, they are
limited. We are not an approved publication for legal notices, a major source of
revenue for newspapers. Readers also don’t pay a subscription bill to read the
site. So as a web-based news source we are shut out of two of the three revenue
sources available to print newspapers.
It would seem the only alternative open to us would be to jack up our ad rates, and
we won’t do that. If small businesses can’t afford to advertise, they can’t compete
with the corporations that can. We want to be part of the solution, not become part
of the problem.
So we’re going to try something new, and let me be the first to admit that the idea
is a blatant steal from another area hyper-local news site - www.permbertonvoice.
org.
They had the idea first and it’s a good one.
From now on, we will carry a Pay-Pal link on our home page. If you are willing to
pay 50 cents a week to buy your local weekly newspaper, we are asking you to pay
a comparable amount to read our site.
While we originally suggested a 50 cent a week subscription rate, several people
have let me know that putting 50 cents on a credit card every week - is more
trouble then its worth. So lets try this - $2.00 a month. If you choose to subscribe
your credit card will be billed by PayPal once a month for $2.00. Of course you
may cancel your subscription at any time.
It’s completely voluntary of course. If we limited site access to those who paid for a
password we would limit the audience our advertisers can reach. There are also
those who can’t pay a subscription rate or chose not to, and that’s okay. But those
who do chose to, will become a stakeholder in this effort and an important part of
what we are trying to do.
Whatever subscription income we receive will allow us to hire free-lance writers
and photographers and increase our coverage of local news.
It will also allow us to hire local residents to reach out to local businesses and sell
advertising. In short it will give us the revenue we need to do our job better, and to
continue to grow this site into what it truly has the potential to be.
As a special thank-you subscribers will be entitled to free classified advertising
space. If you’re having a yard sale, or if you have something to sell. Let people
know here, for free.
So let us know what you think. We’ve added a direct comment link to the top of the
home page. We’d love to allow direct posting, but we can’t. Troll engines pick
these comment pages up and post links to inappropriate material. By approving
comments I can screen them out. The rest will be posted, as submitted.
So thank you for reading…The Village Green continues to be a work in progress,
and this experiment in local news coverage goes on. It will be interesting to see
what the next year brings.
Sue Gazzara
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