C: We had the idea for a local site about the town when we moved to Brattleboro in 2001. We started on it, got distracted, and came back to the idea in 2003. We launched iBrattleboro.com in February of 2003. It wasn't called Citizen Jounalism at that point. What we were doing didn't really have a name that we knew of and was hard to describe - it's an online news thingie that the readers write.

L: We had been doing a community-style indie music site for several years, but in 2003, with the Iraq War a month away, the local paper in a shambles, and media consolidation on the rise, we felt it was time to bring the concept home.  So we started iBrattleboro as a way to bring people together and give them a forum for expressing themselves.  The concept was a local news outlet, written by and for citizens of the area.  

The site really took off, which indicates, I think, that we weren't the only ones fed up with the 'drumbeat' of mainstream media.  iBrattleboro was a way to get more voices into the mix in a time when the primary message was 'stay on message.'  

2) Who is your readership and what do you see as your purpose?

C and L: Readership is primarily local, which we like. We get many from Brattleboro and the surrounding towns, as well as expatriots and people planning on visiting or moving to town. Some others stumble onto the site via search engines and stories they find at iBrattleboro.

Ages range from teens to village elders. Most of the town offices read the site, as do the "movers and shakers" in town. We also get fringe elements of town who don't always find a voice elsewhere.

3) Did you have a model or business plan when you started?

C: Yes, you might say that. We joked about our ten year plan. We planned to start the site and let it grow naturally without much promotion, relying on word of mouth and the quality of the site to propel us forward. As the site grew we figured its reputation would also grow, and expect advertising to naturally follow to the area's most popular website within ten years to the point where iBrattleboro would pay the bills and we could do website work (our real jobs) for fun rather than rely on it as a business.

L: We're really not that hung up on the money aspect of the site.  As Chris said, the site is thriving and advertising dollars have (slowly) followed.  But we don't run iBrattleboro for the money.  And even if it never made us a dime, we'd keep doing it.

4) What makes iBrattleboro unique?

C: It's an extremely local use of the world wide web. It allows for anyone with computer access (available free at our library) to write and respond to news that has local importance. It is always on, and breaking news is often found on iBrattleboro first.

The way we moderate the site seems natural to us, but seems radical when we discuss it with others. Our non-editing scares most media operations, but it is one of the things that keeps iBrattleboro authentic. It fairly accurately reflects the opinions and views of people in town now, with nearly 200 "active" users at any given time.

L: I think local news forums where anyone can post are pretty rare.  At the last conference we attended, we met no one else who was doing what we do, which is to say, there are plenty of local news sites but very few where content isn't edited, filtered or restricted to a handful of professional writers.  But we're about free speech, if nothing else, and we stand by the free-wheeling iBrattleboro model.

5) What is a typical day for iBrattleboro?

C: Get up and check the site. Delete Russian spammers work from overnight (ads for porn). Go through new submissions and post them. Read all new comments and make sure people are generally behaving and following the policies. Deal with anyone who isn't. Answer an email or two about how to post something, a lost password, or other question relating to the site.

Add any comments or stories I have planned for the day. Check in with submissions and comments late morning, around lunchtime, early afternoon, late afternoon, around dinner, after dinner, and before bed.

We've been getting about 5-10 new stories a day lately. Some are press releases like those seen in the paper. Some are original articles. Some are opinion pieces. Some are questions.

Repeat every day of the year, even on vacation (we have one person who is trained to do this if we cannot get to a computer).

On an atypical day there might be a big breaking story, with us trying to keep up with on-the-scene reports and photos coming in. This has happened a few times.

Lise, care to talk about tech things? It isn't daily, but...

L: not really....

6) What is your "yardstick" for success?  For examples -- here are some things that many blogs cite as success factors:  Number of visitors;  Number of stories picked up by traditional media; number of sites linking to yours; ad revenue; number of writers creating stories; changes in the political arena that have occurred because of your presence.   What is the yardstick you are using and where are you now against that yardstick?

C: Well, number of visitors is a nice yardstick, as is registered users. We've had over 4 million page views and 1500 registered users since the site began.

Many of our stories are picked up by local media, and many of their stories are discussed on the site. Reporters read the site for ideas; readers respond to what they have heard in the local news.

Sites linking to us used to be neat to watch but we don't pay much attention to that now. Being local, we care mostly about local sites that link to us. Actually, we care the most about linking to them. We do get Google alerts when we're mentioned.

Ad revenue? We'll be concerned about that more later on. It is nice and does tell us that others see the site as a good place to reach potential customers.

Number of writers? Not so much the number but the variety and quality of the writing impresses me. I like when new users arrive and write a really great piece or comment.

Changes politically? I think we are helping push things in a more open and transparent direction, but work remains. It was certainly a reason that we started the site - to be sure there was an alternative to the single corporate newspaper in the town.

So what is our yardstick? It's a gut feeling about the site. We watch over it like a baby or pet, and are pleased with all sorts of little things that only a parent would appreciate -- outsmarting a spammer, watching a debate resolve smoothly, or seeing a great submission on a slow day.

7) There was a lot of discussion about blog ads and google ads at Media Giraffe and one of your key insights was your awareness of your audience and how they would react to Google ads. Can you elaborate?

C and L: Yes. Google ads look like Google ads. They look national and Brattleboro folks are smart enough to know that Google is not a local business.

Our site promises support for local business, and we only take ads that relate to locally owned people, businesses, venues, or events.

If we put up ads for national businesses such as a phone or car company, the money would be fine, but the principle would be damaged. We don't want our local business advertisers to ever have to worry that, say, their local restaurant will be up against a national chain.

We're a local business, ourselves, and want to help the little guys out there as best we can.

So, it's all about local ads for us, and supporting local business. Our site is a reflection of our town in that regard and should look as local as Main Street to local readers. Our Main Street doesn't have national chain stores.

It's a Brattleboro- thang... : )

8) What is the source of your greatest frustration?

C and L: People who get heated and start making personal attacks on other contributors - flame wars. Spammers are a close second.

9) What are your plans for future of iBrattleboro?

C and L: We've just added a wiki - the Brattleboro Community Brain Trust and will work with that for a while to get it up and running smoothly as a local resource. We're developing a classified ad system we hope to implement soon. We'd like to create an "assignment desk" for people to collaborate like a newsroom. Linking up into a national, AP-like system where we could send iBrattleboro's best stories, and perhaps gather some of the best from other places for a national page. That might come when other towns have good citizen journalism efforts going. Right now, it's a bit thin for that sort of enterprise.

Our plan is to continue to grow and become an even more trusted source for even more people in town, encouraging more people to write and contribute. We'd like to make a living off of the site someday, if possible. We'd like to find a suitable entity to hand it off to when we are old and grey, too.



Thanks Chris and Lise!