Jule, sure ok. A Flop. So your point is a). Give up on local having an on line Hit? Is there something in this Flop that illuminates what could work?

Back to Saratoga: Check this out (just saw it today) http://www.thesaratogalife.com any chance that local businesses are aren't going to post listings, events, specials, etc here? Seems like this site has a piece figured out.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121253859877343291.html

And the uptick in ad revenue mysteriously appears from where, exactly?

There's not a word about 140 characters replacing news - that maybe be your fear, but I don't see that happening at all.

This whole concept brings us all down to the lowest common denominator.

Ok - fair enough. Here's what I've been thinking about how aggregation/curation can "save" journalism.

First of all - there are really two kinds of newspapers. The big national newspapers - you can debate what papers are on this list; NY Times, WSJ, USA Today for sure, and you can debate papers like Washington Post, LA Times, and Chicago Tribune.

But local newspapers are really the ones in terrible trouble. And with good reason.

Back when I had just graduated from college, my local paper was the Saratogian in Saratoga Springs NY. It was - and is - a Gannett paper. And back then Ganett was thinking about turning the paper into a section (local) of a national paper called USA Today. It was all the talk of the newsroom that the local paper was going to be subsumed under a national masthead. It didn't happen - but probably should have.

Meanwhile, I was a local reporter at WENU (We and U - Together!) a adult contemporary radio station that played The Captain and Tennille's "Muskrat Love" until your ears bled. Don't laugh, I was fresh out of college, and it was a paying gig. (link: http://steverosenbaum.magnify.net/video/Muskrat-Love)

What I did - at the direct orders of my boss who owned both the local radio station and a car dealership - was pick up the first printing of the Glens Falls Post Star, and call folks like the Mayor and City Counsel representatives - and asked them for quotes (recorded by phone) to put on our local AM drivetime reports.

Good news, I quit that job. Seemed like plagiarism to me - but it's pretty much standard practice and TV and Radio haven't killed newspapers.

What IS killing local newspapers is that the very idea of what LOCAL is has changed. It used to be your community, your neighbors, your local politics. Now, not so much.

Local is no longer is tied to physical places. My 'local' community is on Facebook. It's on the web. It's groups of friends and startup guys and industry folks who talk, share, swap stories and connect in a 'virtual community' called cyberspace (so old school, I know).

But my point is that newspapers are busy flogging proximity as their organizing principal, when most folks aren't putting down roots in quite the same way that they did 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

So, here's what needs to change for any local newspapers to survive, and fast:

1. Figure out what you must do to be local and important to your readers.

2. Jettison, outsource, crowd source, citizen-enable, or curate EVERYTHING else.

3. Get video. Make some. Get readers to submit some. Curate some. But fast.

Here's what I would do if I was running the Saratogian today.

1. Put all our $$$ into local government coverage, local Arts coverage (SPAC, The Track, Theater, Dance, Music, Art).

2. Deputize local folks to report local sports, local school lunch menus, local senior citizen center events.

3. Gather (and then Curate) local breaking news. Car crashes, house fires, things that are happening in real time with local cell-phone cameras. (yes, controversial, but it's going to happen anyway- so why not gather - and confirm - and publish these feeds).

4. Advertising: Compete with Craigslist. Local folks don't care where they post. Do a fast free service, with a slight charge for photos, or mapping or some value added service. Use local video ads, or new services like PlaceLocal that make local ads fast and smart.

5. Embrace local unique resources. Skidmore College has a great English Department (disclosure: I went there). Give them a page (a webpage) to publish the Skidmore Scope.

6. Finally - give your readers tools to filter, focus the backfill content of the paper. Dirty secret of the news business, the space in the paper where the content goes is called the 'news hole.' They layout the ads first, and that determines the size of the news hole. Now, there's plenty of room. So partner with folks like Outside.in to delivery zip code specific info to your readers.

Focus on what you're good at. Reporting. Editing. Filtering. Curating. Get technology centric fast - or Twitter will run you over.

If you're interested in the coming together of old media and new ideas - we've got something in common.

(follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/magnify)