06
Dec 10

Outside.in CEO Mark Josephson to Speak About ‘The New Local News,’ at ILM: 10

Posted by by Esther Brown in Announcements / Events / News — View Comments

Local media leaders will gather in Santa Clara, CA this week to take part in BIA/Kelsey’s annual conference on Interactive Local Media. Outside.in will have a strong presence at the conference, beginning with our CEO, Mark Josephson, who’ll be participating in a 9:15 A.M. panel on Day 2 of the conference (Wednesday, December 8th) entitled “The New Local News.”

According to BIA/Kelsey,  “the shift to the Internet and mobile is perhaps most apparent in the presentation and aggregation of news.” As an aggregator with a unique approach to the hyperlocal space, we couldn’t agree more. We believe the future of news is a bright one.

Like the other companies on the panel, Outside.in is definitely “vying to turn news into a commerce driver for the next generation and beyond,” as BIA/Kelsey puts it. Of course, Mark will share how Outside.in is making this a reality.

Mark will be sharing the stage with three other players in the hyperlocal space: Satbir Khanuja (President and CEO, Datasphere Technologies), Darian Shirazi (Founder and CEO, Fwix) and Warren Webster (President, Patch). It should be a great conversation, so we truly hope you’ll be there.

PS. Pay us another visit tomorrow for more details on Outside.in’s presence at ILM:10!

About ILM:10

Interactive Local Media 2010 (ILM:10) is BIA/Kelsey’s annual conference devoted to digital media with a local focus. This event features the true innovators of interactive local media and marketing, encompassing directories, search, mobile, social and direct marketing. For more information, please visit the conference’s official site.

30
Nov 10

Outside.in CEO Mark Josephson to Speak at Business Insider’s IGNITION Conference

Posted by by Esther Brown in Announcements / Events / General / News — View Comments

Our CEO, Mark Josephson, will be speaking at Business Insider’s first annual IGNITION Conference this Thursday, December 2, at the Time Warner Center in New York City. The conference centers on ‘the Future of Media,’ and will “celebrate and explore the amazing new companies and business models that are taking advantage of this vast new digital opportunity.”

The panel, entitled ‘THE NEW EDITORIAL: Who Do You Want Telling You What to Read? Friends, Algorithms, or… Editors?’ will take place at 1:35 P.M. and will also feature John Borthwick (CEO of Betaworks), Garrett Camp (CEO of StumbleUpon) and Patrick Keane (former CEO of Associated Content). The panel will be moderated by Rachel Sklar, Mediaite’s Editor-at-Large.

According to Business Insider, “the Web has evolved from portals, to search, to social sharing, and back.” With that in mind, this panel will explore the following questions:

• What’s the value of unexpected discovery in a friend’s Twitter feed, vs. finding exactly what you want on Google?
• How much curation do consumers want around their content?

Outside.in has plenty of experience both with algorithmic and human curation, so Mark will have plenty of useful insights to share at the panel – we hope you can make it!

The full agenda for the conference can be found here. The hashtag for the event is #Ignition2010.

16
Nov 10

Outside.In Partners with CityGrid Media and Pilots Its Ads by CityGrid Offering

Posted by by Robert DelaCruz in Announcements / News — View Comments

Our publishers rely on us to deliver locally relevant advertisers, and great things are in the pipeline on the advertising front.  I’m extremely pleased that we are now integrating targeted advertising from CityGrid Media into the neighborhood news pages across our Network. We’ve started with pilot tests of new CityGrid® ad products on our sites in key, select markets, and the creatives and relevancy are fantastic thus far.

CityGrid Media is one of the clear leaders in the local advertising and content space. Their network, CityGrid®, is the largest local content and advertising network. CityGrid® aggregates more than 800K paying advertisers from many search sites including DexKnows.com and others, and reaches over 140M unique users across hundreds of web and mobile partners including Ask.com, Bing, AOL, MapQuest and more. With this integration, they’re further extending their reach via our Network of top local media properties— which is something they’re excited about because local advertisers continue to search for better targeting and Outside.in delivers neighborhood and town-level targeting at scale.

This partnership with CityGrid Media is an important step in making the market more efficient while delivering robust local advertising experiences to our users and partners. Just another important step towards fully realizing our mission: delivering content and ad opportunities for every neighborhood and town in the country.

15
Nov 10

Outside.in Co-Founder & Bestselling Author, Steven Berlin Johnson, to Speak at Web 2.0 Summit TODAY

Posted by by Esther Brown in Announcements / Events / News — View Comments

Steven Berlin Johnson, one of our founders and a bestselling author, will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit today. He’ll be discussing ‘Where Good Ideas Come From,’ and other ideas from his newest book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. The talk will take place at 3:55 P.M. in the Grand Ballroom at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

If you’re not attending the conference, you can watch the whole thing on LiveStream or check out Steven’s Ted talk on the subject:

Of course, you can always pick-up your own copy of the book, or follow Steven on Twitter, where a great conversation has started using the #goodideas hashtag.

08
Nov 10

Outside.in is Hiring: Content Manager

Posted by by Jared in Jobs — View Comments

Outside.in is the leading provider of hyperlocal news and information. We show consumers neighborhood news and information from local bloggers and mainstream media on hundreds of trusted news sites across the Outside.in Network as well as on our destination site, Outside.in.

ROLE:
Content is an essential component of our hyperlocal experience. We’re looking for an analytical and creative Content Manager to lead the organization, refinement, and expansion of our database of more than 50,000 content sources. By doing so, you will be playing a critical role in Outside.in’s success.

Reporting to the VP of Partner Relations, the Content Manager will be responsible for:

  • Ensuring that our content source database covers all U.S. markets comprehensively
  • Monitoring various channels for new sources of hyperlocal content and adding them to our database as they become available
  • Maintaining titles, categorizations, and other data points of content sources to ensure high-quality results across the Outside.in Network
  • Continuously refining the taxonomy by which we organize our content sources to accommodate new types of content
  • Managing a team of remote freelancers and reviewing their work for inclusion in our content database
  • Using mechanical turk to efficiently outsource large-scale tasks
  • Supporting content needs of key partners based on needs shared by the business development and partner relations teams
  • Monitoring trending news topics and ensuring that our content tagging is optimized for search queries for those stories
  • Assisting the product team in researching roadmap for inclusion of new content sources and the QA team in testing the release of new content-related features
  • Monitoring key metrics for diversity and quality of content database and focusing work to optimize those metrics
  • Regularly monitor and be a passionate advocate for the quality of our content

REQUIREMENTS:

  • Highly analytical, detail-oriented, and driven worker comfortable working in a demanding, fast-paced environment
  • Experience using Excel to organize and manipulate large sets of data
  • Ability to orchestrate systems to manage many simultaneous, ongoing tasks with a knack for finding an easier way
  • 1-2 years of experience in an analytical position or an online editorial position

ICING ON THE CAKE:

  • Passion for news and local content
  • Experience with or interest in learning to use Mechanical Turk
  • Familiarity with SQL

INTERESTED?
Please send cover letter, resume and/or LinkedIn profile to careers@outside.in

03
Nov 10

Outside.in Co-Founder & Bestselling Author, Steven Berlin Johnson, to Keynote AdTech New York

Posted by by Esther Brown in Announcements / Events / General / News — View Comments

As we mentioned yesterday, Steven Berlin Johnson, one of our founders and a bestselling author, will be giving the keynote at AdTech New York tomorrow at 9:00 A.M. In his keynote, Steven will be talking about ‘Where Good Ideas Come From: The Patterns of Innovation in a Networked World.’ As the AdTech website explains:

Drawing on insights from his acclaimed new book, Where Good Ideas Come From, bestselling author Steven Johnson will discuss the power of new technology platforms that are changing the rules of advertising, from location-based technologies to social networks, and explain how you can use those platforms to create innovative new products, services and work environments. From the individual level to large-scale corporations, Johnson will show how entities of all sizes can create environments where we can have, recognize and share good ideas.

If you’ve ever heard Steven speak or read one of his books, you know that the folks at AdTech New York are in for a treat. I think it’s safe to say that this keynote will be one of the highlights of the conference. Here’s the trailer for the book, in case you’d like a preview:

Lucky for the rest of us at Outside.in, Steven will be giving us our own private ‘Where Good Ideas Come From,’ keynote over lunch soon. Jealous? Don’t be! Just be sure to make it to AdTech bright and early tomorrow, or pick-up your very own copy of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation.

02
Nov 10

New Revenue Chief, Rob DelaCruz, Talks Ads at AdTech New York

Posted by by Esther Brown in Announcements / General / News — View Comments

Rob DelaCruz, our new CRO, will be on the 2:30 P.M. Geo-Loco panel at AdTech New York tomorrow, aptly-titled ‘How Big Brands Will Make Money with Location-Based Services.’

I say ‘aptly-titled,’ because I know that Rob DelaCruz knows a thing or two about the ways big brands can make money in this space— which, of course, is one of the major reasons we’re all thrilled that he chose to leave Microsoft (where he launched new businesses across Microsoft’s online portfolio in Search, Advertising and MSN), move his entire family from Seattle to New York, and join us here at Outside.in (the fact that Rob is an all-around great guy wasn’t lost on us, either).

In just a few short months, Rob has already forged key partnerships and shaped new advertising opportunities in 57k+ neighborhoods across the country. He’ll be sharing more about these at AdTech, to be sure.

P.S. Don’t forget to arrive at AdTech bright and early on Thursday morning to catch Steven Johnson, our co-founder and a bestselling author, who’ll be giving the 9:00 A.M. keynote address. He’ll be drawing insights from his new book, Where Good Ideas Come From, and discussing ‘The Patterns of Innovation in a Networked World.’

25
Oct 10

Why Do You Blog?

Posted by by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General — View Comments

Recently, I surveyed the bloggers who subscribe to our occasional newsletter, asking them questions about their blogs and themselves (a big thank you to everyone who submitted answers!). While I don’t purport to have conducted an in-depth, analytical survey of the entire blogosphere, at least one the questions I asked received some answers that definitely warrant further examination.

I asked the bloggers – the majority of whom identified themselves as ‘hyperlocal,’ bloggers – what motivates them to blog. I listed four possible answer choices:

  • For money
  • For fun/as a hobby
  • For fame/notoriety
  • Other

The answers I got broke down like this:

What surprised me was not how few of the bloggers said they were motivated by money. My interviews with bloggers have already told me that very few bloggers (particularly hyperlocal bloggers) are making significant income from blogging, and those that do make money are generally motivated to write by something else.  For these bloggers, any income is simply a happy bonus.

Rather, what surprised me was how many bloggers selected the mysterious ‘Other’ as their motivation. After reading through the write-in answers, though, I realized that I had left out an important and likely answer choice to the question. What was it?

  • To increase community awareness/to make a difference/as a public service

Public service! It makes perfect sense. So many of the bloggers I’ve spoken to say they not only feel an obligation to their blog audience, but they also feel a larger sense of purpose and dedication to their communities.

Even though most of the bloggers I’ve interviewed don’t think of themselves as journalists, strictly speaking, a lot of them speak about their devotion to hyperlocal blogging in words similar to those a journalist might use to speak about their obligation to the truth. (Some bloggers do think of themselves as journalists, of course, but let’s not open the whole blogger-versus-journalist can of worms today.)

Instead, today I’d like to hear from more bloggers:

Why do you blog? What motivates you, and how have those reasons evolved?

18
Oct 10

Outside.in Sr. Product Manager Lauren Sperber to Speak at Mashery’s Business of API Conference 10/19 in NYC

Posted by by Esther Brown in Announcements / Development & Features / Events — View Comments

Tomorrow at 1:00 P.M. EST, Outside.in Sr. Product Manager Lauren Sperber will speak at The Business of APIs Conference, sponsored by Mashery. The conference will be held at SunWest Studio, located at 450 West 31st Street here in New York City.

Lauren will be talking about our API as a case study for  how APIs can power relationships between large and small companies (take Outside.in and CNN, for example). Though we’re probably a bit biased, we think that sounds really interesting, and we can’t wait to hear Lauren’s take on things.

The rest of the speakers at the conference sound similarly compelling:

Interested in attending? Tickets are still available through the conference site. The conference will be followed by a cocktail hour at 6 P.M. and sounds like an incredibly interesting event for developers and others interested in the business of APIs.

Lauren Sperber, Sr. Product Manager, Outside.In


As Outside.in’s first product manager, Lauren introduced order and documentation to the company’s small, scrappy development team. She moved on to head up product management of Outside.in’s hyperlocal search and syndication platform, including the newly released API, which enables developers to access local news in any U.S. state, city, ZIP code, or neighborhood. Before Outside.in, Lauren worked in product development and marketing in the education and non-profit sectors. She studied literature at Georgetown University and NYU, where she wrote her MA thesis on how search engines construct the authoritativeness of online text.

11
Oct 10

Congrats! You’ve Won a Scholarship to The New York Times’ Hyperlocal Blogging Course!

Posted by by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General — View Comments

Last week, we ran a simple contest on our blog. We offered entrants a chance at winning a scholarship to an online, self-paced course on Hyperlocal Blogging, which is being taught by our friends at The New York Times. As promised, we randomly selected two lucky winners from the entries we received, and they are… (drum roll, please)…

  • Clay Williams, a NYC blogger, foodie, ‘professional geek,’ and aspiring photographer who’s interested in learning hyperlocal blogging skills (always great to see photographer-types getting in on the fun: photography is a core blogging skill, and it’s one that’s especially useful for hyperlocal bloggers);
  • Ginger Fawcett, a St. Louis-area real estate agent who’s interested in learning how she can launch a hyperlocal blog in her neck of the woods (a stellar example of one thing real estate agents can do to really stand out: after all, there probably aren’t a whole lot of people who spend as much time thinking about their communities as real estate agents).

Judging from the conversations I’ve had with each of them so far, they’re both really excited to begin the course, which starts today.

We’re certainly happy to sponsor both of them and we look forward to seeing how their hyperlocal blogging projects evolve (No pressure, guys, seriously! Just have fun with it and learn as much as you can).

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