Act Local, Think Global

David Parkin dropped in to the office to update us on his new venture http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/. Subscription is free (see my recent post on this subject) and his business model is based on paid-for advertisements. While online offers the potential for currency of news, I guess the other benefits to be exploited are new media based, such as what is the most popular story, ability to comment on articles, see what other articles readers of a story have read, multimedia content, content targetted adverts, automated links based on keywords in content, etc. The geographical focus is also a big selling point, but equally major players are looking at how to localise their offerings, such as ITVlocal. A company that presented at our recent Investment Forum (http://www.towntalk.co.uk/) is seeking to develop an online equivalent to the booklet advertising local services that comes through your letter box each month.

Whether you come from the local side up or the global side down, the bottom line is that you need to connect with a community in a meaningful way and offer them access to something they might want at reasonable cost in terms of time, money and effort. Then seek to replicate the model in as many sensible places as possible! Hopefully what works in one geographic location, hold water elsewhere. That is what equity investors are looking for: a proposition that is scalable!