Jeff Beckham

I first heard of Rob Curley via the IT Conversations site, which collects and publishes interviews, keynote speeches and other audio programs. Rob’s keynote at the 2005 Integrated Media Association New Media Summit contained so many dead-on assessments of how to do local online journalism the right way that it made my head spin.

Since that time, Rob has moved from the Lawrence Journal-World to the Naples Daily News, and he’s taken his high-energy firebrand approach along with him. In eight months since moving to Florida, Rob and his team have built up an impressive set of content and doubled the amount of traffic to naplesnews.com.

Listen to a streaming audio version of Rob’s recent speech to the Akron Roundtable, and marvel at how compelling local content can be. Rob’s approach is built around five pillars:

• Hyperlocal content: “Content so local you can’t believe you’re seeing it on a local website. We cover T-Ball like it’s the New York Yankees.”
• Database-driven coverage: Tools where people can check on public record information like home appraisal value, crime reports, and public employee salaries.
• Multimedia: Audio and video
• Any platform: Text and multimedia delivered to your cell phone, iPod, or computer
• Dialogue: “Newspapers have been a monologue for far too long. Readers should feel like it’s their paper.”

This is how it’s done. Putting the print version of stories online and calling it a day is a disservice to readers. People visiting your media website demand interactivity, and if you don’t provide it, they’ll find it elsewhere.