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The Chicago-Tribune’s Hyper-Local Future

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Used to be, newspapers wanted to the one place people would go to see all the news — whether from your part of town to the other side of the world. But, in a world with 24/7 TV news, should newspapers continue to put its resources toward being all things to all people?

The Chicago Tribune is trying to counter that approach. It now offers readers 87 different hyper-localized editions, representing more than 100 communities in Chicago’s suburbs. Most of the content comes from readers themselves. This Triblocal.com project operates separately from the main newspaper. Revenue is generated from “reverse publishing” content from the web into 21 weekly newspapers that serve clusters of communities, each of which have its own web site.

The project experienced rapid growth in 2009, adding 11 newspapers from January to Oct. 1 of last year.

Read tthe full case study, including stats on monthly traffic and community members.