The804.com–Richmond VA Real Estate Blog

Media General-Richmond.com stories have been compiled.

notes:

• Brilliant move by MEG.  The domain and SEO placement alone was worth the price (which hasn’t been revealed btw).  Gatewayva? Inrich? Yuch.  The city paper finally gets the crown jewel of domain names, the city name itself.  Only a few major national papers have this kind of asset:
  • Boston Globe Boston.com
  • Charlotte Observer Charlotte.com
  • Cleveland Plain Dealer Cleveland.com
  • Newark Star-Ledger NJ.com
• In the end, I think they’re going to just switch out inrich for Richmond.com.  Basically re-point the DNS, re-do the masthead/graphic logos, but keep the content management system/design of the current inrich (for better or for worse). It’ll be interesting to see whether Franklin Street can maintain the official RAR/Central Virginia Regional MLS ,  Retail Merchants Association, and Richmond Tourism relationships.
• I hope they keep the Richmond.com article archives.  If I were in charge, I would combine all the existing Brick, Mashup, and Richmond.com content and place it on the legacy Richmond.com CMS platform (ie, still keep a “separate” “alt-weekly” website).  Since Richmond.com will be getting imported to the mother ship, I would re-brand this new site using the existing Brickreloaded.com, mashuprva.com, or a recycled inrich.com domain name (or, maybe, come up with something brand new). 
• The content partnership between competitors Chesterfield Observer (especially this one.  bad blood here), Henrico Citizen, and WORKMAGAZINE will probably go away.
• Will the next mayor keep “Ask the Mayor” on this platform based on the new ownership (or rather, vice versa)?
• With my research work on the ButtonALL search engine (ie, building city search engine channels), I’ve sort of become an expert on city media demographics around the country.  For a town the size of Richmond, the scope and breadth of our media (mainstream, alt, indie, and blogs) is simply amazing.   You don’t see our kind of media ownership diversity anywhere except for much, much larger cities like NYC and Seattle.  Richmond.com itself was an over-achieving oddity.  Many of the Associated City websites are more or less advertising landing pages with very little content.  In its tenure, Richmond.com under Whitlock did an admirable job with its original articles and partnerships.  It’s definitely going to be missed, but our media ecosystem should be able to fill the void.
• Who will pick up the alternative media slack in the 804?
  • I’d like to see the one-year old RVANews take it to the next level.  Already, their article on this purchase has engendered the best reader dialogue/gossip.  Having followed the mayor race closely, I think their coverage has also been a real asset for Richmond voters.  The RVANews group (which includes the neighborhood blogs) is truly independent, lean (ie, built to last), and very likable.
  • Style Weekly recently re-modeled themselves with a new website design (this has been in “beta” for way too long).  They will be an even bigger player now that they’ve finally added reader comments and cleaner RSS.  Of course, Landmark’s on again-off again fire sale needs to be resolved.
  • The Richmond blogosphere is fairly healthy.  Once January 1 rolls along, expect River City Rapids (whose voice has been missed) to return with a vengeance.  Weekly Rant is a great calendar option/alternative now that Richmond.com will be folded into Things to Do.
  • Richmond BizSense is doing yeoman’s work on business news.  I think they’re actually doing a better job with business news than the TD itself.  Once the economy picks up, I can see a phase 2 pulp weekly for this outfit (like the old Richmond Inside Business).
  • Don’t overlook the television and radio stations.  CBS6 under Mark Holmberg has turned around their website with solid, original newsreporting (their VCU scandal coverage is a standard).  NBC12 is doing fantastic work with politics.  WRVA wants to be a player.
  • The darkhorse (or sleeping 800 pound gorilla) in all this is Richmond Magazine. On November 24, they will be re-launching their website.  I’m crossing my fingers and hoping they open up their articles and archives vault.  In terms of original reporting and stories (especially Richmond lifestyle), they are elite.  Of all the players, they have the content infrastructure to fill the Richmond.com void right now.
• Seeing Media General’s Terms and Conditions up makes it official but weird (sort of like when the bar at Kingsmill added Stella Artois on tap)