YourHub.com, launched by the Denver News agency in May of 2005, is an online community with 43 hyperlocal "hubs" in the flagship Colorado YourHub site. Material from YourHub is reverse-published into zoned editions. The YourHub platform is now licensed in other markets, notably Florida and Knoxville, TN.
Sponsoring news organization: Denver News Agency
Location: Denver, CO
Owned by: Denver News Agency
Founded: 1983
Community engagement initiative launched: May of 2005
Yourhub.com Editor: Travis Henry
Software used: Custom developed by Indigio; the software is now licensed to other newspapers across the country
Center for Citizen Media Interview: YourHub.com with Travis Henry
YourHub.com is one of the most high-profile experiments in wrapping an online community around a traditional news organization. It's also one of the few reporting significant revenues: the Denver News Agency reports $5M thus far.
Like a handful of other news organizations moving into the online community space, the Denver News Agency has discovered one of the time-honored success strategies in high tech: the safest place to be is not attempting to discover a gold mine, but selling picks and shovels to those who do. YourHub.com's platform has been licensed to ten other news organizations and is live in Florida and Knoxville, TN. YourHub.com is based on a recurring business model: the company sells the product for a fairly low setup fee -- $2k to $10k -- and then charges a recurring license fee from a few hundred dollars up to $5k based on the size of the market.
In addition to the online community, the flagship YourHub.com community in Colorado also does reverse-publishing -- creating zoned editions created with material that originated on the site.
YourHub.com may be one of the biggest citizen-journalism initiatives, and may be one of the most successful in terms of revenue and audience, but it has attracted a few high profile critics, notably Tom Grubisch of OJR, who was underwhelmed by the quality of the content submitted by users, and highly critical of incidences of content from public relations people being featured on the site without the kind of attribution that would make it clear to readers that the person submitting the article worked for the organization the article was about. The latter article prompted a response from Rocky Mountain News publisher John Temple.
Further Reading:
- YourHub editor Travis Henry's blog
- Businessweek podcast discussion with Travis Henry
- Rocky Mountain News publisher John Temple discusses the effort to launch YourHub.com: Behind the Scenes at YourHub.com
- The YourHub of Wichita Falls, Texas
Headlines from the Editor's Blog at YourHub.com
