In my last post I suggested newspapers begin to devise ways to compete with the likes of Craigslist while capitalizing on the benefit of knowing their local and regional preferences. I said it thinking about my own local newspaper web site, nj.com, and its apparent lack of imagination. Too many newspapers follow the same bland modus operandi of that site.
Though I’ve never lived in Atlanta, I call it my second home because its someplace where I feel at home. So, it comes with some pleasure to find out that the major news paper in my second home, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), has already done just what I suggested. They apparently built a classified site, ajcexchange, which competes head-to-head with Craigslist. Their goal was to provide local users with a Craigslist alternative that didn’t have some of the unsavory elements for which Craigslist has recently become known.
I have to tell you. I think they did a pretty good job. Go visit the site yourself and let me (and them) know what you think. It looks like they built it from scratch using Ruby on Rails. Kudos to the AJC team for leading and being imaginative about ways to get ahead of the troubles facing the industry.
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