HealdsburgMagazine.com

Posted on | October 9, 2009 | No Comments

I was the founder and publisher of an online community magazine: Healdsburg Magazine: a local perspective.

I started this site to offer a local perspective on my community and insights for people traveling to this region for it’s wine and food. I also wanted to learn and experience new forms of media.

In it’s brief lifetime, I published all original content (95 entries including five feature articles), aggregated 30 other local blogs, added community forums, and integrated social media and new media into the site (currently archived here). I also started a Facebook group (What’s Happening Healdsburg) for community members to connect. This group organically grew to over 700 local members.

In September 2008, I created an advertising structure for the magazine by starting a shopping, dining, strolling guide (a map) of local businesses for the local luxury hotel. By November 2009, I had won 54 paying advertisers. I published and distributed 10,000 copies by January 2009.

In September 2009, I’d established the map and magazine as a profitable business and sold the project to another local businessman to take it to another level. Kenny Lowe recently published 20,000 copies of the 2nd edition (with 64 sponsors), is about to release an iPhone application based on the original concept, and publishes a local newsletter using the Facebook group.

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