Did Localism Die?

Harry I blog local content on my Outside blogs and get the traffic there.  It works for me.  I think the local content is powering the community pages (identified as "State"  on the top right of ActiveRain)  which are showing up well in search engines. Personally I don't really  need any direction from the Powers of AR really.  My interest is probably just nosiness.  I just wonder if the corpse is rotting. Whether somehow they can segment ActiveRain so that Members who use Members Only posts and do not want local dog walkers, restauranteurs, bike shops, grocers etc. to read that content. 

I swore off Members Only posts as my New Years resolution this year.  I think I only wrote two in 2010.  Transparency thing.

Richard  I can not even really remember what the first Localism pages looked like, time to go to the Wayback Machine but it may just show the front page.    I know when #2 was introduced it was so much prettier but I always hated that it was narrower and posts just lined up along the left ignoring formatting for the same content on ActiveRain and my Outside blogs. I really hated the listing flyers that others used that did not format at all correctly on Localism.  Some used those a lot.  Looked OK on their AR blog but heinous on LocalismII.

I really kind of wanted a way to  not post content to Localism so I did not look to see how it looked.  

I just think we should throw a few shovels of dirt on the coffin.  Say a few words.  Bid a fond farewell.

Mike Jaquish  I naver understood AR groups for Localism content personally.  I think I joined a couple long ago but quit because I never posted anything to the group.  A steady diet of reading other members Localism makes me cranky...  I don't particularly see the value in most of the members comments on the content.  There are a few exceptions.

I will have to go read Bob Stewart cover to cover.   IMy understanding when there were changes earlier this year (?)  when the dashboard changed (leader board) was that the Localism juice was going to go to the Community Pages and searching it looks like that is working to me.  In most cases I would rather have my Outside Blog higher in ranking than the community pages.  I want my Worthington blog to be higher on page one of Google than the ActiveRain Worthington page for any search. 

Edit  Bob Stewart wrote:  "Did you write one post this week about a neighborhood, sub-division, condo complex or some hyper local component of your market? Two would have been better, but if you just did one every week for the next year, you'd have 52 great pieces of content out there as fish hooks for potential clients down the road."

I went back as far as March 1, 2011 but  did not see "Bob S. referred tangentially to rolling Localism into AR"   but I think that was the plan, why the dashboard changed. It makes sense to me.

Posting local content is important.

I agree with your "It does not seem like a tight and easy to learn to navigate site to me." ActiveRain left "plug and play" behind long ago.  I still think there are people who will help but it is not as easy to keep up or to learn as it was in 2007... or 2008.

It drove me nuts that Localism never opened up for comments.  Consumer facing but "shut your mouth."  I  wanted to know if consumers /other local people would comment there or if they would still be intimidated by all the comments from all the members in the industry.  If they were members of Localism would they have commented on Local content?   Would there have been a commenting back and forth locally between "the others" and us?  I think that would have been beneficial lot more beneficial than forced "great post, we learn so much" on local content from other members.

Dagny wrote "I remember when the original Localism spots were offered, and I grabbed one, but had not been able to update it properly, so left it untended."

I paid for city of Worthington (small enough population to be bought as a community but it was not really fair because the way we think of communities here we lump vast areas of the city of Columbus into suburbs)  Polaris, a Columbus neighborhood and two others but I can not remember which two, I was awarded City of Columbus because of it, so they must have been city of Columbus neighborhoods.  I remember writing my city of Columbus write up.  That is what started the "Do you feel betrayed by Localism"  post, or is it "Do you feel betrayed by ActiveRain"?   I am quoting another member in the title.

I am only a sponsor of one community NOW...  Old Worthington  and I got it for free for a year on MLK Day... the day ActiveRain celebrated the 200,000 members.

I am not a big fan of buying communities, zip codes, etc.  I love ActiveRain.  It was a tough decision with the Land Rush in 2008 but I did it because that was how they were monetizing the site.  I would have preferred to pay for Outside blogs but they gave the first Outside blogs for free.  I still prefer an Outside blog to a sponsorship personally.

Mike I think groups were introduced in November 2006.  Groups were supposed to make ActiveRain smaller for the rapidly growing membership.  Break it down into bite sized pieces.  There was a time when non members could not see groups I believe.  Groups do get spammed.  I don't get how posting listings to groups is going to help anyone really.

LOL at "ETA:  Maureen, "a few weeks" in Mike's World could easily be 3 or 4 months..."

when my SO says "the other day" it could be any day in the last 6 months.  Drives me nuts. 

We may be remembering the same information about Localism being absorbed into AR then. The local content was always on ActiveRain.  It just was powering another site too.   The question of non real estate people joining ActiveRain is so interesting but I think the local content has to be a lot stronger and there would either have to be a partition or lots of AR members would feel their site had been given to the masses IMHO.

Localism is still up.  There is just not new content going to it from my observation.

Traffic to Localism.com last month to the site was down about 35% according to Compete.com

Endre Localism still exists...  there is just not new content going to it.  Traffic is down.

Weren't people who were paying for communities smaller than city level switched over to the new pages on ActiveRain?  If you were paying for a neighborhood you had the sponsorship on ActiveRain and Localism?  City level were not switched,  So people could very legitimately be being charged for Localism and be getting great exposure between the two.  Or maybe I am remembering it wrong.  It did not affect me.  I was "awarded"  a lifetime community sponsorship on Localism, but I chose a small city so it did not happen on AR when the switch happened.  Like a lifetime warrranty from a contractor that goes out of business...

Can anyone explain the 

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to me? 

On the Community pages and on our social blog.  I know it is formatting but why?  Why? Why?  it is so ugly.

Rebekah  that's wild that you just looked at it. I have looked at a few times in the past month and did not say anything but the discussion in a Members Only post made me ask.

Jeff does the "Alexa info" show the traffic about  1/12 of ActiveRain?  I use Compete to look at traffic.

I always thought they let someone design it and did not tell them the format had to mesh with ActiveRain and the Outside Blogs.  I think it was actually the first set of Outside blogs not what we have now.  At one point it all looked nasty, then the Outside blogs were upgraded. 

LOL

really