The Express is now offering the LocalBizBlogs service, a do-it-yourself web publishing platform, to small businesses and networks. "Over half of the small businesses in the United States currently do not have a website, and many of those who do find it complicated, time consuming, or cost prohibitive to regularly update," Express publisher Jody Colley says. "LocalBizBlogs can either act as their primary website or a compliment to their legacy site."
In the annual awards given out to "The Best in the West" by the Western Publishing Association, L.A. Weekly won in the overall Tabloids (Consumer) category and in the Best News Story (Consumer) category, while the San Francisco Bay Guardian took first for Best Signed Editorial or Essay (Consumer).
The alt-weekly is rolling out a program "designed to help exceptional businesses get off the ground in exchange for a share in the growth." Once a business is chosen, it will be officially paired with the Express as a marketing/community partner. The paper will subsidize the local marketing of the business in exchange for seeing a return when it grows.
While last year's verdict in favor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian in its predatory pricing lawsuit against SF Weekly and Village Voice Media is being appealed, the Guardian claims VVM is ducking its debts and hiding its assets in an effort not to pay the $15.6 million it owes in damages. VVM executive editor Michael Lacey says that's not correct. "The case is on appeal. You are not entitled to a penny," he writes in a blog post.
In an email sent to some of the review website's most active users Thursday, Yelp solicited feedback about an upcoming feature that will let businesses post replies to user reviews, the Associated Press reports. As the East Bay Express reported earlier this year, many business owners complained that they were essentially being extorted by Yelp, whose sales representatives told them that the company could move or remove negative reviews only if they advertised.
You'll have to watch the video, which features Express staffers doing their best lip synching, to hear some new ideas on how to save print media.
- The Mountain Xpress is ending its 14-year run as a print publication today, "suspending its regular online news reports and converting its entire news operation to Twitter dispatches from staff and trusted community journalists."
- The San Francisco Bay Guardian has settled its lawsuit with Village Voice Media, agreeing to drop its legal action and "shut the fuck up" about PG&E, sunshine, media concentration, rent control, and over-development.
- Publisher Sally Freeman has sold the Boise Weekly to N-Corp-Al, which quickly shut the alt-weekly down and relaunched it as the Treasure Valley Weekly Post.
- The Washington City Paper has relaunched as the Huffington City Paper.
- Salt Lake City Weekly announced it has purchased SLUG magazine and will bring new features like "Cute Baby of the Month" and "Those Wacky Pets" to the long-running local underground-music magazine.
- Athens, Ga., alt-weekly Flagpole has relaunched as "a celebrity 'zine about fun and style, now to be known as Starpole."
- The East Bay Express is changing editorial course, introducing new procedures like "user-generated copyediting" and "reader-assigned stories."
Following up on its story last month in which business owners said that sales reps from the popular user-generated review site promised to move or remove negative reviews in return for advertising, the East Bay Express talks to six more business owners who allege similar practices. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman complained about the original article's use of anonymous sources (even though "Yelp is a review site based entirely on anonymous sources," as reporter Kathleen Richards notes) so this time the Express relied only on sources who were willing to go on the record. "Several said that the reps would offer to move negative reviews if they advertised; and in some cases positive reviews disappeared when they refused, or negative ones appeared," the Express reports. "In one case, a nightclub owner said Yelp offered positive reviews of his business in exchange for free drinks."
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