Also: Google loses Gmail trademark in Germany | O2 gets the UK iPhone deal - or does it? | Valleywag vs Mahalo | Lala abandons free music streaming | Microsoft's "Joost killer" | Spotted...
The Backfence network of citizen journalism sites in the US - which were touted as one of the big web hopes for the development of participatory media - have closed citing business issues.
Backfence emerged in early 2005 with a high-minded mission to create a series of hyperlocal news sites led by Mark Potts, co-founder of Washington Post's digital division, and Susan DeFife of the womenconnect.com network. Backfence spread to 13 focused areas in California, Maryland, Virginia and Illinois but most significantly, Backfence raised $3m in venture funding that included eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
A note on the site praises the strength and interests of the community: "We hope we have provided you with a valuable local forum. Unfortunately, business issues are forcing us to close our doors and shut down the site. The people behind Backfence still believe strongly in the need for community information services, and we hope to apply all that we've learned from our experience here to new endeavors in the future."
American Journalism Review has a superb write up, explaining the lack of solid business models in the space. Most sites are run on the strength of their volunteers and a small minority are breaking even.
East coast site Baristanet is picked out as the current shining star of citizen journalism, described as "scrappy and snarky" but pulling 80,000 unique users a month. It still only earns $60k revenue a year, barely enough to pay full-time editor and a couple of part timers.
Potts is optimistic, despite the performance of Backfence: "I believe there's huge pent-up demand for this. It's still a good idea. And it's going to happen. It's just a question of where and who and how all the pieces come together." (American Journalism Review)
Google loses Gmail trademark in Germany
Google has just lost the right to use the Gmail name in Germany. A court ruled that entrepreneur Daniel Giersch has the right to the trademark because he has used it since 2000, but this is the second time Google has lost the Gmail trademark. The service is called GoogleMail in the UK after losing a case against Independent International Research who had offered a private service since 2005; Google described IIR's valuation of the brand at $48-64m as "exorbitant". (TechWeb)
O2 gets the UK iPhone deal. Or does it?
So O2 probably has it, although no-one will confirm under pain of death from Monsieur Jobs, I imagine. The phone should be out by Christmas and shares of Telefonica, O2's Spanish parent company, have surged on the news despite being lumped with a €152m EU fine for over-pricing its data. Bloomberg, meanwhile, reports O2 saying that no deal has been signed with Apple. (Times Online)
Valleywag vs Mahalo
Owen Thomas on Valleywag has taken a swipe at entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and his new human-powered search tool, Mahalo. He picks out some fairly unflattering Alexa stats for the site, which immediately prompted Calacanis to defend Mahalo in the comments stream saying that being in the top 20,000 websites for a month-old business isn't bad, and that the site peaked at a 2,000 ranking because of launch coverage. Thomas duly retaliated listing Mahalo's neighbours at the 20,000 mark: Dolphin Love MySpace layouts, Mr Potato Head coverage and LOLcats. All rather purile, but it does give me an opportunity to mention LOLcats...
Lala abandons free music streaming
US music downloads site Lala.com has dropped the service that allows users to listen to streamed music through the site for free because it can't handle the traffic. The service only launched last month, but the idea had been that enough of those users would go on to buy downloads, and that would pay for the service. That hasn't worked, but Lala is still committed to pay record labels 1c per song played which would total something like $140m in royalties over two years. Lala say the service will be reintroduced, but won't say when. (eConsultancy)
Microsoft's "Joost killer"
Ars Technica flags up LiveStation, Microsoft's live TV web service as a "Joost killer". That might be a bit strong, but there's a demonstration online now. And we also covered LiveStation in April, FYI. (Ars Technica)
Spotted
In the same day, I spotted New Statesman editor John Kampfner on the 38 bus from Victoria and a few hours later Pete Burns in my favourite sushi restaurant in Portobello. You never see them together.
