Mark Potts - Backfence
Introduction and Narrative: Mark Potts began sketching the idea for Backfence while working for Washingtonpost.com. Potts was trying to imagine what a local newspaper product would look like on the web. “Newspapers have trouble doing news down to the town level or below that, they are too big, and it is too expensive to staff,” says Potts. Backfence, however, would eventually use citizen journalism to cover that kind of minutia by creating sites for individual towns, where the knowledge from within the community would provide all the journalism. The company was formed in August of 2004 and launched in May of 2005. By October that year Backfence raised around $3 million in capital. Fast-forward to 2006 and there were 13 Backfence communities centered around three metropolitan areas (Chicago, Washington D.C. and San Francisco) and organized into a network. But by January of 2007 internal issues that Potts cannot discuss resulted in a 2/3rds staff layoff followed by an announcement in July of Backfence’s eventual shutdown.
During its run, however, Backfence was poised to form the largest network of hyperlocal news blogs in the United States.
Main Goal of Backfence: To create a national network of sites that would allow people to talk about their towns and learn about what was going around them. The kind of information you see exchanged over the literal backyard fence.
Integral to the operation was to build this network as a business, says Potts. Many hyerplocal sites can cover server costs and a few expenses, but the objective of Backfence was to scale nationally and create a strong business around it.
Notable Achievements: During the height of its operation, Backfence had over 400 advertisers in three metropolitan areas. “It was a real accomplishment, it proved local advertisers were looking for a space in online media,” says Potts. Backfence was able to raise money and establish itself in 13 cities. Its fall was not from a lack of interest or advertisers, but from internal turmoil.
