But while innovative networks like Glam Media are continually building new tools and services to connect online publishers with highly targeted ads for their audiences, the majority of them still focus on national advertising paired with the content rather than the reader.

Within the new ecosystem and framework we’ve been outlining, the role of ad networks would expand to connect publishers with new advertisers, audiences, and other publishers on a local and metro-wide level.

The best way to do that is “to work with the content providers who know their local barber and their local pizza place and help them sell their ads in a larger network,” says Mark Potts, who recently launched GrowthSpur (disclosure: Potts’ played an important role in brainstorming the framework concept for this project.) Not only does his team provide a range of tools for content providers like invoicing, analytics and search engine optimization, they also provide professional training in how to sell advertising.

In line with Potts’ aim to rethink advertising, we also see several untapped opportunities for ad networks to bring in new revenue through increased interconnectivity. One way to do that would be for independent publishers to help larger media brands and news organizations reach audiences normally overlooked.

Imagine for example if a local sports blogger covering the Illinois State Redbirds was to run targeted ads from ESPN Chicago and maximize the dollars gained from those ads. Potentially, both content providers would benefit, as well as the advertisers. And that would also allow the content providers to focus on what they do best: providing content.

“It’s often harder for larger media sites to reach local advertisers,” says Potts. “But if someone is already out in a community selling those advertisers on their site, they can also sell ads for the larger sites as well.”

One of the quickest growing trends in blogging these days — along with sports, music, food and local news — is mom blogging. A clear sign of enthusiasm among readers has been the sprouting of mom-related ad networks like BlogHer and Child’s Play, where web-savvy mom’s and mom’s-to-be can connect with brands relevant to their interests.

According to a recent BlogHer study, there are “42 million U.S. women online weekly doing some form of social media activity.” Nearly half of them have children at home, while 60% are married or live with a partner.

And just like with sports, music and food, mom blogs run the gamut (check out Hipster Mom.)

So we ask you, experienced diaper-changing, news-breaking moms, please join us in our efforts to better understand the future of journalism and take our survey!

The project is researching best practices in the business of journalism online, gathering new ideas and experiments in revenue for news. We will build complete business models to share with the industry and with the journalists, communities, entrepreneurs, technologists, and investors who will create the future of news.

The project is funded by the Knight and McCormick Foundations. Two earlier conferences leading up to the work of the project were funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The work of the project’s first phase will be presented at the Aspen Institute in August and will be shared, publicly and in progress, on this site.

Our work begins with the assumption that there will be a market demand for quality journalism, watchdogging those in power, and that the market will find a way to meet that demand. The question so many are asking is how. We will attempt to answer that by projecting the future of news in a metropolitan area, concentrating on four perspectives — hyperlocal, the new news organization, publicly supported journalism, and the framework to support this new news economy as a whole.

We will use as our model market a hypothetical top 25 metro area in the U.S. where the sole daily newspaper has ceased publication. In short: We are asking what will fill the void. We posit that no single company or product will do that. Instead, an ecosystem made up of many players operating under many models and motives will emerge. In all cases, we are agnostic as to who owns and operates these entities: legacy or new companies, large or small. In that context, we will examine:

* The optimal hyperlocal (town or neighborhood) blog or site. We will look at how to maximize revenue to such sites, whether they are run by sole proprietors, larger startups, or established media companies. This will include helping sites provide the best and most valuable service to local advertisers; establishing local networks of fellow hyperlocal sites to increase sales and revenue opportunities; larger metro-wide networks; and exploring other revenue opportunities, such as paid models and commerce. We will look at what these sites need to succeed, such as networks, promotion by aggregators, and technology.

* The new news organization. Even after a market loses its daily paper, we believe there is an opportunity for a new news organization to be reconstituted around key journalistic roles serving the metro-area. We will project the scale of such an enterprise: its audience and revenue yielding its resources and functions: reporting, aggregation/curation, perhaps organizing the broader community and its news efforts. How many employees can a profitable, journalism-centered business support and what can and should they do? What is its relationship with other players in the ecosystem?

* Publicly supported journalism. We do not believe that any single savior– foundation, government, device, or massive public contribution — will rescue an existing news organization as it operates today from the crush of the market. But we do believe that publicly supported journalism — that is, from individuals, foundations, and perhaps companies — can play a role in this model city’s news ecosystem. This could take the form of a local Pro Publica or of crowdsourced funding through a platform such as Spot.US or of an expansion of public broadcasting’s role. The key question we will answer is what level of support will likely be available — projecting from current efforts locally — and what those resources could provide.

* The ecosystem’s framework. We will examine the supporting infrastructure this ecosystem will likely need, bringing together independent players to reach critical mass so they can recognize greater market value (in, for example, advertising networks and in mutual promotion) and greater efficiency (in, for example, technology platforms, the ability to create collaborative projects, training in journalism and sales, search-engine optimization…). Once again, we are agnostic to ownership: These functions could come from a single company (which is how we will present the model); they also could be provided by a legacy player or they could be offered by various players. To quote Mark Potts at one of our CUNY conferences, “You may want to be small, but to succeed at being small, you probably have to be part of something big.”

In addition, the project will gather and also propose a catalog of revenue models, working with those who are building systems to support paid content; interviewing local advertisers to learn more about their needs; talking with sites in the U.S. and elsewhere to learn what is working and not working for them; examining the possibilities for more unusual revenue streams such as e-commerce.

After this work is well underway and after the Aspen report in August, we plan to extend the project’s work to examine more business models, such as national and international content exchanges; interest-based sites and networks;

The project is headed at CUNY by Prof. Jeff Jarvis, head of the interactive program. Peter Hauck is project director, working with Jennifer McFadden, business analyst; business researchers Kate Albert, Gary Frangipane, Noah Xifr, Darshan Dedhia, Frank DiBartolo, and Senem Coskun of Baruch’s Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship at the Zicklin School of Business; and reporters Matthew Sollars and Damian Ghigliotty, both graduates of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. We are grateful to the Field Center’s Edward Rogoff and Monica Dean for their support.

Click here for the pitch Mutter made to the publishers.

As Neiman Lab reported yesterday, Mutter’s business plan focuses primarily on boosting advertising revenues by serving ads to match readers preferences and behavior, rather than the content on the page. However, readers will register/subscribe to access journalism from the ViewPass member publications.

On his blog, the Newsosaur, Mutter the system likens to the Visa credit card brand established by the banks. Like the model put forth by Steve Brill, Mutter will have a pay-for-content component, but he apparently intends to wall-off a smaller set of news content. Instead, Nieman says Mutter “advocates charging for narrow pieces of content that have value to select readers.” Mutter explains:

If you suddenly put a pay wall on a website that used to be free, you are bound to lose a substantial amount of traffic representing a considerable amount of potential advertising inventory. Once customers are turned off, it will be awfully hard to get most of them back, especially as plenty of free websites will be glad to welcome them.

You could argue, as Steve does, that some newspapers are doing a poor job of selling their existing online inventory. But the solution is to sell the ad inventory better, not to write it off.

Mutter wants newspapers to own ViewPass and has asked them to kick-in the start-up money.

Baristanet, the queen of hyperlocal blogs, is five years old today.

I remember well the NJ.com Meetup we held back then to try to encourage locals to blog on our site. I learned an important lesson there. Debbie Galant, the original Barista, said starting a town blog was a good idea but she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it for my site. She wanted to own and build her own site and value and brand.

And she did. Bariastanet is a phenomenon. It has not just survived but succeeded. It is profitable. It is expanding, adding another blog to its stable recently. It has developed a strong reputation inside Montclair and outside. Congratulations to Deb and Liz and company for that. They have inspired others to start hyperlocal blogs not only across the country but in their own backyard, as The New York Times creates The Local and AOL president Tim Armstrong funds Patch in the nabe. Five years ago, they knew they were onto something and they’re being proved right.

I think the next frontier will be creating networks across blogs of geography and interest so they can reach critical mass to sell to larger advertisers and to share content and effort and perhaps cost. I believe blogs such as this will be a – not the but a – building block in the new ecosystem of news that will begin to replace in fits and starts failing newspapers. (In that ecosystem, I think there will also be newfangled news organizations that help organize the news in this diverse network.) I also hope that we’ll find many new ways for the Baristanets of the world to serve local businesses and make more money so they can sustain their work.

Great work, Baristas.