I continue to be fascinated by the struggle of mainstream news media and the explosion of local media

Some really interesting statistics for you here, courtesy of Paul Gillin . He gave a terrific (and very well received) presentation at last week’s Inbound Marketing Summit. ( For a link to his presentation on slideshare- click here)

The average age of a US Daily Newspaper is 57 years old
Average age of a network evening news viewer- 63 years old
US Newsrooms staffs have been reduced 45% since 1991

Or as Paul put it very well,  “It’s not the newspapers that are dying, it is the readers!”

So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with a the hyper-local social media movement. Citizen journalists are now blogging their news from every small town across the country, and big-time old-school establishments are now taking notice. Companies are popping up that seek to collect and aggregate local content from local bloggers onto a consistent platform.

So, I did a little digging, and found the following four companies (and there are plenty more) who are making a go of it.

www.patch.com- NY/NJ/CT- tri state area so far. (Founded by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong) Nice intuitive, easy interface. My favorite so far.
www.everyblock.com- as the NY Times calls it- “the most ambitious hyperlocal sites out there” It’s got a nice iphone App, but I don’t consider this service hyperlocal at all. They simply focus on big cities (for now) and not their surrounding communities. I’d did a quick search for my local community- nothing came up.
www.topix.com- They certainly get local, but not impressed with all the google ads. A really messy page bombarding you with ads for my credit score, viagra, and refinancing.
www.backfence.com. They’re gettin’ there- now it looks like a virtual yellow pages. No content- yet.

So, this leaves us with a final question. What’s going to happen to the local blogger? Should I start blogging for my local town?

My friend Rachel Happe from The Community Roundtable suggested to make a go of it. I can videotape local businesses, post content, tell stories, and well, see what happens. I’m tempted to, but will www.patch.com swoop in and take over?

Hmmmm….