about  /   archives  /   contact  /   subscribe  /   twitter    
Share this entry
Make this entry better

What are we missing? Is there a key link we skipped, or a part of the story we got wrong?

Let us know — we’re counting on you to help Encyclo get better.

Put Encyclo on your site
Embed this Encyclo entry in your blog or webpage by copying this code into your HTML:

Key links:
Primary website:
backfence.com

Editor’s Note: Encyclo has not been regularly updated since August 2014, so information posted here is likely to be out of date and may be no longer accurate. It’s best used as a snapshot of the media landscape at that point in time.

Backfence was a network of user-driven hyperlocal news sites that launched in 2005 and closed in 2007.

Backfence was founded in 2005 by Mark Potts and Susan DeFife with five staff members and two community sites in the Washington, D.C., area. It raised $3 million in local and national investment and eventually expanded to 13 sites near Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco.

In January 2007, DeFife left the company, and it laid off most of its employees. It finally shut down in July 2007.

Backfence averaged about one full-time staff member per site, though its content came from users, who could blog, edit wikis or post photos there. The company was supported by self-service display and classified advertising. The site was considered at the time one of the bellwethers of the “citizen journalism” movement.

Peers, allies, & competitors:
Recent Nieman Lab coverage:
Aug. 19, 2013 / Ken Doctor
The newsonomics of Patch’s unquilting — Too much of last week’s Patch news focused on CEO Tim Armstrong. Sure, it was a memorably punk moment, one of those historic instants (recall that other AOL-related one when then-Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin awkward...

Recently around the web, from Mediagazer:

Primary author: Mark Coddington. Main text last updated: May 10, 2011.
Make this entry better
How could this entry improve? What's missing, unclear, or wrong?
Name (optional)
Email (optional)
Seattle PostGlobe logo

The Seattle PostGlobeĀ was a nonprofit online news organization that focused on journalism about social justice. The PostGlobe was founded in 2009 by former Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalists after the newspaper went online-only in March 2009. It announced its closing in July 2011. The site’s staff worked primarily as volunteers, though the site was funded largely by…

Put Encyclo on your site
Embed this Encyclo entry in your blog or webpage by copying this code into your HTML:

Encyclo is made possible by a grant from the Knight Foundation.
The Nieman Journalism Lab is a collaborative attempt to figure out how quality journalism can survive and thrive in the Internet age.
Some rights reserved. Copyright information »