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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Editor’s Note: Encyclo has not been regularly updated since August 2014, so information posted here is likely to be out of date and may be no longer accurate.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.

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Primary author: Mark Coddington. Main text last updated: May 10, 2011.
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The Daily Voice, formerly known as Main Street Connect, is a network of hyperlocal news sites that operates on a franchise model. The company, founded by former community newspaper publisher Carll Tucker, was launched in early 2010 with The Daily Norwalk, a site covering Norwalk, Conn. It quickly expanded to several other sites in the…

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