• paidContent, Friday, December 3, 2010 2:44 PM

Amid a white-hot market for local commerce and advertising, paidContent asks the obvious question: Where's local media, and why aren't they cashing in on their well-placed position?! From Google going after Groupon to Amazon investing $175 million in LivingSocial, the focus on local "should finally mean boom-time for local newspapers, long out in the wilderness during an online age whose abundance had undermined their historical lock-down on local ad sales," paidContent explains.

As is painfully obvious, local media has very little to do with what paidContent calls "the booming crop of next-generation local ad services." Relative trailblazers include publishers like McClatchy and Media General, which have partnered with Groupon to launch daily deal services -- powered and sold by Groupon -- while Cox and Star-Tribune Company have launched their own services using white-labeled technology. Needless to say, these initiatives don't position their proponents nearly as well as Groupon and LivingSocial. Scolds paidContent: "Had they injected this stuff in to themselves, local media could have a similarly brighter future ... But, once again, it's Silicon Valley developers and independents with no 'media' track record who seem set for fortune."

Read the whole story at paidContent »