On the day news surfaced that the Leeds Guide has ceased to trade, I believe it’s time to issue a challenge to the people of the city.
Despite being well into the digital revolution, the city lacks a wide-reaching credible alternative to the nationally-owned media when the citizens need somewhere to turn to for their news and local information.
The national press and other media have their purpose and positive aspects but, with offerings from others being very niche, diminishing, failing to receive attention or closing over recent years, is it time for a locally focused, financed and run publisher to step in and provide the city with a publication (digital, print or otherwise) that provides the audiences that currently have to scavenge around Twitter and Facebook looking for morsels
The challenges, as we see them, are to:
- create new and exciting content about the people and activities within the city
- provide an easy to use (and submit to) listings source
- underpin exciting conversations about what’s going on
- bring together and provide new audiences for the various successful and exciting independent publishing sources in the city
- effectively market itself through other channels
- be interesting and existing to read and use
- become the starting point for a significant part of the city.
So, Leeds – what are your thoughts? Do you think this is something we deserve? Is a ‘gateway’ service needed now – or are we already well served by existing publications and services?
I think that between Beyond Guardian Leeds, Culture Vulture and the various fashion, food and music blogs there isnt much left that wasnt covered in the Leeds Guide.
As someone who closely follows the blogs in the last 18 mths or so I have felt that a lot of what appeard in LG I had already heard of via the blogs. Bi weekly or monthly is too long to wait for news now and no one is going to fund or pay for a printed publication.
A simple aggregation service of the existing blogs with an interactive calendar and the ability for organisations to submit one off articles for consideration would be a simple solution.
Undoubtedly Leeds needs a Leeds Guide/Time Out type publication, but clearly the business model hasn’t worked. As a – cough, cough – middle-aged man whose kids are just about old enough to be left at home, I am in the market for all kinds of fun, but after subsctibing to Leeds Guide for a year I let my subscription drop because it seemed to be targeting a very specific demographic that didn’t include me. It often feels that Leeds has this very small-town mindset that anything of interest has to happen in the city centre, and Leeds Guide seemed to add another layer to that, that only the bright young things that live in the city centre are interested in what happens there.
I spend a bit of time on the net most days, and I use an RSS Reader to collect whatever is happening on Beyond Guardian Leeds and Culture Vultures, but neither of those are a comprehensive listings site. Leeds Inspired are going to try to do this, I think…
I can’t see how a magazine could be viable in the current climate. The Leeds Guide brand is still valued and I wonder if a website could continue without the mag, just using an open CMS so people could easily update the listings themselves. If that was linked to the opinion and reviews stuff you get on CV and the news aggregation from BGL, you’d have a pretty unmissable website… There are lots of different sites doing bits of this, it would be great to have a one-stop shop. But then I’m worrying about diversity… Oh dear, my head.
Interesting post. i dabble in web stuff, and a few months ago played around with an events system which people could register and add to. This was set up before the sad demise of Leeds Guide, so it might be something that I develop further IF people submit to it, and see a need for it.
It might have helped if I linked to it. http://www.leedslocals.co.uk/
What do people think about a newspaper? A “lightening-conductor to the hyperlocal” No tired reviews, no ‘what’s on’ just independent, opinionated, characterful writing, good photos, smart illustration, monthy, free, distributed by hand, at Leeds station/bus/Briggate, shops, cafes and bars… ? I’m game…