"Newspapers, like it or not, are going to have to change in the next 10 to 20 years," explains David Zweig, vice president of content at CitySearch. "We're really in a front-seat position," he says of his company's role in pushing for the evolution of media.
David, a quirky 42-year-old veteran journalist, should know what he's talking about. He has spent his entire career in newspaper publishing, starting as a New York Times stringer. He took a break from reporting, earned a business degree, then thrust himself right back into the industry. He's headed up a community newspaper for Dow Jones, and more recently teamed with David Talbot to found Salon. But last March, CitySearch beckoned.
As David says, CitySearch is taking advantage of its status as one of the biggest all-purpose community resources on the Web. The company just announced partnerships with the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and the Toronto Star to share technology and content. Though these deals are too fresh to say exactly how they will play out, they seem to assure CitySearch's trajectory as a major player in Web media.
This is somewhat of a change from the company's beginnings two years ago. Fed by seed money from Bill Gross' Web start-up incubator Idea Labs, CitySearch was geared to serve as a directory of links to help Dick and Jane decide where they wanted to catch dinner and a movie, or buy a new car. Since then the site's editorial content has expanded in an effort to position CitySearch as a nexus for community journalism.
To that end, CitySearch is currently seeking a national editor to assist its 14 US sites - which include Austin, Nashville, Portland, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City. (The company also has international bases in Melbourne, Sydney, and a just-announced partnership in Scandinavia.) The new editor would be responsible for building the editorial programming for the US sites, the ideal candidate having a strong background in community journalism and mentoring. Technical wizardry is not required, says David, but a deep understanding of the Web and Web journalism is. "It's the difference between being a mechanic and knowing the principles behind how a car works," he says. "Of course, they have to know the difference between a computer and a waffle iron."
Though the new hire would spend about 50 percent of his or her time jetting between the continental CitySearch bases, talking to writers, and consulting on editorial development, home base would be in Southern California. David describes the overall atmosphere at the offices as positive and apolitical. With more than 500 employees, up from a dozen at its inception, the company has yet to hammer out an organizational chart and is only as hierarchical as it needs to be.
The coming challenge for CitySearch is to customize its content to make it appealing to its various local markets. "We have to make it more like McDonald's users and less like McDonald's," David says, stressing the need for both individuality and assembly-line efficiency. The company also has to continue its push to stand out from similar sites like Digital Cities and Microsoft's Sidewalk.
But, drawing on the franchise analogy, David insists the company is on the right track. "We're much broader than consumerism and consumption. I'm sure that's what all the sites say ... but we're into community journalism, not world domination."
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
