The competitive landscape facing regional online publishers is expected to change dramatically in the coming months as some of the Web's largest players shift strategies for addressing local markets. With the overhaul, Sidewalk is de-emphasizing its local entertainment guides in favor of a broader set of buying guides and shopping tips written for a national audience.
Local flavor is supplied primarily by integrated links to regional merchant directories.
Fading away, in the process, is the media-focused strategy that had threatened the core franchises of regional daily newspapers. In its place are emerging electronic commerce-oriented approaches that aim to minimize the cost of developing content while creating new pathways for connecting consumers with local merchants. They're becoming localized versions of national services. The implications for the local online publishing market are potentially large. Newspapers, in effect, may have weathered the worst of prospective online competition from aspiring online media companies, which have discovered that Web sites alone cannot support the costs of generating fresh, relevant local content.