From the OP
Except that SDCMB is not a part of the Side Conversations forum.
To the point of this thread – will rates for Chicago advertisers be based on traffic in the Chicagocentric forums, on on the Board as a whole?
I’m all for this sort of thing, and I’ll be interested to see whether After Hours, In the Neighbourhood or The Diner becomes the defacto knocking shop.
The what now?
It will be interesting to see if this change enhances or dilutes the discusions on the main boards. I’ve often observed that I do not always consider increased choice to be a “good thing.” I’m not sure whether I will consider an additional several forums to surf a welcome diversion or a hassle. And - if this localization trend continues - I hope some of my fave posters don’t spend so much of their time in local forums that they absent themselves from the general ones.
I like it, if only because I can use it to poke fun at Bears fans.
And, hey, aren’t you people too cold to type, anyway?
Good luck with the new venture and I look forward to seeing how things work out.
Although not directed at me (as a Dallas resident), I can see this being a good idea. And to get more of a local scene vibe going you’ll need to try and draw in more people via the Reader, which it sounds like you’re already doing. One thing you might want to consider is registering a special easy-to-remember domain name. Getting people from the print edition to the message board might be easier if all they have to remember is something like “sdcmb.com”, which would automatically redirect them to the new sub-board. Just a thought.
So, at this rate, there should be a Straight Dope Charlotte about three months before the heat death of the Milky Way, right?
Our experience with online advertisers to date suggests they’re mostly interested in targeting specific markets, by which I mean geographic markets, and finer gradations where possible. The online Chicago Reader takes in a fair amount of money that way, and the ad inventory in the music section often sells out. We’ve had a much tougher time selling the Straight Dope because of the perception that its audience is spread all over the place and its interests are diffuse, even though we offer advertisers the ability to geotarget specific locations. The presumption with the SDCMB is that users will mostly be in metropolitan Chicago, and that they’ll self-sort by areas of interest - clubs, restaurants, neighborhoods, etc. This is pretty much how advertising in the printed paper works. In other words, if you’re opening a new music club in Chicago, you’ll probably want to run your online ad only in the After Hours section of the SDCMB, on the assumption that that’s where your core audience hangs out. So to answer your question, we plan to charge everybody as close to the rate-card rate as we can get, but we figure to do a lot of targeting.
I think SDC will also invigorate the editorial side of the Reader. I’ve been helping Cecil with research on the first SDC columns, and I have to tell you it’s been a riot. The first SDC column appears next week; we’ll be interested to hear what people think.
It’d better be about Obama, young man! […shaking fist…]
No, no, make it about Hull House or Batchelor’s Grove.
Whelp, iffen when this takes off and you move through the 38 larger cities of the US, I’d be glad to help out on a Kansas City project.
I like how I don’t have to re-register, or even log in again, on the Chicago board.
However, it’s totally annoying that clicking “New Posts” over here on the original board apparently counts as a search (complete with the five-minute “penalty period”) over there.
ETA: Hang on a sec. I guess it’s not a separate board, just a sub-forum. So clicking “New Posts” always returns results from the WHOLE SDMB, not just the Chicago one. Is that correct? In that case I guess the searching thing I mentioned makes a little sense.
No, no, make it about County General Hospital and the effect of the lawsuit.
Several years before the Straight Dope Columbia one, I’m sure. Do you realize we don’t even have a Costco?
Yeah, that’s a good one.
I grew up in f*******g Hinsdale, FGS. I want the real gritty Mighty Mighty West Side! Of Chicago! Cracker-crust pizza! And Blues Posts! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeez!
www.livingblues.com expat. Now living in Alaska because Memphis threw me out.
Wait – Straight Dope Chicago has a “Politics” forum. So, why can’t the big board have one too?