links for 2010-08-30

Beyond matching newspaper stories, AOL and Yahoo intend to leverage citizen journalists to fill their sites with inexpensively produced original content. In its initial email effort to recruit writers in San Francisco, Associated Content promised $10 for the first article.

As users of hyperlocal sites trade topical relevance for geographical relevance, so do advertisers. The anticipated explosion of online ad spending by local small businesses is driving many of today's hyperlocal efforts. But it may well be that geography isn't always the best measure of relevance. Is an advertiser better off casting a wide net across a close area, or using behavioral or contextual targeting to reach the most likely customers even if they live farther away?