Posted by Mike Orren on Contests

For those who follow the business of our business, another key player in the so-called "hyperlocal" space closed its doors last week. And even though I've always maintained that our business is substantially different from theirs , our story is (or was) inextricably intertwined with that of Backfence .

Backfence first came out of "stealth" mode because of publicity we were getting while we were in stealth mode. And, whenever we found ourselves talking to potential partners, we got lots of questions about them, as I'm sure they did us.

That had to be frustrating for them and for us, since our models couldn't be more different. They were a network of suburb sites, while we try to cover a full metro. They were 90% "user-generated" content, while we put a lot more staff resources into play and work with outside content partners. They raised and spent $3 million and we raised and spent (to date) substantially less. Now they're gone and (knock wood) we're not.

I know this is hard for the Backfence team, and its co-founder and President Mark Potts, whom I've come to consider a friend after a couple years of comparing notes and trading war stories. It's basically the nightmare scenario that's kept me awake many a night the past year.

This has created a lot of discussion among the new New Mediati about what it means for digital news startups. Although I've rung in on some of these conversations, I don't think it means a lot, other than that one group ran out of money before they could bring their plan to fruition. (And a strikingly similar variant of it lives on here in town.) Yeah, I think our plan is a better plan or we wouldn't be pursuing it, but that difference of opinion among pioneers is why there are different companies out there doing different things.

So, for those who want to know what other people think about this, here's the major discussions on this, most of which touch on us in some way or another:

• Buzzmachine


• Fellow local entrepreneur Ben Saren: Post 1 ; Post 2





• Dan Gillmor





• Greg Sterling and his reference to us





• Terry Heaton

The lesson I want us to take from this: We've alternately lamented and taken pride in how much we've done with virtually nothing. When and if the day comes that we've got the resources, they are no guarantee of success. That'll still rest on our wits, sweat and flexibility.