Hasta La Creative!

According to The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post’s hyperlocal play, Loudoun Extra, has failed to attract its desired audience.

One reason: the team of outsiders didn’t do enough to familiarize itself with Loudoun County or engage its 270,000 residents.

This marks the first stain on Rob Curley’s resume. Curley is the newspaper industry’s nerd wonder. We took note of his progressive doings a year ago, after Fast Company profiled him.

He now decamps with five colleagues to take on an Internet venture for the Las Vegas Sun. “I was the one who was supposed to know we should be talking to Rotary Club meetings every day,” Mr. Curley said. “I dropped the ball. I won’t drop it in Vegas, dude.”

I’m interested in this story because “hyperlocal” is important to the future of marketing and media. As mass marketing fractures into a million pieces, hyperlocal marketing, enabled by the internet, is here to replace it.