Content farms and aggregators are a major part of the new, scalable local ecosystem. But the rules of the road are different for local content than for general content, according to executives speaking at ILM:10 in Santa Clara.

MerchantCircle Local Content Studio GM Andy Halliday noted that MerchantCircle is pumping up its context with local content, and now has 120,000 pieces of local content from 15,000 contributors after just six months. “Local content has a long tail, but there are fewer searches per item,” said Halliday. “It is not the same economics as non-geo topical content like Demand Media.”

Halliday also noted that local is “the wild west frontier for getting content up on the Web. It needs to have ‘liveness’ or it’s just a placard. More possibilities open up with the advent of mobile with geotracking,” he added.

Local.com VP for Octane 360 Adam Rioux echoed Halliday’s view, noting that Octane is custom building content that Local.com can sell targeted advertising around. He also noted that Local.com is driving much greater usage for the content by distributing the content not only to Local.com, but also to its partner network, publishers and to SMB profiles.

Perfect Market CEO Julie Schoenfeld said the company has been successfully focusing on working with publishers to monetize non-mainstream content that may have low usage at first but can be pumped up with contextual placement based on search algorithms. It is now working with 30 publishers.

“Think of every article you produce as a deposit in the vault that yields dividends over time,” said Schoenfeld. She advised the audience that with location-based services becoming more prevalent, “great meta data, including local geotargeted content about when or where it was written, is very important.”

The post ILM:10: Local Content Economics ‘Not Like Demand Media’ appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Content creators that seek to optimize millions of pieces of content for contextual vertical advertising were on full display at Marketplaces 2010 today in San Diego.

Luke Beatty, founder and president of Associated Content, noted that his company was “the first crowd-sourced media platform” and now attracts 16 million unique visitors. Research done for the company shows that users were 125 percent more likely to discuss information that they found on Associated Content with others.

They also were 10 percent percent more likely to carry out additional research; 80 percent more likely to purchase a product or service from advertisers; 53 percent more likely to have people turn to them for advice or opinions; 43 percent more likely to have influence over friends and family; and 25 percent more likely to be trendsetters.

Beatty also noted that 17 percent of AC’s content is local oriented. “It is all about fragmented content,” he said. Short-tail news content doesn’t monetize on Web content. Long tail rules. Local is better being created by the social Web.

Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair said his company is even more focused on local. Blair spelled out a sponsorship model that allows advertisers to sponsor specific writers, or “examiners.” Rates range from $29 to $399. Advertising also accompanies 100,000 to 125,000 e-mails sent out to people who subscribe to specific examiners.

Perfect Market CSO Rob Barrett noted that his new company, which recently partnered with Tribune Co., has made it easier to monetize vertical content, which is earning $9 RPM, as opposed to 85 cents RPM earned from article pages gotten via search. Hard news stories don’t typically monetize very well.

We see which keywords have what CPM, he says. The Toyota recall has been a very effective keyword, for instance.

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