I went to Bristol in the UK for a few hours last week to meet a publisher who is developing a network of websites.
Beziers airport is only twenty minutes from our home at VillaRoquetteand with Ryanair, if you select tour dates, you can fly to the UK and back for less than the price of two cups of coffee, including all charges and stuff.
I have been interested in Internet publishing since I started making websites twelve years ago – I tried to build my own services with names like Goto-France, Wotspot, a publishing idea called Chez Frog, the French Property Digest and a raft of others – it is a huge amount of work and with the techical problems of secure hosting, keeping the hackers out etc all these have slipped quietly away.
I have also met and talked to other publishers looking at a local operation, the best for information is an excellent group of sites based around AngloInfo – their local site is operated by Caroline and from one operation in place when I first met them, they now have many franchisees around the world. Their style is to give local information and keep a discussion forums which attract advertising. Anglo Info has a good directory about local laws, services and regulations and is a big help to ex-pats where English is their first language.
Perhaps I should have considered their Languedoc franchise, but their style is not mine, and I do not like the word ‘Anglo’.
Other information sites in France include French Entree and locally there are several good information sites for Languedoc including Creme de Languedoc , The Languedoc Page , Languedoc France , Herault Whats On , BlaBlaBlah and Languedoc Sun – so is there a market for a new site called Guide2Languedoc?
All these sites survive on advertising and, although Languedoc has the biggest concentration of English speaking ex-pats in France and is now the most visited region in France, is it a good time to bring another online service focused on this region to scratch for the advertising euros?
Taking on this project is a huge amount of work – the rental accommodation in our home, Villa Roquette, is (nearly) finished so I will have time.
What attracts me about the Guide2 websites is the plans they have to make their service a community and to give good relevant news and information.
I would welcome any comment and ideas from readers, your opinion is valuable to me and I hope to hear from you.
Taking on a Guide2 site is actually a good idea. I have spoken to a few who run these sites and they all say the same sort of thing, glad they did it. There are not many websites like the Guide2 franchise that has the same back up and support.
Please let me know if you go for this, like to find out how you get on…
Cheers
Bob Toovey
Thanks for your comment Bob, you do seem very involved with the Guide2 sites.
I am most impressed with the presentation and professionalism of the Guide2 operation, but I do not believe it yet has enough substance and also I “feel” this type of Internet publication will not be able to generate sufficient advertising dollars to justify the huge time needed to support it.
Now that the EU has officially grown out of the recession it might not be a bad time to go after the advertising euro.
Aris,
It is certainly at the front of my thoughts and I am very impressed with what the Guide2 offer represents, but, I am not convinced that this sort of Internet publishing will be viable for long and there is a huge amount of work to be done before a local ‘magazine’ can work and get fair income – I am very happy to be convinced otherwise.
Tony