Comments on: BackFence closes its gates

By: VentureBeat » Judy’s Book follows BackFence, collapses

VentureBeat » Judy’s Book follows BackFence, collapses — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:18:20 +0000

[...] collapse of the Seattle-based company follows the closure of BackFence this summer. BackFence said it had experienced unspecified “internal” problems, [...]

By: VentureBeat » Smalltown, small hyperlocal site, acquires tinier Local2Me

VentureBeat » Smalltown, small hyperlocal site, acquires tinier Local2Me — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:55:01 +0000

[...] the meltdown and slow death of BackFence, the hyperlocal market continues to draw some interest. Last week, the hyperlocal news [...]

By: VentureBeat » Outside.in takes $1.5M more in funding

VentureBeat » Outside.in takes $1.5M more in funding — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:00:37 +0000

[...] so-called “hyperlocal” site, Backfence, shut down earlier this year. We recently reported on a third startup, American Towns. At best, the hyperlocal [...]

By: VentureBeat » American Towns raises $3.3 million

VentureBeat » American Towns raises $3.3 million — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:34:57 +0000

[...] “hyperlocal” market — sites that target small geographic regions. Back in July, we reported that BackFence, a hyperlocal site that had attracted a $3 million investment, was closing its [...]

By: Kevin McDoodoohead

Kevin McDoodoohead — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:34:47 +0000

The guys at MerchantCircle take every opportunity to use comment boards on tech blogs to talk up their company. It annoys me, and I wish they’d stop.

By: KevinL.

KevinL. — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:06:04 +0000

Backfence’s intentions were good trying to stay local and get people talking locally, but burning through 3 million dollars to scale 13 smaller cities in the U.S. doesn’t normally translate well for success. It’s a difficult proposition to play while hoping to hit that tipping point, where growth becomes self-sustaining. In fact, I think you will find that Topix.com has accomplished some of Backfence’s local conversation goals with a more scaleable approach.

At MerchantCircle, we started with the idea that we had to grow, not only in big cities, but small as well. There’s a lot of ‘local’ companies who are playing one side or the other right now – either starting in big cities and trying to work their way down, or smaller and work their way up.

We’ve been fortunate in the fact that we just hit 150,000 merchants signed on this week after over a year of having launched. Those 150k are coming from big cities (Phoenix, Denver) and small (Tucson, Colorado Springs). We have penetrated every state and every region and type of business. We figured, if we built every business a customizable page that could be found in the search engines – they would come. They understand and are engaging in creating content, including building coupons and blogging.

So far, no slowdown in sight. It’s sad to see Backfence go, but good people will land on their feet. These guys clearly know the local media space and had incredible passion along side of that knowledge.

Sincerely,
Kevin Leu
http://www.merchantcircle.com