I recently had a chance to sit down with an editor from a local newspaper site - not a major daily, but something closer to a free weekly that ends up on your doorstep - to discuss their web strategies. It was interesting to find out about the challenges they face. I've outlined a few of those challenges with some editorials below.

1. Nobody reads their website. I believe this is largely due to their publishing cycle. They tend to hold news for their print editions and end up getting scooped on their own stories by dailies or local bloggers. By the time they publish to their site, they're publishing old news.

2. Local advertisers aren't ready for the web. The biggest problem I see here is the poor quality of local business' web sites. If my site represented my business as poorly as many local businesses web sites do, I wouldn't want to drive traffic to it either. This is a problem for local newspapers trying to tap the local online advertising market, but it's largely out of their hands at this point. One solution would be to provide micro-sites to businesses that are higher quality than their own sites, or to create online presences for businesses who don't already have one. This could be effective for many of the home services advertised at the local level, like roofing, plumbing, and other contract work.

3. Nobody comments on their stories. This goes back to #1. Bloggers are the people most likely to comment on news stories, but they're also news hounds, so if you're not first with a story, they're probably not going to comment on it unless it offers a new perspective on the same story.

4. They're not engaged in the local online community. Many, if not most, of the writers for local papers are freelancers so they don't define themselves as writers for any particular paper. Without additional ownership in the product, they're less likely to interact with other locals as representatives of the paper they write for.

5. They don't publish valuable online resources. Where are the directories of local businesses? Of advertisers? Of books written about the area the newspaper covers? The photo galleries? They should become the go-to place for this type of content in their region.

6. They don't publish an events calendar. Another area where they could differentiate themselves.

7. They don't publish local sports scores. People LOVE to read their name in the paper. And they REALLY love to read their children's names in the paper. Start publishing recreational soccer, t-ball, swimming, softball and other sports scores.

A popular push-back to stuff like this is, "We don't have the time or resources to do it." However, it's really a case of changing your workflow rather than adding additional work.