Monday, August 29, 2016

The Latest New KN@PPSTER Joint

As long-time readers know, every so often I come up with an idea that seems easy to implement, cheaply or freely implementable, fits into the stuff I do already, and just might be a money-maker. So I try it out and see what happens.

I was thinking the other day about the weekly newspapers I've come across in almost every city of any size that I've ever spent time in: The crime tabloid. The one I happened to be thinking about was the St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl.

Crime sells newspapers. The "police blotter" section is a popular feature even in papers that aren't centered entirely around crime. And I've noticed that "mug shot" database sites seem to be popular as well.

I spend a lot of time each day -- for, among other things, the freedom movement's daily newspaper -- on content curation ("the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest").

Crime stories have a tendency to pop out at me even though they aren't really my primary interest in other curation roles. Giving them the quick blurb/link treatment does not consume a great deal of additional time.

I already own the news-digests.com domain name (because I've always intended for it to encompass multiple publications).

So, enter Crime News Digest. I should be able to do it in 15-20 minutes a day (additional, beyond time sunk anyway) for 5-15 stories. If it monetizes well, I keep doing it. If it doesn't, I don't. Enjoy.

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