Bakotopia mentioned as a quasi-MySpace in Editor & Publisher magazine - By N.L. Belardes

People closest to me know I have gone full circle and then some about the local Bakersfield newspaper niche market website, Bakotopia.com. Built by journalistic workhorse, Dan “Spud” Pacheco for the Bakersfield Californian, Bakotopia has become an online niche territory that even though ‘grabbing users’ is its aim, is a site that really wants to be loved. And Bakotopia is loved. Users utilize the site as a self-propelling community service filled with online users building MySpace-style profiles, through which, they gain the ability to interact and make local happenings known, whether band gigs, theatre events, literary readings, etc.

Working in a marketing department, right away I saw through Spud’s marketing scheme of distancing Bakotopia from the local paper (OK, not Spud’s scheme. He was just earning a paycheck). Though distanced from the local newspaper, Bakotopia was still the newspaper, just transmogrified into a different form with a different market: young people, music people, all the hip young folks over 18 who are intertwined in the Bakersfield art, music and literary scene.

Since I had a few run-ins with the local paper, I had serious trust issues with Bakotopia and its farming of my own site. After all, I started a blog community, worked hard to obtain traffic, maintain interest, and so forth. But then I came to a realization. An online community means “shared community”. I realized I couldn’t start an online venture without wanting to share, without needing to share, and without wanting traffic to come and visit each day. All those bands and individuals who I helped and continue to help get on the Web; well they have their own aims to gain traffic, to be heard, to be searched out, to be noticed. They just weren’t going to come to my site everyday and ignore the power of the local newspaper.

Holding onto an online territory is like trying to hold a bowl full of Jello without the bowl.

You ever play Risk? You take over territories, you defend borders, and you conquer all while you get a few lucky cards along the way that bring a few extra troops.

In an online community you can define borders, but you have to keep them open, porous. Why? Because that’s how Web traffic moves. Sure there are defining points on borders, portals where traffic is heavier, invisible geographic locations where intellectual properties funnel the very people we want to interact with, who buy our products, who even might advertise with us.

When I had trust issues with Bakotopia, my opinion was that if Bakotopia could spend millions to gain such traffic and have as much traffic and more, partly gained from mine, shouldn’t they offer to help rather than farm the Web traffic I worked so hard to gain? After all, though nlbelardes.com lacks the ability to have user profiles, my site was still initially oriented around Bakersfield music and getting bands to interact with a site that catered to a segment of the entertainment population that doesn’t get enough press in reviews, pictures and more.

And Bakotopia has offered to help. We’re trying to come up with the best way to get local underground writings to the people who read both our sites. And I’m working with Bakotopia because they have the credibility. They’re being talked about.

Now Bakotopia is being looked at as the nation’s model in newspaper quasi-MySpace know-how. Bakersfield bands are at least being heard about in America’s top journalistic circles. And that means something. Sure, nlbelardes.com helped along the way by helping bands to understand that online promotions mean something beyond just having as many friends as possible on MySpace.

And not only are bands getting noticed. There’s even a little bit of jealousy and misunderstanding from the big sister of Bakotopia: The Bakersfield Californian. I have caught wind of minor riffs between the paper and the new kid on the block, Bakotopia. And that doesn’t come from Matt Munoz. He’s the Ska King, the new leader at Bakotopia whose college degree in communications, legendary frontman status with Mento Buru, and creative ingenuity and scene networking has literally propelled Bakotopia to a new level.

It’s not just about bands and artists. Bakotopia is also about breaking news stories with a grassroots sensibility. Munoz literally marches with protestors, snaps photos of bands and has wandered into the New Nile Theatre to get the big scoop that was ignored by other news sources until his breaking of the story.

Munoz is a man after similar online dreams as my own.

Only he can sing and I can only sing in the shower.

And why do I speak so highly of Bakotopia? Not only were they mentioned recently in the Wall Street Journal. Now they’re getting even more accolades by being recognized for their interactive ingenuity that is literally helping prevent the local big sister newspaper from dying. Touted as “America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry,” Editor & Publisher magazine has written about Bakotopia in an article titled, “Home, Home on the Web: Giving the Audience Some Space of Their Own,” by Steve Outing.

And that space might just keep the local paper alive. Why?

Advertising dollars and a loyal base of users in an underground community that if they help uplift itself, won’t die, but gain from an interactive media-user relationship. And don’t exclude the local paper's other niche markets: Tehachapi News, Mas Magazine, B- Entertainment, Northwest Voice, Southwest Voice, and a few others. I predict that Bakotopia will eventually overlap with all aspects of the local newspaper online by eventually weaving an interactive media Web for all online users. Why not profiles for everyone including the journalists? Steve Outing says it will work and he’s paying attention to the same Bakotopia that people like me once thought was just a gimmick that couldn’t linger beyond how far Bakersfield Bob could spit.

Of course people might ask, “Will N.L. go full circle again?” I doubt it. You start to get dizzy after a while.

And besides, I’m just beginning to understand how the Internet works.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Wednesday, April 26, 2006. You can leave your response.