A regional publisher has launched a new standalone website aimed at promoting the funniest and weirdest stories found in its local newspapers.
Local World has unveiled its new venture, Quirker.co.uk, which the company says will celebrate “the best of real life eccentric content”.
The site takes stories published across Local World’s titles, which are then re-edited by a small team based at the company’s London headquarters and published to target a “social audience”.
The site, pictured below, was developed by Local World’s in-house digital team and Shoreditch-based agency Wilson Fletcher.
Examples of stories featuring on the site include a court story, originally published in the Hull Daily Mail, about a woman jailed for six and a half years for biting off part of a 53-year-old widow’s nose in a pub brawl.
On Quirker, it was run under the headline ‘This is one person you never want to get into a bar fight with’.
Another, the most shared article currently on the site, reworks a Cornish Guardian article about a taxi firm called the Port Isaac Shuttle Service, or P.I.S.S. for short.
The site’s content is drawn from more than 70 newspaper companion sites across the company.
Steve Anglesey, Local World digital content director, said: “Quirker is a terrific home for the most eccentric, funny, man-bites-dog, weird and real life stories we produce as a group every day.
“This platform gives us an opportunity to really capitalise on the virality of this content, reworked in style and format for a young, mobile audience.”
Matt Kelly, group digital director, said: “Quirker is just one strand of our strategy to grow in relevance to a digital audience.
“There is no more enticing, or commercially exciting, opportunity in digital today than reimagining the power of local content. Watch this space.”
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Wouldn’t it have been simpler to call this new venture clickbait.com?
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It’s that word ‘exciting’ again….
Seems all very interesting but I struggle to see how this solves the revenue riddle for the local press. If you were a car show room in Bristol would you advertise on Quirky.com. If you were a florist in Hull would you want to be next to a story about someone biting someone’s nose off.
It is as if the digital team at Local World decided we need to produce BuzzFeed type content, run the project a bit like usvsth3m and then see what happens. Thing is we know that This type of content is ten a penny and usvsth3m was closed down as it generated no profit.
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seems a bit different to usvsthem and buzzfeed .. if i read it right the point here is that they have already created the content locally and then give it another life nationally. clickbait? yes – maybe that’s not a bad thing. i am old enough to remember people cyring when dylan went electric. maybe a good thing for the local press to get with the times…
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A good, quirky story should stand up across geographical boundaries and a site like this is probably a good place to put them and win a new audience.
Mansfield Man – I don’t think they expect to attract local advertising but rather the advertisers who currently appeal to a ‘social’ audience and of course cookies will direct relevant ads to your device.
However, is there a possibility that resource-strapped newsrooms around LW might be encouraged to concentrate on clickbait rather than the more mundane (and worthy) stuff that fills local newspapers?
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Just had a look at the site and was drawn to a story about Scunthorpe — it’s a shame that they seem to think it’s a city on the coast.
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A great idea…and if they had more proper reporters in their offices & out & about, they’d get more material for it…
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Really sorry but this has to be one of the worst sites of its kind I’ve ever seen. The so-called click-bait headlines are anything but and the rewriting is lazy and uninspired. Must try harder…
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I’ve got a corker here for this site… Local World reporters and production staff given rises to reflect the increased profitability of the group… Oh, all right, I suppose some things are too weird even for this splendid and exciting site.
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Revenue??
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I love it! Can i please have a job on Quirker?
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This is the future!
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I have reluctantly had to start using Adblock on my local LW site, I didn’t want to because I know these companies all have to rely on ads to make money, and if I am reading their content then I do not generally begrudge them trying to sell me something if its done in an unobtrusive way. But its got to the point, with pop-up ads, ads blaring out sound at full volume, those video ads in the middle of the stories – my poor little laptop was practically slowing to a crawl every time I wanted to peek at a LW story.
So onto my Adblock list they go – and it really does make visiting their sites a far more pleasant experience. Sorry LW I did try, and the only other alternative would be to stop visiting your sites altogether. I will try to share more of your comment with my friends, to make up for the revenue you’re losing.
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Its totes not buzzfeed :-/ lmao!!1
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