Daily Voice, formerly Main Street Connect, is an American
community journalism
Community journalism is locally-oriented, professional news coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods, individual suburbs or small towns, rather than metropolitan, state, national or world news.
If it covers wider topics, community j ...
company specializing in
hyperlocal media
Hyperlocal is information oriented around a well-defined community with its primary focus directed toward the concerns of the population in that community. The term can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term (e.g. new ...
, that is based in
Norwalk, Connecticut
, image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 230px
, map_caption = Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and ...
, and currently operates a significant number of town-based news web sites in
Westchester County
Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...
,
Dutchess County
Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later or ...
Rockland County
Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of t ...
in New York;
Bergen County
Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Passaic County in New Jersey; and
Fairfield County, Connecticut
Fairfield County is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is the most populous county in the state and was also its fastest-growing from 2010 to 2020. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 957, ...
.
Founding and initial history
The company was founded in 2010 by Carll Tucker, a veteran of the community news business with Trader Publications (sold to
Gannett Company
Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. who described his new approach as a hybrid of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
. The company raised almost $4 million in its first round of private equity funding, an amount which made news in the journalism industry. The company's editorial director was financial commentator and author Jane Bryant Quinn, who is also a member of its board of directors. Others associated with the company included Peter Georgescu, Chairman Emeritus of the marketing and communications company
Young & Rubicam
VMLY&R is an American marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of VML, founded in 1992, and Young & Rubica ...
, and John Falcone, former executive with mobile advertising company SmartReply.
Main Street Connect first appeared as town-centric news sites in
Fairfield County, Connecticut
Fairfield County is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is the most populous county in the state and was also its fastest-growing from 2010 to 2020. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 957, ...
, named "The Daily
own
Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...
Norwalk, Connecticut
, image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 230px
, map_caption = Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and ...
. Ten such sites were in operation by the end of 2010, and Main Street Connect had 44 full-time employees as of mid-2010.
The franchising structure of Main Street Connect was explicitly likened to that of the
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...
fast food chain. It was intended to work via a local group hiring journalists to cover a community, with the national entity supplying a framework for website technical hosting and support, working capital, and guidance related to fundamental business strategies. There was to be no start-up fee, and Main Street Connect would get 17 percent of a site's revenue. The eventual goal was to provide an attractive platform for national brands to advertise on, and to support a higher advertising rate than local websites can typically charge and one that it closer to the level that used to support local print newspapers. The company's target for 2013 was to have 3,000 sites operating with some 10,000–15,000 journalists involved; existing community newspapers were not seen as potential franchisees.
Main Street Connect's start coincided with a renewed interest in local advertising among national companies. It competed most prominently with another national-local combination,
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...
's
Patch.com
Patch.com is an American local news and information platform, primarily owned by Hale Global. As of January 2022, Patch's more than 100 journalists operated some 1,259 hyperlocal news websites, which also have an information component, in 50 U.S. ...
, but took a slower approach than Patch in rolling out new sites. It also competed with
news aggregator
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, ...
s such as
Topix
, commonly known as TOPIX, along with the Nikkei 225, is an important stock market index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Japan, tracking all domestic companies of the exchange's Prime market division. It is calculated and published by the ...
Eventful
Eventful is an online calendar and events discovery service owned by Audacy, Inc. The service allows users to search for and track upcoming entertainment events in their area (such as concerts, festivals, and film presentations) involving specific ...
, and content creation sites such as
Examiner.com
Examiner.com was an American news website based in Denver, Colorado, that operated using a network of " pro-am contributors"' for content. It had various local editions with contributors posting city-based items tailored to 238 markets througho ...
and
Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
's
Associated Content
Yahoo! Voices, formerly Associated Content (AC), was a division of Yahoo! that focused on online publishing. Yahoo! Voices distributed a large variety of writing through its website and content partners, including Yahoo! News. In early December 20 ...
.
Subsequent developments
In February 2011, Main Street Connect announced that the one million mark in visits to their websites had been passed, and subsequently said that the sites get about 110,000
unique visitor
Website popularity is commonly determined using the number of unique users, and the metric is often quoted to potential advertisers or investors. A website's number of unique users is usually measured over a standard period of time, typically a m ...
s per month against an underlying population of some 420,000 people. By March 2011, the franchising model was restructured by Tucker, who instead referred to opening "pods" of about ten sites each. The company said it would launch three pods totaling 31 sites in
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...
on June 1. In May 2011, Main Street Connect acquired CentralMassNews, which owned ten local news sites in
Central Massachusetts Central Massachusetts is the geographically central region of Massachusetts. Though definitions vary, most include all of Worcester County and the northwest corner of Middlesex County. Worcester, the largest city in the area and the seat of Worc ...
. On June 1, 2011, the company rolled out 32 (one more than expected) sites in Westchester.
In October 2011, Tucker was succeeded as CEO by Zohar Yardeni, formerly of
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre.
Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corp ...
and experienced with financial and information start-ups. Tucker stayed on as chair of the company. Main Street Connect also obtained $7 million in second round funding at this time. Total sites in October 2011 numbered 52.
In May 2012, the company rebranded themselves to become Daily Voice. Aside from the new name and logo, there were no other changes to business operations. The new name was purchased by Main Street Connect, and therefore was no longer affiliated with
Keith Boykin
Keith Boykin is an American TV and film producer, national political commentator, author, and former White House aide to President Bill Clinton. He has made much of this public in his 2022 memoir, ''Quitting: Why I Left My Job to Live a Life of ...
or Malcolm J. Harris, the figures behind the 2008-begun The Daily Voice onsite news site for African Americans.
In March 2013, Yardeni suddenly resigned. The company underwent a major downsizing, closing all 11 of its Massachusetts sites and laying off those employees.
During 2018, the Daily Voice operation was taken over by Cantata Media, based in
Norwalk, Connecticut
, image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 230px
, map_caption = Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and ...
. In 2019 Cantata Media formed an alliance with
Westfair Communications
Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners (including Loblaws), as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private ...
, the publisher of the '' Fairfield County Business Journal'', to form a subscription-based website, Daily Voice Plus, that would feature material from both organizations.