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News & events for Friday, March 12

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ILM:09 Personalization — Some of What You Want and Some of What You Need
By Michael Taylor
December 11, 2009
... Mike Orren of Pegasus News helped the ILM:09 audience understand what it takes to offer a truly customized news offering that is engaging and relevant.

If you’re looking for a trend in hyperlocal news, keep looking
By Mark Briggs
August 25, 2009
Mike Orren and his team at Pegasus News are probably the best example of what works and what doesn’t for a hyperlocal news startup.

News Innovators on the Frontline: Pegasus News
By Matthew Sollars
August 6, 2009
Mike Orren launched Pegasus News in 2006 with the idea that local neighborhood news is more important “than things happening on the other side of town.” Now the site covers what appears to be every neighborhood in the Dallas Fort-Worth area. Although Pegasus has gone through some corporate turnover, it is now owned by Gap Broadcasting, which runs 116 radio stations in 24 markets. That alliance has Pegasus poised for an expansion.

A Shout Out to Pegasus
By Gerry Barker
July 20, 2009
In its own way, Pegasus is keeping the StarText flame burning.

25 Most Interesting People in Dallas / Fort Worth
July 9, 2009
Customizable and fully featured to tailor to the reader, PegasusNews is a way for the average reader to learn the most they can about the stories that interest them. With that lofty goal, it's no wonder industry magazines have taken notice of the small but plucky site -- and Orren's contributions to the way news is gathered and presented.

Robert Brown on Social Media
June 17, 2009
I interviewed Mike Orren, the founder and manager of Pegasus News, a blog web site dedicated to local news and culture in Dallas, Texas. Orren is a very sophisticated practitioner of web analytics, really a pioneer in this field starting several years ago, and by now he has it down to an art. He uses the data to determine the content most relevant to Pegasus News readers.

Community Companions: Pegasus News and Dallas-Fort Worth
June 16, 2009
By Robert Pyle
TCN Editor Robert Pyle spoke to [Mike] Orren by phone about Pegasus and how it serves its multiple communities.

Smart radio companies seizing Media 2.0 opportunities
April 2, 2009
By Terry Heaton
GAP Broadcasting here in Dallas has a very forward-thinking strategy ... to become the preeminent provider of local content through its over-the-air and online offerings ... GAP purchased Dallas-based Pegasus News from Fisher Broadcasting earlier this year and created another subsidiary, Archstream Media, to manage GAP’s digital assets. Vic Savelli, Executive Vice President Archstream Media (and a former Belo Interactive guy), told me they plan to use the Pegasus software to develop local community information portals in the markets it serves, rolling out in 12-15 markets this year. Pegasus is run by Mike Orren, a smart guy with a gift for hyperlocal content, and the combination of Orren’s secret sauce and the radio station promotional push has promise.

Pegasus News sold to local media company
January 8, 2009
Pegasus News was acquired by a Dallas based, privately owned digital media company, with interests in other digital assets. It is the Company's plan to build on the successes of Pegasus News in Dallas as well as utilize their unique technology in other markets beginning in 2009.

Site publisher and founder Mike Orren said: "I'm thrilled that we're with a locally-owned, privately-held group that gets our vision and has the smarts to help us keep growing. This is a great deal for our team and for our online community."

Paying for the News: Finding Solvency One Wine Shop at a Time
By Rick Edmonds
November 17, 2008
There's a huge issue at stake for newspaper organizations. Can they better target ads in a variety of digital formats to justify charging multiples more than the current soft rates for generic online space? That will be key to finding their way to a new business model that can sustain ambitious newsgathering.

Press Club of Dallas 2008 Katie Award Winners: Best Website
November 15, 2008
Customizable, wow. Another great website, clearly built with the user in mind. Great engineering behind this site and the content is delivered in a neat, tidy package.

The state of independent local online news, part 1: Sites on the rise
By David Westphal
October 27, 2008

Upwardly, outwardly mobile
By Michele McLellan
August 7, 2008
... it seems to have a lot going for it: simplicity, phone-centric information including restaurants, events, movie times and bar happy hours ... Pegasus seems like one model for news organizations who want to own mobile in their local markets.

An Electonic Start-Up Takes Flight in Dallas
Bt Rick Edmonds
August 7, 2008
Winged-horse symbolism aside, Pegasus has been a workman-like tortoise among splashier, high concept stand-alone sites, but it appears right now to be clicking on all cylinders ... The underpinnings of success are already there

Local Mobile, With Wings
By Nick Stamoulis
July 11, 2008
The app melds beautifully with the GPS enabled iPhone 3G to keep its users feeling like a vital part of their city’s life, in touch everywhere they go, the next point of interest only a click away. The phone knows where you are and the Pegasus News App can make recommendations based on your location. If it’s 7:30 in the morning you won’t have to deal with a recommendation for a bar that night…you’ll get recommendations for a great breakfast spot. I love the smell of well-timed advertising in the morning.

Pegasus News’ iPhone 3G App Is Time-and-Location Centric
By Peter Krasilovsky
July 8, 2008
Pegasus News is launching an iPhone App on July 11 to coincide with the launch of iPhone 3G. The app for the Dallas city guide will feature events, restaurants, drinks, Wi-Fi and garage sales, all searchable by the hour and by location.

Cracking the Local Market: Beyond 2.0's Wizards of Oz
By Tom Grubisich
June 24, 2008
But just like with the original Wizard of Oz, when you peek behind the scrims of these hucksters, you discover the reality: The huge networks have little actual connection with the communities they claim they serve. The sites are really aggregators on steroids ... [In contrast] In Dallas/Fort worth, Pegasus News has figured out how to scale across more than 150 communities in Dallas/Fort Worth and offer much more than scrapbook news. While it delivers a daily diet of hard and soft content, Pegasus shows its no slave to aggregation feeds by seeking out and promoting what's funny, weird or wacky ("Break-in artist mishandles Grand Prairie home invasion, shoots self dead").

Traditional Media Is Going Through Puberty
By Patrick Ryan Evans
June 15, 2008
A great example in Dallas is Pegasus News – an online news outlet that incorporates social media and social networking aspects, such as Flickr, blogs and a cool map to find stories in your neighborhood, to deliver the news ... While the articles on Pegasus News are still the same quality you would find in a print newspaper, the interaction level between gatekeeper and public is increased many times over. Pegasus News allows comments on all of its stories, which isn’t the case at The Dallas Morning News and many other traditional outlets.

It's a lo-o-o-ong way from Lawrence, Kan., to Loudoun County, Va.
By Tom Grubisich
June 10, 2008
Mike Orren's Pegasus News, which covers more than 150 communities in Dallas/Fort Worth, has come up with some encouraging answers. Most of the Pegasus communities, like those in Loudoun, don't have any KU-type institutional news generators. Yet Orren and his team of editors – who function more as impresarios – have teased out some excitement from all of them. Pegasus gives each community its own homepage. But it's not overly provincial. From their registered homepage, users can hop, ski and jump to nearby communities – actually all 150-plus. They can also easily zoom out to the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. Pegasus' community homepages also are sleek and clean – in contrast to the mish-mash of LoudounExtra's single, countywide homepage. There are fewer headlines and promos, and they stand out because they're crisply, and often cleverly, written ("Burglars take aim at Arlington gun store").

Old media needs to wake up, or die
By John Cook
May 2, 2008
[Merrill] Brown said that there are some examples of media companies -- citing Seattle's Fisher Communications' recent purchase of Pegasus News -- that are thinking creatively about the Internet. But he said the "macro trend" does not point to much innovation coming from traditional media.

We can build your data. Faster, stronger.
An editorial by the site’s President, Mike Orren, does quite a job of explaining a public-private partnership of sorts, something I’d love to see in more newspapers... The push for transparency, the clean presentation of information, and the fact Orren can use the word ’sucks’ in an editorial - all good signs.

My friend is your business; a.k.a. social networking
By Lucas Grindley
"...Excellent job keeping ahead of the curve..."

Quote of the Week
By Adnea Schutzberg
- GIS company? No. Neogeo person? No. ... Pegasus News ... a local news/events site

Not Funny
By Alibaster K. Abthernabther
"Pegasus News is nothing if not a citadel of uproariously pointed yet socially responsible satire."

A look inside the newsroom at Pegasus News
November 20, 2007

Custom editions on a shoestring
October 19, 2007

Pegasus to stretch its wings with new owner
By Lauren D'Avolio
October 5, 2007
"The unpretentious, hyper-local online publication allows users to customize their news-surfing experience."

Best Local Music Web Site
"This sucker has every single thing you need to know about the music world of DFW."

The State of Journalism
By Mike Orren
October, 2007
While [Kevin] Sack's employers talk about "standards of accuracy and fairness" and their self-anointed position as the "bearers of witness," the new media are practicing transparency and inclusion.

All news is data
September 25, 2007
"When a dyed in the wool newspaperman and innovator in online newspaper publishing declares that the successful papers of the future will primarily be data publishers, well here’s someone worth listening to for a fresh perspective on what users really want."

FrontBurner^®Catherine Cuellar leaving KERA
By Adam McGill
September 12, 2007
"Catherine Cuellar, named one of D's "10 New Media Stars"... is headed to Pegasus News, where she'll be the Managing Editor. Good for her. Even better for Pegasus News. "

Content Bridges
"Dumbo": Sequel to "Sicko"?
July 30, 2007
By Ken Doctor
"What's clear here is that there are many people who have left the industry who have the money, the connections and passion to dive into what comes next. These enterprises can be start absolutely fresh or build on the bootstrap models that have bravely pioneered the idea, like Mike Orren's Pegasus News In Dallas/Fort Worth."

Fisher Communications Expands Online Local News Strategy with Acquisition of Pegasus News
July 17, 2007
Reactions:

CNN.com's redesign lets you Netflix your news
July 1, 2007
By Lucas Grindley
"Everyone should be doing this. But so far it’s just PegasusNews.com and now CNN.com leading the way."

Can a stand-alone web site compete with the daily newspaper? (subscription required)
May-June 2007

FrontBurner^®
Pegasus News shows the Morning News what it can't do.
By Tim Rogers
May 21, 2007
"What's the secret to succeeding as a media company online? Well, it's not only this, but see what Pegasus did with the last line of this otherwise dull story..."

New data bodes ill for newspaper advertising, but a few notes of positive news
By Ben Compaine
April 27, 2007
"Perhaps most ominously for all the local media is that the largest share of advertising as well as the fastest growing are "pure play" sites. That is, they are not related to existing legacy media but exist solely on the Web. This might include Craig's List as well as local news sites such as Buffalo Rising and Dallas' Pegasus News."

Principles of citizen journalism
March 26, 2007
"The founder of Pegasus News talks about making citizen media work"

Name that Neighborhood
By Leah Messinger
March 23, 2007
"...local search market currently dominated by Yelp and Pegasus News, which analysts said rate highest because their tools factor in cities and neighborhoods."

Know any metro newspapers or TV stations whose community buys them a billboard?
March 22, 2007

"Eat media corporations for lunch"
March 15, 2007
Comment by Jim Whitt, FW Star-Telegram
"I was impressed at what Pegasus has accomplished with almost no resources. It's the kind of spirit we need to encourage throughout the newsroom at our paper to succeed in the new media reality."

FOX4 in Dallas (Kills) Content Deal With Pegasus
By Peter Krasilovsky
March 12, 2007
"It is still interesting as a model ... It [would have brought] more traffic and credibility to both sites."
Reader comments:
"[The] site is one of the best implementations of local content that I’ve seen. Fox blew it on this one. As Pegasus solidifies its position as the #1 online news source for Metro Dallas, the local stations will be needing a partnership with him." -- Mark Metz, Metroguide
"Nonetheless, I think Pegasus is going to do great things." -- Lisa Williams, Placeblogger

Pegasus News: The Coolest Thing to Hit Local News
By Daniel Dessinger
March 10, 2007
"Pegasus News is the future of local news."

CONSULTANTS' CORNER: A Local One Stop Shop
By Katherine Lehr
March 8, 2007
"There is already much talk over which technology will have the biggest impact in the '08 cycle. Will YouTube continue with its '06 hype? Or will social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, help capture the youth vote? But it may be a new twist on an old technology that can make a difference -- at least at the local level... "

Pegasus
By Doug Fisher
March 8, 2007
"It's worth paying attention to... A bit like Amazon, the software checks what you are clicking on and then starts proposing similar stories to match your interests. Even cooler are the neighborhood pages that pinpoint story locations on a map (why don't more newspaper sites do that?) Once you register, the map centers on your home. As news organizations continue to redesign their sites, I hope they are looking at this one."

Pegasus News: Principles of citizen media
By J.D. Lasica
March 7, 2007
Video interview on how Pegasus News engages citizen journalism

Modcasting trumps oddcasting
By Alan Mutter
February 24, 2007
"The newspaper website of the future hasn’t been produced by a major newspaper company but by an upstart Dallas start-up called Pegasus News ... Pegasus News performs the traditional commercial function of a newspaper in a non-traditional way. Instead of being a one-to-many medium, Pegasus News creates dozens of virtual communities that make it possible for advertisers to target their messages to users based on their preferences and behaviors. And that, folks, is the future of the media business."

"The Daily You" from Pegasus News
By Greg Sterling
February 15, 2007
"Pegasus News personalization exists within a controlled environment that makes monetizing and 'behaviorally targeting' the content somewhat easier than in RSS…That’s smart."

Wake up and smell the data
By Russell Perkins
January 26, 2007
"This may be a somewhat chilling finding from the perspective of the newspaper industry"

Lessons learned on the hyperlocal news front
By Howard Owens
January 19, 2007
"Several good nuggets"

Lessons from the launch
By Mike Orren
January 17, 2007
"We’ve learned some invaluable lessons about local digital media along the way. Here’s a sampling of some of the things that we think we know now."

A hole in the backfence?
By Terry Heaton
January 10, 2007
"One of my favorites."

New online media venture aims to tailor news to users
By Sandra Zaragoza
December 29, 2006
"Pegasus News' stories and commentaries cover everything from metro to business and entertainment to shopping."

Kibbles n' Bits
December 18, 2006
"Extensive and ambitious"

New City Sites
By Peter Krasilovsky
December 11, 2006
"For sure, I admire the breadth of the Pegasus site."

Poking around Pegasus
By Mark Hamilton
December 6, 2006
"I’m willing to call it the best of the local news site so far, where a lot is done right. You could do a lot worse than modeling a local news site after Pegasus, both as a new voice and as competition for existing media. It’s that good."

Pegasus wants to deliver 'The Daily You'
By Frank Barnako
December 6, 2006
"I think what Pegasus is doing really is different from some of the other hyper-locals. [Their] reluctance to rely on users (i.e. unpaid and possibly-partisan) is smart, as [they] make good use of all the resources that the Net has made available."
Audio interview