thejteam

How viable a business is starting a local news site today? Think original reporting in a city/county of about 100K people. What are the must-have features?

Right now where I live there are several local sites, all designed a little differently. Some do original reporting (low quality, in my opinion), others just repost press releases. Some allow comments on articles, some don't, and some run toxic forums.

The website for the local newspaper is behind a paywall, a source of frustration for people who want to share articles. Especially if they are about family members.

I am on the Board of Directors for a non-profit. We run an annual raffle and would like to accept credit card payments for the tickets, but nobody we talked to will work with us. The main issue is that the raffle has cash prizes. Has anybody dealt with this and have any suggestions?

I am the person that will be integrating the payment system into our website and I am technically capable enough, although ease of integration would be a benefit since I usually work with hardware simulation, not websites.