Wanted: Experienced, passionate citizens for hyperlocal sites: Earn $$$ from your home!

The approximately one million people who live in the 13 communities in suburban Washington, D.C., Northwest Chicago and the Bay Area that Backfence tried, but failed, to serve spend about $13 billion annually shopping and dining out. That's right – $13 billion. To reach them, local online advertisers spend $28 million, based on Borrell's 2007 numbers. Of course, established Internet sites in those communities – particularly ones run by well-established metro and smaller newspapers – gobble up most of that $28 million. But what about the ad revenue crumbs that fall from the table?

Backfence shrewdly positioned itself amid all that affluence, but didn't capitalize on it. But couldn't a network of grassroots sites that actually connected with their communities pick up a small fraction of that $28 million by year two or three? How about 6 percent? That would be a little more than $1.6 million. Continuing my back-of-the-envelope math, that splits down to about $750,000 for Backfence's seven communities in the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, and $425,000 for the three communities in Northwest Chicago and the same for the three in the Bay Area.

By my estimates, the three clusters of sites could break even and maybe squeeze out a modest profit – about $100,000 – from $1.6 million ad revenue (display and paid search).

Here are the estimated expense numbers for each cluster:

• Publisher: $60,000
• Content manager, $50,000
• Two sales reps: $40,000 each (in base salary and commissions that would go higher with bonuses based on sales that top goals)
• Tech manager: $20,000 share of total cost
• Staff fringes and employer taxes: $40,000
• Citizen contributors: $110,000 or $250,000 for $1,000 monthly stipends, with the higher amount for the seven-community metro Washington cluster
• Office rent and expenses: Up to $25,000 (depending on cluster size)
• Computers: $10,000
• Other (including promotion, phones): Up to $50,000 (depending on cluster size)

All this, multiplied by three clusters, adds up to slightly less than $1.5 million. Green-eye-shade folks may argue with some of my cost estimates. I agree a content manager – a good one – is worth more than $50,000. But if the compensation included stock options, wouldn't there be a lot of talented Internet editors – ones with a passion for building grassroots sites – who would be eager to take the plunge?

Success with even a modest budget would hinge on whether the sites succeeded in connecting with their communities and producing content that users found generally interesting, sometimes significant and occasionally indispensable.

It would also depend on a "feet-meet-the-street" advertising staff that could sell strong visitor/page-view numbers to local and regional advertisers who, for good reason, have been resistant to buying display space on grassroots sites.