We started San Diego News Network in the fall of 2008, and we went broke 21 months later. During that time we talked with Patch VPs twice and Armstrong once. Both times and both people told us to drop dead.
The good news is we got out with a loss of less than $2.5 million. I think that they will piss away $100 million before Armstrong and AOL find out that there is no there there. Local news is a commodity, and in my humble opinion, you cannot make a profit at it.
Nicholas Carlson has done a great job of capturing the issues and challenges in his article on Business Insider. Read the article here.
Right now I am off to see if I can lose my shirt in clean tech.
Will keep you posted.