An Amsterdam based holding company PPF and the Paris based World Association of Newspapers are funding a project that will launch 30 different websites covering hyperlocal news throughout the Czech Republic. Google is ready to provide technical training and the sites will be monetized using Adsense in exchange. The project has hired 90 mostly young reporters who will work out of offices with public coffee and internet shops built into the facilities.

There are lots of different factors at issue and Eric Pfanner in the Times says "think garbage collection schedules, not Group of 7 diplomacy." If Google and other online specialists could help more newspapers rock like LJWorld.com does, then things could really look up for local news.

To be fair, some people attribute LJWorld's success to its monopoly across different media types. The company has been wildly innovative in terms of types of content, and interactivity and the creation of a content management system (Django) that is now used by newspapers around the world. The company even offers an RSS feed of their most-clicked classified ads and displays those in a widget throughout the site.