Formerly called Journatic Headquarters Chicago Type of business Private | Area served United States Founded 2006 | |
 | ||
Industry Digital media, journalism Key people Brian Timpone (founder and CEO)
Eddie Weinhaus (founder and COO) Services Hyperlocal content service Parent Partially owned by Tribune Co. | ||
LocalLabs (formerly known as Journatic before 2014) and BlockShopper before 2011, is an American commercial provider of content to media companies and marketers. It states that it delivers "original community news" to large media companies in the U.S. The co-founder and CEO of Journatic was Brian Timpone. In 2011, the original company, Blockshopper, a real estate news and data website, morphed into Journatic as a newspaper content service. According to Forbes, "Timpone, a former journalist, created Blockshopper.com "with a friend"". The website reported on home purchases in 15 U.S. metropolitan areas as of 2010.
"Original community news", also referred to as "hyper-local content", includes news items regarding local sporting events, awards, and council meetings. This content is then included in weekly community newspapers, and the "local" section of larger newspapers. Journatic uses contractors living inside and outside the United States to write content. It was found in 2012 to use fake bylines for content. Following that public revelation, Journatic CEO Brian Timpone said in an email to staffers that the use of fake bylines was an oversight that occurred after its clients published content from Blockshopper.com, a real estate information website owned by Journatic that systematically used fake names for it writers. The use of fake bylines would cause higher search engine ranking. Timpone denied that fake bylines were ever intentionally used for content provided to its clients. He apologized for the mistake.