Baristanet

Baristanet delivers an edgy blend of local comings and goings, community musings and all things related to food and real estate in three affluent New Jersey communities, Montclair, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield. It also has delivered readers, recording 140,000 page views in September 2006, up from 70,000 a year earlier. Advertisers have taken notice. Along with the site’s new interactive teardown map, which chronicles the address of every home in the community being replaced with something newer or bigger (a feature that originated on WestportNow), Baristanet features a standing billboard advertisement, rotating side pages and paid classifieds ($20 a month for 30 words; $40 to include a photo).

The site sells for $1,000 a month a rotating ad at the top of its main page, and for $300 a month side ads that also rotate. The revenue helps pay $500 a month for technical support and $1,000 a month for a regular contributor, a citizen journalist trained by the site’s two professional editors.

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