Bye bye Brownstowner

Here’s an update from Peter Crimmins on the death of the Philly Brownstoner:

Jonathan Butler, the founder of the Brownstoner website in Brooklyn, said he made the emotionally difficult but practical decision to pull the plug on the Philadelphia version. The site reported real estate, preservation, and urban development news, and became instantly popular, garner Best Of Philly awards and 200 thousand page views per month in the first six months. But advertisers never came, so after throwing $75,000 into the Philly Brownstoner hole Butler decided it just wasn’t going to work.

“There are not as many established blogs down there as there are in Brooklyn and New York.” Butler said. “One of the ways you grow blog traffic is by linking back and forth between different sites. Not nearly as much of that going on in Philly.”

Peter will have the full story this afternoon on WHYY-FM.