Dan Jones is arguably the most humble, inconspicuous individual around—caught often in sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt. But when you sit down with him for just a moment, when you look him in the eyes and tell him to tell you about NorthAmericaTalk, you get the opportunity to live and actualize his passion for disrupting digital media with community focused content.
In 2002, the first spark of an idea began to form: Dan held a Pocket Surfer, an archaic device, by today’s standards, and he thought, “This is the physical model of the newspaper of the future.” This is where the eyeballs will be once there is always available internet access to the device.
For five years, Dan internalized this idea. He let it percolate. He spent his days obsessively churning ideas and his sleepy nights dreaming the details, as he worked inwardly to manifest dreams into reality.
In 2007, with the launch of the iPhone, Dan knew technology had finally breached the shores of his visions—and it was time to get serious about launching his community focused media company.
As Dan awaited the end of the 2007/08 recession, he spent the next four years laying the groundwork for the first Community Social Network, and in 2011, ThurstonTalk was officially born.
“I wanted to find a way to aggregate local eyes on mobile devices and build a lasting brand that would have brand recognition of local newspapers,” Dan said.
Each step of the journey, Dan worked to make ThurstonTalk’s brand a trusted one to an audience of 270,000 people. “This Community Social Network is too important and has too big of an impact on the people it serves for me to have created it any other way,” he said. “If you remove me from the picture, I want what I built to remain elevating, supporting, and nurturing the people of our community—without fail.”
We are now on the brink of 2020, nine years after the inception of ThurstonTalk, and what was once one media platform and a modest organization, has expanded into NorthAmericaTalk and saturated the Pacific Northwest, with 17 media platforms across the States of Washington and Oregon. 135 amazingly talented team members, consisting of writers, editors, marketing/advertising strategists, and sales professionals, are what form the NorthAmericaTalk family.
Dan Jones, CEO
“We have been told that NorthAmericaTalk is the fastest-growing digital media company on the I5 corridor, from Canada to Oregon,” Dan said. “We are growing at a solid revenue rate and our brand value and trust continues to grow.”
On the Technology back end, the aspects that make each Community Social Network operate with maximum impact are details of which most are unaware. Everything from the most searched terms to the most trending articles to what’s currently happening around the communities is tracked down to every last detail and orchestrated to ensure the content produced is always relevant to what the people in that unique community want.
“This allows you to make decisions based on what people are searching for and wanting and it all comes down to capturing local traffic in a digital world and analyzing everything, down to every last detail,” Dan said.
Dan talks a lot about the opportunities to partner with other major media companies, like McClatchy, for example, as he expands his Community Social Network. NorthAmericaTalk currently owns ~150 prime domains across the United States focused on sustainable mobile first community media.
Forecasts show NorthAmericaTalk and its local media companies will see a 16% revenue gain over 2018. With the migration to digital media advertising NorthAmericaTalk is sitting in a great spot for targeted marketing at a community level.
About NorthAmericaTalk
NorthAmericaTalk is a digital media company building and operating Community Social Networks™ . Through our proprietary technology and sales tools, we are disrupting the local media landscape, while building a trusted, valuable, local media brand. Today, our media organizations reach over one million engaged neighbors in Washington and Oregon State. Our fast-growing, community focused media companies span the Pacific Northwest, including Washington and Oregon State covering a population base of 5.2 million residence. We count hundreds of marketers as long-term customers that use our platform to reach their target market, grow their brand, and measure results.