The Empire Report was an experiment in ultra-local online community news, one that proved viable—but not sustainable.

Although the Empire Report was structured as a non-profit organization, it was never legally incorporated as one. In hindsight, co-founder Jake Bayless (right) wonders if following through on that might have kept the Report afloat a little longer.

While the Empire Report joined a lengthy list of enterprises that were not successful in finding an online business model that would support it, Bayless believes it was a clear success in other ways.

Even though the site is no longer being updated with new content regularly, the Empire Report site remains up and accessible, both to make their archives available to the public, and to provide a forum for discussion of how the Report, or something like it, might be revived.