As far as those 2 choices, yeah CitySourced has a good idea, but most towns already have a line you can call to report potholes etc.
LocalBacon I thought was stupid. It might have worked if it was the only option out there, but it's not. Why would a user go to their crappy site and pay money, if they can apply on Monster for free. Same goes for advertisers, they'll still have to post on Monster/Dice and deal with all that crap anyways, How many people using the LocalBacon who don't know about Monster?
Also localbacon is a very bad name, I read the TC post on it yesterday, yet when you mentioned it just now, I didn't think about the company, I thought it was a service that would deliver bacon to your door. So they have 0 name stickiness.
From a judgment perspective, the market cap proposition of CitySource is not there. As in, if you funded this and this were actually highly successful they would only be able to net a few million a year. Additionally, getting cash from cities is going to be extremely difficult in this budget cutting environment.
LocalBacon was much riskier. They didn't really have a solid distribution model.
Congratulations to RedBeacon team and TC50.
Can you honestly say that these guys will still be in business a year from now? Shouldn't that be a requirement for the winner of the "best tech conference"?
And frankly, this is business, not a spectator sport.