Michelle Ferrier is working to build the Women’s Online News Franchise and she's on the hunt for a community news platform to power it that is affordable and scales to the challenge. She has narrowed her options down to four -- and we're happy to note that Neighborlogs made the cut.

Here's how Ferrier described Neighborlogs in her write-up:

Neighborlogs.com, based in Seattle, offers a blog platform specifically for those doing hyperlocal community news or placeblogs.

She also produced a grid comparing Neighborlogs to the three other options she is considering.

While we might take a little offense at the 'struggling' bootstrap part -- we're lean and mean! -- we think Ferrier has identified some of our greatest strengths. Our self-serve ad system designed for businesses of all sizes is ideal for small, one and two person news operations. And, she's right, we're continually developing new tools and improvements for our system. As for the cons, hey, a controlled Beta isn't so bad -- all you need to do is register and we'll get you signed up lickety split. And we like blog formats! We think they are simple to manage and extremely effective.

We'd also propose another con for the WordPress column for Ferrier to consider: cost. Deploying a platform like WP can be a fantastic idea for an organization that can afford the ongoing development and technology costs associated with maintaining and upgrading the system. But we know of some of the bigger successes in hyperlocal news that are going through the expensive pains of updating their WordPress-based sites. For each of them, it is an expensive and complicated process. Fortunately for them, these established sites have grown to a point where they can -- this time, at least -- afford to mount the challenge. In the long run, however, we think a good argument can be made for developing a relationship with a service like Neighborlogs and putting your limited resources to work building your business, not your Web site.