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The latest event – first announced some weeks ago – will bring together some of the biggest names from local blogging and journalism to debate the key issues faced by bloggers, journalists and others publishing on and off-line at grass-roots level. It's called: What did the digital revolution ever do for journalism?
Emma Bearman (The Culture Vulture), Sarah Hartley (Guardian Local) and Nigel Barlow (Inside the M60) will be lead by Adam Westbrook (entrepreneurial journalist and video blogger) through the issues that they and you think are key to present day and future activities online.
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The sketchy evidence that is available so far suggests that a sustainable hyperlocal site needs a number of conditions to thrive. The optimum population coverage seems to be in the range of 30,000 – 70,000 i.e. big enough to provide sufficient revenue but small enough that the audience have a shared identity based on locality. The ideal demographic seems to be family formers from prosperous communities who own their home.
Archive for April, 2011
links for 2011-04-29
links for 2011-04-28
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Of course the weird transatlantic Charleston being danced by Alan Rusbridger and Ariana Huffington continues. Can the world’s two great left of centre online platforms really be setting up parallel operations in each other’s backyards?
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No, I’m sure that the Guardian has learned loads and will see the benefit. I’m sure they understand how to run a crowd now. I’m sure they see the value in having someone on the ground. They must see the potential of new technology in having faster, targeted and responsive journalism. It even strengthened their brand – albeit in a passive way.
links for 2011-04-27
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The Guardian Local pilot has taught us a lot about new models of journalism but we will soon be winding it down
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Unchained by the difficult-to-transition machinery of conventional, industrialised news publishing, the blogs have focused on metropolitan civic engagement. They have noticeably enriched the communities of which they are part, finding a new, younger, online audience that wasn’t necessarily reading news about its local community and have helped make connections between people, events, organisations and local issues and politics. Some readers on Twitter and on Guardian.co.uk comments have been expressing their dismay.
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Maps from the MapBox suite can be customized as interactive embeds, enabling media, nonprofits and government entities to share a given story far beyond a single static web page. For instance, the map below was made using open data in Baltimore that was released by the city earlier this year:
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Patch Editor In Chief Brian Farnham says the company wants each of its 800 sites to sign up 10 community members to participate before the initiative officially launches next week.
links for 2011-04-26
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It is difficult to quantify the total sum of local advertising, but many claim it is likely that more than half of all advertising is at the local level. With over 85% of all goods purchased within 10 miles of the home, it is easy to understand why there is an increasing interest among local business owners in the online marketplace. An average of 28% of a consumer’s time is spent online, so naturally local businesses would like their ads to follow.
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The Northerner has now got welcome reinforcement in the form of Sarah Hartley and John Baron from the Guardian Local's team which covers Leeds – John's patch – Edinburgh and Cardiff. Both kicked off with interesting pieces over Easter and there'll be plenty more from them on a regular basis.
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1. The more people who participate in the press the stronger it will be.
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To me, “hyperlocal” is a delightfully content-free buzzword. If, starting now, nobody ever used that word again, I’d be a happier person.
The problem is that it’s been used to describe a wide variety of things, at a wide variety of geographic contexts, from block-specific news like EveryBlock to county-wide projects like the old Loudoun Extra site by the Washington Post. It’s gotten to a point where you could easily use the word “local” in place of “hyperlocal” and little to no meaning would be changed. -
As you’d expect – we’re keen to get local, national & international bloggers involved in FutureEverything 2011 and so, if you’re interested in covering the festival, we thought you’d appreciate this central resource which you can use to quickly gather information and media for your posts.
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Another insight is that people are no longer getting the local news they need to properly hold their elected representatives to account. Few of the people in our village had any idea of what was being planned on their behalf. And when they found out they were shocked.
links for 2011-04-21
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And that’s because the first order of business when you hire a company like ICUC is to layout your commenting guidelines and procedures — essentially what Bilous calls “the Bible to how we manage the content and community.” While this is a necessary step for ICUC’s moderators to know what’s fair or foul, it’s also a chance to clarify why to have comments and what role they play on a site, he said. There’s a need to guard against slander or libel in your comment threads, not to mention the ever-swelling and always creative list of naughty words — but beyond that things start to vary.
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Where operates a hyper-local ad network and a mobile app. It recently started to offer Groupon-style local deals. The app allows you to search for restaurants, entertainment, news, and more based on your location.
According to eBay, Where has 120 000 business customers and over 4 million active users. The service works on various mobile devices, such as iOS, Android, Blackberry and Palm.
links for 2011-04-20
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Blogs are a part of that evolution. But the blog is the noun, not the verb. Writing is writing, and while some writing still ends up on newsprint, other writing ends up online. Some of that online writing ends up on the sites of traditional media sources, while others end up on independent sites – many of which qualify as web logs, or blogs.
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"I think journalism as being about shedding light on dark corners, as being about giving people voice that voiceless, as being about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, as the old phrase has it, is something that is a ubiquitous possibility for people with the platforms and devices available."
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Digital News Service of the Year
The PCS Award for all digital news servicesbelfasttelegraph.co.uk
caledonianmercury.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
Guardian Local
independent.co.uk
london-se1.co.uk
thesundaytimes.co.uk -
Citizenside is all about creating tools that enable participative journalism. To focus the power of citizen reporters and motivate good journalism, we absolutely need to provide our community with a rewarding experience with clear challenges and rewards. Game dynamics like the ones above are an unbeatable way of doing that.
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It’s a difficult time for journalism, but difficult times tends to bring out the best innovation. Don’t just look at the traditional routes, if you’ve got an idea just get on and do it. It’s abut throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
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The Hedon Local News Hub would aim to be a constituted partnership body bringing together volunteers, local communities, voluntary groups, local business, training providers that can draw in funding to provide a dedicated news-gathering and news-sharing service in the town – and a network of community citizen-journalist reporters with access to training and technical support opportunities. This network would dig out and investigate local issues – hold local authorities to account and strengthen local democracy, and be a source of positive press around which community action could ferment.
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Richard Draycott, managing director of MiNetwork, said: "STV has really taken the in initiative in the provision of local news and information with the launch of STV Local and this breakfast briefing event will give communications and marketing professionals in Scotland the opportunity to meet the people behind the service and to talk about how they can get involved and use the service for the benefit of their own clients."
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He also praises a raft of "place-bloggers," people who may be giving of their time to blog locally and should not be discounted just because they're not professionals or don't make a living at it.
links for 2011-04-18
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Formalized link sharing and cross-posting provides measurable, quantitative benefits to everyone involved.
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Community does not need newspapers partly because there are alternatives from the old wish wives gossiping to social media and beyond. Partly because local newspapers are so different and their role is so diverse that you couldn’t really identify what its core purpose is. Finally, what is a community and how big a geography does it cover? IS it even bound by geography?
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Want to help save journalism? Do you really want to help save original reporting, by getting more money in the hands of reporters who need it?
Start reading more independent news sites – publications run by journalist/entrepreneurs, where the ad revenue (or foundation grant) goes to the reporters running the shop. Spend less time with traditional, corporate-owned media, where the money increasingly goes to wealthy executives.
Look out for yourself, too. Keep building your connections with your own community, including friends, neighbors, sources and business people. Build your reputation as an authoritative voice so that when the day comes you're no longer able, or willing, to work in the corporate world, you will have the personal network that can help support your reporting – whether you end up launching your own publication, or writing for another, smaller publication where you can retain more of the value of your work.
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For a web site to fulfil its potential, at least as much time and resources must be devoted to promotion as to the editorial package
Anyone for twicket? Update on the hyperlocal cricket plan
Plans for the ‘world’s first’ live streaming of a village cricket match continued apace over the week – with the help of a herd of cows!
As I wrote at The Guardian’s tech blog last week, John Popham will be using basic video kit in order to give the cricket match of Wray the full ‘live’ treatment as part if his campaign to highlight the neeed for faster rural bradband.
The tests included this ‘milking live’ update from the dairy herd of fellow campaigner Chris (@cyberdoyle on Twitter).
I caught up with John who told me it was now all systems go for next week and he has had interest from potential sponors too:
“The connection available to the field where the match will be played is possibly not quite robust enough for what we want. It worked, and I could live stream from it, but it kept dropping out. The purpose of the cows was to compare the connection at Chris’ farm, which is where the fibre comes into the village. And that proved much more robust. This will not be a problem, as it simply proved that we need to take up the offer from Guy Jarvis at NextGenUs to fill in any gaps in connectivity before the match takes place.”
John also talked about the project in this interview with radio Lancashire.
BBC’s move to Salford: ‘Limitless and long term opportunity’
The impact the BBC’s move north will have on the region’s existing digital industry is something that hasn’t received much attention to date but an interview with Photolink‘s Craig Johnson giving a refreshingly upbeat view of what’s in store at the MediaCityUk development and calls on the naysayers to think again.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for the region, and I’m disappointed in the doom mongers that say our digital talent will all migrate across to the BBC, leaving a staff and skills shortage so significant it’ll keep the region’s creative business owners awake at night.”
He continues: “Ok, so it may throw up some teething problems in the immediate term, but these are far outweighed by the limitless, long term opportunity that the BBC’s move up north presents. Yes, the talent could be able to command more money, and staff retention has the potential become a fierce competition, but business owners can address this now by putting longer-term incentives in place that are linked to the success of the business.”
Read the full interview here.
(Disclosure: Johnson is a former colleague when we worked at ManchesterOnline back in the day).
links for 2011-04-17
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The module is created by two news veterans who now devote their time to teaching the ever-evolving tools of the trade. One is Wendell Cochran, director of the Journalism Division at the School of Communication at American University. He brings 40 years of experience in print and online, with a specialty in both investigative reporting and in tracking campaign financing. The other is Amy Eisman, director of writing programs at SOC, a long-time editor who has devoted much of her time recently to teaching Web writing and presentation both in the classroom and in the newsroom.
