My own thinking about the possibilities for building stronger real-world communities using online tools has been stimulated by two things in recent months. In early September my own site has celebrated its tenth anniversary with two unforgettable parties which brought together many of the people who have participated in our decade-long experiment in online neighbourhood-building.

And more recently I have taken part in two events – one organised by CABE and the other a more open workshop facilitated by mashup* – which have considered whether the fragmented ‘local web’ efforts by groups and individuals around the country can be replicated – sustainably – on a widespread basis.

What surprises me is how pessimistic people seem to be about the possibility of making local websites pay their way.

“…if you want social reporting to be a job as well as role, you can’t just do local,” claims David Wilcox.

“…there’s no sense that commercially-rewarding levels of activity are emerging in ways that will strengthen local social capital and community cohesion,” argues Kevin Harris.

And William Perrin, whose King’s Cross site I think is great, is similarly downbeat about the economics of local news.

I disagree with them all. 

Here in SE1 we have kept things ticking over for a decade – and I know that we are only scratching the surface of what is possible revenue-wise. 

I accept that we do have a uniquely exciting coverage area which effectively allows us to subside reporting of grassroots issues using the revenue from tourists staying at South Bank hotels, but even in areas that don’t have hotels and restaurants in such abundance I think our experience show that it would be possible to make a lean-and-mean neighbourhood publishing enterprise stack up.

• Pegasus News – This site was recently acuuired by a broadcasting firm. A very sharp site.
• Edhat – I particularly like the banner/display ads on this site
• Loudoun Extra – fascinating watching the Washington Post hyperlocal experiment. One to watch.

As I noted here previously TM is using Typepad for its postcode-based sites in the north of England.

I’m still not convinced that a blogging platform is the right choice for a local paper’s entire web operation.

Update: Jeff Jarvis likes it: “It’s simple. It works”

PS sorry for the break in service. I hope to resume regular posts here now.

The term hyperlocal, referring to deep local neighborhood and niche coverage, has bothered me for some time. Since we’ve launched, it’s occurred to me that there is nothing wrong with the term, per se — but it isn’t a term that well describes Pegasus News.

My problem with hyperlocal is that I don’t believe in it (and never really have) as a scalable business proposition. There are two inherent problems with hyperlocal: One is that, by nature, it creates such a micro market that there is only a limited number of advertisers and people for them to reach. The bigger problem is that it doesn’t account for the fact that I have at least as much in common with fans of alt-country music who live on the other side of town as I do with my next door neighbor.