The Hyperlocal Web

• Oncom’s back - for now
  Glad to see that the Online Communities Ltd network in Richmond-upon-Thames is back in action after a brief shutdown.
  (tags: Richmond-upon-Thames, oncom, London, local)
• Journalism is evolving and getting closer to home
  Is there such a thing as a “hyperlocal journalism movement”, as Rick Siefert argues? I guess there is.
  (tags: hyperlocal journalism)
• London Voices - London Neighbourhoods Online
  My SE1 website belongs to this informal network of local sites.
  (tags: London neighbourhoods)

• Front Porch Forum
  Only just come across this. Fascinating idea. Anyone doing this in the UK? I suppose upmystreet is the nearest postcode-based equivalent.
• Investigating Your Town — Let Everyone Look at the Map | NewAssignment.Net
  Gregory Korte, the Enquirer’s investigative reporter opened the map to the crowd. “We’re asking you to help us report the story by telling us what’s going on in all those places we can’t get to.”
• Emma Barnett: Local news is good news
  Report of a lecture by Ian Hargreaves: “Apparently us journos who want to make some fast cash need to be capitalising on the lack of local news coverage”
  (tags: local news, journalism)
• Social Networkers getting Picky at Front Porch
  Comment on communities of affinity v communities of geography

Journalism.co.uk reports that Trinity Mirror has launched a series of postal-area-based websites on Teesside.

An interesting first toe in the water, but I’m not convinced that the Typepad blogging platform provides the ideal framework for what they are trying to achieve.

James Robinson’s piece in last Sunday’s Observer is a timely look at how the big players are suddenly embracing hyper-local - both in print and online.

Mike Boland of Search Engine Watch (a shadow of its former self since Danny Sullivan and co moved to Search Engine Land) has a good roundup of some of the recent commentary on all things hyperlocal.

Greg Narain has a thought-provoking post:

It seems to me there’s a slight gap, let’s call it a blackhole, where the return on hyper local publishing has diminishing returns. Seems the distribution of interest has what resembles a Planck Distribution - does anyone remember these from school?

At the global and national levels, we’re interested and that increases as we get more and more local.  At the other extreme, there’s the “news” as it pertains to our families and friends - our personal news network if you will.  The gap, in the middle, seems to be where there’s a current leap of faith that there is tremendous interest in what we call the “hyper local” news.

Surely, there is evidence that people are willing to create this type of media content.  There’s even evidence that it’s being consumed.  Of course, that evidence is still sparse and, more importantly, not contextualized relative to the other spheres of media influence.

I am fascinated by the concept of creating and strengthening real-world communities using the web and associated technologies.

Since 1998 I have been publishing a community website for the part of London where I was born and grew up - SE1.

Almost nine years on from the first Tripod-hosted local website I created, it seems like everyone has started talking about ‘hyperlocal’ as the next big thing.

I’ve read so many articles and blog posts about hyperlocal news and citizen journalism lately that I thought that it was about time I joined the debate.

I’ve no idea how this blog will evolve. I intend to use it share interesting examples of community/neighbourhood web projects and to comment on what other people are saying about the field of hyperlocal news and information in the UK and elsewhere.