Invisible Inkling

Ryan Sholin on the future of newspapers, online news and journalism education.

All About hyperlocal

Why Citizen Shovelware doesn’t work

January 17, 2007 – 8:33 am

…or “Sometimes hyperlocal just ain’t enough.”
Community site engine/citizen journalism startup Backfence (Here’s the Palo Alto version.) appears to be well on its way to falling apart.
Why?
Because people don’t want to participate in your brand, they want to participate in their community.
I don’t know if YourHub, a hyperlocal site framework developed by the Rocky Mountain News, [...]

How your newspaper can monetize citizen journalism

November 8, 2006 – 9:58 am

The traditional way: Content, community and local search build brand loyalty and page view traffic to sell your standard leaderboards, skyscrapers, squares and tiles.
Some fresher ideas pointed out by the NAA Presstime magazine:

Charge a little less for small businesses looking to advertise on your locally-targeted pages.
Let the community (i.e. the Little League) do the [...]

Required Reading: Rob Curley in Fast Company

October 24, 2006 – 8:38 pm

If you haven’t found the time to read this article about hyperlocal/multimedia journalism rockstar Rob Curley yet, now’s the time.
That’s right.
Stop what you’re doing, hit that link, and get some ideas:
“He was also tackling one of the industry’s toughest problems: how to engage the elusive 18- to 24-year-old set. His team did it by remaking [...]

The local follies: Finding the horizontal bonds in geographic communities

September 29, 2006 – 12:17 pm

[Ed. note: Yeah, so that post title sounds like a clever research paper title, which it could certainly be, if I had the time and the inclination.]
The Knight Foundation is giving away $25 million over five years to people like you with hyperlocal community news site ideas.
Now that I have your attention…
Online newspaper execs might [...]