What’s missing from sites focused on a city? Community organizers. It’s the same leadership dilemma facing any organization, whether physical or virtual. Hyperlocal sites need to be driven and organized by hubs and influencers of the local community, and these hubs need to feel invested and committed to their “city site”.
Hyperlocal “news” sites like Outside.In and Topix automatically pull feeds from local publishers to re-create a local newspaper. Although there are sporadic comments to articles, there is little community engagement. CitySearch and Yahoo! Local serve as online Yellow Pages.
Engaging hyperlocal sites need “word of mouth”
In many cities, the best hyperlocal sites are developed by somebody, some company or group in the community. In Santa Barbara, Edhat.com, developed by a local software company, has distinguished itself in providing compelling local content.
Hyperlocal social networks a la Ning generally don’t gain traction (show me one that does) because it takes too long for anybody to invest the time to set up a complete profile. Twitter makes hyperlocal communication easy because it can serve as a proxy social network for a local community that “follows” each other. There’s no login/profile setup requirement, just tweet.
Breaking News City sites that aggregate local Twitter feeds across various categories are being developed in cities across the country by individuals, and groups like chambers of commerces, who are hubs of their communities. They invest their time to create a useful hyperlocal community site by providing local Twitterers a venue to gain exposure in the community. There’s energy in facilitating the community conversation that “national” sites like Topix and CitySearch don’t have.
Example Breaking News City sites:
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This post is spot on Pat. I tend to look for local sites that have a person or voice behind them. I can imagine starting at Topix or OutSideIn – but I’d much rather use those once or twice to find a few good local sites and then make those my go-to destination.
Well, of course. You can’t really call aggregators “hyperlocal.” All they’re doing is collecting the work those of us who ARE hyperlocal news reporters/publishers are doing. But the voicelessness goes beyond the aggregators and afflicts some of those who think they can templatize “hyperlocal news” (see, Patch) … they have no business trying to do this. It is something that needs to come up from the grass roots, recognizing the unique conditions and opportunities in each community. (Note the differences among even those of us who are doing relatively well financially – such as our site, Baristanet in NJ, Paulding.com in Georgia – different platforms, different formats, different ways in which the site operators interact with their communities.)
Thank you David, Tracy… I’m pleased to hear confirmation that the organically grown hyperlocal community is more in tune to its needs than local news aggregators with corporate offices far away. The metaphors that pop up for me are: mom and pop vs. Starbucks / local news sourcing vs. bot headlines.
[my earlier post got eaten by the sp*m filter i think - can you recover it?]
community activists have a burning need to communicate to fulfil their goals as activists (improve the local school, organise a jumble sale, get the potholes fixed etc). So unlike many who post on the web they actually have something to say and a stake in saying it responsibly. they also do it for free.
the talkaboutlocal.org project i am starting up in the uk will help give community activists the skills they need to communicate online – these can be very basic and simple. we shall also emphasise how web publishing can save a volunteer time and money from their personal volunteering time and money budget.
we shall also give people their own sites that they own (say on wordpress.com), rather than try to shoehorn them into a hyperlocal aggregator platform and then sell ads.
as a community activist myself kingscrossenvironment.com the hyperlocal platforms have no appeal at all.
For an example of a local site with a strong leadership exactly like what you’re talking about, check out http://www.windycitizen.com
We’re also having some success in Santa Barbara with City2.org. It’s a bit more open/flexible than Edhat, allowing users to start their own blogs, keep a local profile and read aggregated local headlines. 200 bloggers strong so far and picking up momentum