Yule Heibel's Library tagged hyper_local →  View Popular, Search in Google

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The city website of my dreams would not only let me find relevant information, process transactions, lodge complaints, and communicate with elected officials. It would help me connect with my neighbors.

When I move into a new neighborhood, I wish I could go to the city's website and join a group for my block (or a collection of several blocks) -- complete with discussions, event calendar, photos, videos, and listings of relevant city services, businesses, nonprofits, neighborhood associations, and so forth. That way I could plug in and get to know my neighborhood (and my neighbors) quicker than ever. I could browse archived discussions to see what issues have been on my neighbors' minds, peruse photos and videos from recent block parties and festivals, and check the calendar for upcoming events. And if I moved to a new neighborhood, I could just quit the online group for my old neighborhood and join my new one, taking my profile, friends, and history with me.

Such a platform would give me and my neighbors a powerful tool to self-organize -- everything from potlucks to crime-watch patrols, yard sales, childcare swaps, street cleanups and community meetings about city policies of interest to the neighborhood. We could organize car-, bike-, and tool-sharing coops. It would give us a quick way to share alerts about burglaries or fires.

And it would give the city a powerful way of targeting communications to specific blocks. Need to clear the street because of a snow emergency, tree-trimming, or a broken water main? Just send a message to that block's listserve and word will spread fast. Add an SMS gateway to send text messages to residents' mobile phones and word will spread even faster. Connect it all to a CRM database and an Open 311 system and you've got a powerful tool set for citizens to engage with the city not just as individuals, but as groups, as neighborhoods, as communities.
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zanby_blog community neighborhood hyperlocal hyper_local gov2.0

Blog post by Steve Sherron on why and how to do hyperlocal blogging.
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"...I am convinced that my best chance for success is going to be in my local market. I have discovered since I began this journey that local folks are starving for attention and publicity for their business or organization. Most do not understand SEO. Few have web sites. There is a gap and a need just waiting to be filled."
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Interesting tips on SEO etc.

hyper_local blogging media newspapers steve_sherron hyperlocalblogger how_to

Article that chronicles the role of blogging in the creation of new hyper local / local news eco-systems.
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For readers, the blogs are providing news in ways unseen in traditional local news media.
(...)
Like other journalists who run news sites, Paul Bass, New Haven Independent’s editor, does not consider himself a blogger.

“We’re a news site,” Mr. Bass said.

To underscore the difference, Mr. Bass said the site has three full-time reporters and one part-time reporter, all paid for by $185,000 in grants, corporate sponsorships and private donations. The site’s coverage, he added, helped remove a city budget director, change city towing policies and shame board of education members into better attendance, after it publicized the fact that the board’s truancy dwarfed that of city students.

“A lot of neighborhood boards weren’t covered until we came around, so we’re just showing up,” Mr. Bass said. “That’s the promise of hyperlocal journalism, as opposed to blogging.”
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nyt blogging hyper_local local_news placeblogging

Chrysanthe Tenentes of outside.in put together a useful "guide to great local blogging" in 6 easy-to-follow points.

outside.in hyper_local local_news blogging

Much to think on in this great interview by James Bash with Douglas McLennan, the founder of ArtsJournal. "Curation" is definitely my word du jour -- I've seen it come up again and again recently, in relation to *very* different products and businesses (clothing & retail, for example).

It leads me to think that "curation" is something that's evolving out of "filtering," which in turn was something that sort of / kind of evolved out of (or related to) "gatekeeping."

The latter always struck me as something almost hateful, in the sense that gatekeepers protected the various walled gardens to which access was limited or even forbidden. Gatekeepers weren't there for me, they were there for "them."

Filtering in turn proposed the notion that users (me, we) should set their own parameters -- it's potentially democratic, anyway, provided we don't let overlords filter for us. DIY filtering can be smart, letting us develop efficiencies in how we access and consume information. But filtering done by censors is bad.

Curation can be equally two-edged (like filtering), but it now introduces another aspect: perhaps trust? Some sort of acknowledgement of expertise, or sophistication? Good curation, however, done on a digital platform, is open, accessible, democratic, and transparent.

Perhaps curation is an open, acknowledged re-insertion of the human aspect -- which "filtering" can strive to eliminate via automatic settings and controls.

crosscut artsjournal douglas_mclennan blogging business curating curation filtering hyper_local

- great video, some interesting info.

seattle youtube local_news blogs bloggers west_seattle_blog hyper_local

- note the ref to the "instant journalist" blogging software: this could be really useful for setting up a MC blog...??

crosscut local_news blogs hyper_local seattle neighbourhoods