Thoughts on the future of Hyperlocal blogging / newscasting

WILL PERRIN with his thoughts on the "Future of Hyperlocal" in the UK. Interview conducted by Hannah Waldram of Guardian Cardiff:

Talking About Local Community Websites #TAL10

THE HEDON BLOGGER is delighted to be in Leeds at the weekend taking part in Talk About Local 2010. This event will bring together some of the most enthusiastic hyperlocal publishers in the country.

The event has been organised at the Old Broadcasting House in partnership with the Guardian newspaper's Local Initiative.

All the key things that help and support community and local newsgathering websites to continue to bring you the local 'news' will be under discussion.

Unlike a traditional 'conference' the items under discussion are not arranged by the organisers in advance, but arranged by those attending on the day. Whilst this might seem chaotic, in actual fact it ensures that people get to discuss what they really want to.

However, early pre-discussions indicate that sessions are likely to take place on:

• Newsgathering methods
• Covering the General Election
• Meeting the costs (even a 'free' blog costs!)
  
• Hyperlocal - the next steps?

I wrote about last years event which was inspirational and had me buzzing for weeks. I expect to come back with the same fire and determination from this event!

For those of you on Twitter, then you can follow the event at #TAL10 search.

New Hedon Blogger site evolution.

ONE OF THE KEY ISSUES facing Hperlocal news gathering websites is making the activity sustainable - i.e. making it pay. This does not necessarily mean making a profit but in my case means not running at a loss!

In the case of the Hedon Blog then I was faced with the most likely prospect of migrating from wordpress.com to the self-hosted wordpress.org. This article .com v .org shows the difference between the two open source alternatives - one crucial difference is that .com does not allow the placing of advertising links on its platform.

Wordpress.org would allow me to run adverts on the Hedon Blog but I would have lost a valuable part of one of the unique selling points of wordpress.com i.e. it's free, fairly easy to use and quick to set up; any community group can quickly set up a blog/website and get their 'voice' online. 

I had originally discounted Blogger as an option because you cannot construct websites with pages as is the case with Wordpress and their standard themes were a bit limiting. However, on closer inspection - and inspired by the Coconut Grove Grapevine - then I have started constructing a Blogger-based alternative. I have used a free-to-use professional theme from Ourblogtemplates.com which allows me to increase the number of columns and offer different options for the placing of adverts. It is early days of construction but the basic outline of the site is available to view here at HU12.net. I have also purchased the domain name hu12.net.

Having built up a community or readers and participants at The Hedon Blog, then any migration to a new site will have to be done carefully and sensitively over a set period of time. Initial thoughts on this are that I would keep the Blog as the community website featuring voluntary and community sector events, meetings and activities. All other news would feature on HU12.

An exciting - but scary - period of development opens up over the next few weeks!

Hedon #hyperlocal blogging is simply active citizenship

MEDIA PROFESSIONALS, journalists and other enthusiasts are debating the benefits of "hyperlocal" web publishing i.e. very local reporting of information and news and citizen journalism. They argue that this is a form of local journalism that points one way towards the future of news broadcasting in the UK and globally.

Media organisations will get bigger in the future and dominate national and international news, but they also need to get smaller and meet the news and information demands of those living, working and trading in neighbourhoods, towns and villages.

The debate will go on and the big media organisations will grapple with making the hyperlocal model sustainable and how to utilise citizen journalism - meanwhile small scale local community websites will continue to bring local issues and events to the attention of local audiences.

Is the Hedon Blog conducting "citizen journalism"? I think not. Enthusiasm for a task - even tempered with experience - can never really compete with professionalism gleaned through training and study. However, where the Hedon Blog can compete is by acquiring and using local knowledge to become an active citizen.

Being an active citizen in the area where you live need not be difficult. Simply, it requires being curious about where you live, a willingness to share your curiosity with others - and a sense of indignation when things do not seem right and fair and a willingness to take action. You need to discover the lines of communication that exist in all communities - both formal and informal - in order to convey your message effectively and have an influence.

My work on the Hedon Blog today consisted of a short shopping trip with camera in hand. In 45 minutes I'd acquired a lot of raw information about my community and material to develop for articles on the blog. The image shows this raw material: Clockwise (left to right):

1. Activities planned for Hedon Methodist Church which can furnish an entry for the 'What's On' page.
2. Landscape work by the local council which involved pruning down some 'popular' trees.
3. Notice of a Police and Communities Forum in the Town Hall.
4. Yorkshire Electricity works on underground cables - what's happening here?
5. Yorkshire Water worksite left flooded and unattended - again what's happening?
6. Possible closure of local convenience shop? Victim of the recession?
   

Each of the above are possible leads for a blog post. With a little bit of digging then stories of interest to my local area can be unearthed.

I'm not sure that a journalist drafted in would be able to see the same potential from my short stroll that I can!?