The driving question is how can we better integrate the set of tools that we have inside and outside the real estate social network (a relatively content agnostic multimedia platform, geolocation engine, SEO capaibilities, Dynamic RSS capabilities, and our social network) to help you gain new business in ways that other tools don't.

One idea involves a return to our roots. ForSaleByLocals was originally intended to be a hyperlocal online sales platform for products and services. We especially wanted to be able to add structure to relatively unstructured data.  We define "relatively unstructured data" as being primarily free text with some textual clues as to location. Being able to automatically add such structure might be a potential way to overcome the "ghost towns" that many hyperlocal sites suffer from.  We'd also like to be sure that there is a hyperlocal feed that isnt just based on town name or zip code to help real estate bloggers find hyperlocal information that applies to them.

Also, part of our thinking is to combine all of the existing FSBL online capabilities into a multifaceted online platform that together go beyond the best advantages of each individual capability. We've started a demonstration of our thinking but it still needs some database performance optimization (translation: still slow). Below are some examples of what we are thinking:

http://forsalebylocals.com/localdata/M/english/United+States/FL/Orlando

http://forsalebylocals.com/localdata/M/english/United+States/VA/Charlottesville

The demonstration should work for most places in the United States.  Part of the demonstration is also looking for ways to test easy ways to access and format results. The link format is easy - URL/localdata/units of measurement (M Or K)/Language/Country/State/City (Note: Any spaces in country names or city names must be replaced with a "+" ).  We also can wrap geolocation data (read "add latitudes and longitudes") around just about any sort of relatively unstructured external data online.  In this demonstration, we've wrapped it around Twitter posts, Youtube videos, and Craigslist ads.  The craigslist ads will be more complete over the next week. 

It isnt a perfect system but we could just as easily wrap it around blog posts within a blogging network or many other things.  This is the power of maintaining an internal capability to geocode lat and long data.

We've also applied it to most  of the 83 countries that we have in our Geo database, however, the URL format is different outside the US (we'll add system wide town level search functionality in the next few days to make it easy to find any location)

If you are a member of our social network at http://social.vidlisting.com and have a public profile or shared media, this information will automatically be syndicated into a number of information distribution channels based on your location.

Let us know what you think.

This isn't an edifying conversation. There are no good guys and bad guys here. There aren't really innovators and curmudgeons either. Almost every round of layoffs/retrenchment occurring in the newspaper business today is born of desperation, and the people making the decisions, as John Zhu notes, are the people who made the all the overcautious bad decisions that brought us to this pass. There is no particular reason to believe they know what they're doing. The truth of the moment is, when an editor announces the latest round of layoffs and embarks on a plan to reinvent the newsroom, odds are it won't work. A year will go by, and we'll see another announcement, maybe with different faces, a different emphasis, but the same desperation.

A massive asteroid has struck, sending shock waves through the media ecosystem. Old species disappear very rapidly; meanwhile various mutations emerge but most of them die off too. Only a few new species will actually thrive, then diversify and take over. We don't know yet what they look like.

Such an environment is unforgiving. It rewards risk-taking, throwing paint at the wall and seeing if you get art. But rarely - risk-taking is still likely to fail.

Meanwhile, the default attitude of newspaper management is still caution and probity. And if you point a gun to the head of caution and probity and say "innovate or die," don't expect wonderful things to happen. Instead, expect buzzwords.

"Hyperlocal" is what market surveys say people want, and it makes a certain amount of sense, being the one thing a local newspaper can provide that the Internet cannot. But who knows how to do this well? Just scaling down the geography of coverage while using the same set of tools as before won't cut it. News gathering operations have to become more flexible and informal: interact with the community, open up the exchange of information and opinion, and above all forge an interesting conversation. That means being provocative, cultivating original voices so that your site is always saying something new and interesting - not just serving up what happened at the community association meeting last night.

In short: we need more paint thrown at more walls. But there aren't many true innovators out there yet in positions of authority, and those who are are struggling against an archaic institutional architecture that remains despite all the layoffs: everything from the strictures of AP style to the cluelessness of corporate overlords.

Hyperlocal news mapping website Everyblock has announced that it is launching in Charlotte, North Carolina and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Charlotte map will include library information, updating listings with new titles available locally and chart all local 911 calls to the police and ‘significant police events’ in the city.

The location of series crimes will charted on the Philadelphia map along with areas mentioned by the local authority’s Streets and Services agenda bodies.

Everyblock also has maps for Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

I wish this service had existed when I spent my first summer in Chicago back in 2000! I hope the current crop of J1 students heading stateside this year have found it.

Aggregating neighborhood data is an increasing area of interest. In January another site, Everyblock, launched a similar service that aggregates news, photos and government information, such as crime reports and restaurant health inspections. Everyblock, which has received a grant from the Knight Foundation, graphs all the data onto maps. Yourstreet, which maps news on down to the block level, is another similar service.

In addition to start-ups, giants such as Google and Yahoo are active in the local information space. Google recently release Map Maker, that allow people to create their own maps, and Yahoo has a service in India called Ourcity, and it has also licensed neighborhood information from Urban Mapping. How this will all translate into local advertising is key.

“It’s the placement, stupid” would work for newspapers’ in their efforts to make user-generated content successful.

But most newspaper websites place (“bury”) user-created stuff in UGC ghettos nowhere near the subjects they’re blogging or vlogging about.

If newspapers treated their own content the way they treat users’ content, there would a newsroom revolt and website anarchy. There would be no “news,” “sports,” “entertainment,” or “opinion” tabs. Everything would go under two tabs: “our stuff” and “your stuff.”

Oh, yeah, reporters (and readers) would LOVE that.

Editors organize and promote their reporters’ and photographers’ best stuff on separate pages by category, displaying it well according to what they think is the best, most compelling stuff.

Not reader blogs. First they bury them, then they don't promote them, then they gang'em all together with no rhyme or reason.

A post about a Little League game goes next to a post debating sex offenders in the neighborhood. A video post about someone’s kitty cat behaving strangely goes on the same page as a reader’s video of police beating protesters at a rally. Photos of dewy flowers go on the same page as reader pictures from a devastating fire.

That’s stupid.

What are editors thinking in their treatment of blogs? Do they really think that site visitors will go to a tab labeled “blogs” and just graze? They obviously don’t believe that holds true with their own high-quality work.

Put them in context, goshdarnit! And then promote them. People can't read'em if they can't find'em!

This absurd treatment reveals editors’ true feelings about user-created content: it’s not really worthy, but it is the rage so we’ll humor them but only allow them in their own little playground far away from our quality stuff.

Well, surprise, surprise: It’s not working.

And the lack of success of UGC on newspaper websites has people debating its merits. Amy Gahran (left) posted recently on PoynterOnline asking “Is Community News Just a Nice-to-Have?”

Some folks commenting on the piece are worried that the apparent lack of citizen enthusiasm for both generating and reading local content is an indication of all sorts of terrible things ranging from a failure of the education system to a failure of any “new” model of journalism.

If the editors put all their staff content under one tab and traffic plummeted, would they then decide their stuff wasn’t working, too?

Well, hell, we haven’t even given it a fair test yet!

First of all, most major metropolitan dailies don’t even allow non-staff bloggers on their sites, never mind in the pages of their papers (that’s stupid, too).

For those that do, we’ll have a much better, more accurate assessment of user-generated content when editors start putting it in the appropriate sections of their websites AND their newspapers.

They should keep the blog directories and most-recently posted blog lists for ease of finding a particular blog and for serendipity, but put goal #1 should be to put UGC stuff in context. And then promote it.

No promotion, no traffic. Put it in the paper and watch what happens. I did it at BostonNOW and it worked like a charm.

Until then, all this debate is almost pointless. It’s like saying a fishing lure doesn’t work when it’s only been tested in the bathtub!

But as the WSJ pointed out, the audience never developed.

Sure, there were things they could have done better with the site as it is. Better promotion on Washingtonpost.com, better grassroots promotion by attending community meetings would have helped, the creator acknowledged in his blog post about the story. But it seems that the site overlooks a key question in the success of hyperlocal initiatives. Is local news boring?

It sure can be.

The more local the news is, the odds are it's less newsworthy to everyone else. On our list of things that make a story newsworthy, proximity is just one. So if we weigh that one far more than the others, it will become less interesting to the general public. I think the best way to understand the way that hyperlocal does and doesn't work is through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. You might not think of them as news Web sites, but they are in the broadened sense that the Internet allows. A couple years ago, Facebook introduced the "news feed," a listing on Facebook users' home page that updates them with "stories" about what's going on with their friends. Candy changed her profile picture. John posted a link. Courtney changed her location. Perhaps the word to describe this news isn't local, but personal. Still, it can be the same thing for newspapers. The idea is that the more specific the news is, the more it will interest people. But this only works if people know one another. There's nothing that would bore me more than a stranger's baby pictures. But a friend's baby pictures will give me pause.

I don't see a lot of potential in the hyperlocal push without networking. We should harness the public's desire to self-publish to get users that interact with our web sites. Eventually, I'd like to see people have profiles on newspaper web sites, where they can advertise things they're selling through newspaper classifieds, invite people to events on the newspaper's calendar and follow their friends' comments on stories. The Internet has been a great forum for narcissism. And it's broken down the sometimes false authority of traditional media. If we're willing to dip our toe into that water, with comments on stories, for example, we should jump right in.

Ears pressed to the rail, divining speed and distance from minute vibrations, the gifted prognosticators in this business have for years warned of its coming. “And it’s very, very big,” they told us.

For years the prophets have been dismissed or ignored by some, but now smoke wafts up from around the bend and the whistle shrieks its echo off of canyon walls.

It's as plain as day to everyone that something is coming down the line.

Anticipating this fast-approaching new reality is difficult, as no one has yet spied its dimensions in full—it remains at best a guess about what is going to roll full into view.

Still, anticipate we must, and to this end 90.9 is doing some intelligence-gathering in the form of getting out to—or inviting in—those laying the tracks of a this new reality.

Steve Garfield at WBUR, originally uploaded by stevegarfield.

A couple of us in the new media department have sallied forth to events where we rubbed elbows with the ubiquitous Steve Garfield and other new media practitioners. Beantown media blogger Dan Kennedy spoke with Radio Boston, as has Peter Kenney, who is busy pricking his share of balloons down on the Cape. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention the blogging machine known as Adam Gaffin, interviewed on WBUR’s Morning Edition.

What other blog worthies should we meet and/or pay close attention to? Who is out on the front lines of the new hyperlocal journalism? Who or what is busy creating the new realities? What groups, associations, Tweet-ups or meet-ups should WBUR attend? What other examples are especially relevant to broadcasters like WBUR with a strong public service mission?

We want to listen and learn. Please tell us from whom.

Image via Wikipedia

Rob Curley of Lawrence, Kan., fame has given his detractors some fuel with an admission that he dropped the ball on the Washington Post's hyperlocal online community experiment, LoudounExtra.com.

The Wall Street Journal's Russell Adams writes about it on WSJ's Web site today. The Post isn't writing off the experiment yet, but Adams concludes:

"LoudounExtra.com remains little more than a skeleton of the site its architects pledged to build. One reason: the team of outsiders didn't do enough to familiarize itself with Loudoun County or engage its 270,000 residents."

Curley confesses that "I was the one who was supposed to know we should be talking to Rotary Club meetings every day. I dropped the ball."

Curley also cites roadblocks put up by the Post, though, such as a lack of links from WashingtonPost.com to help drive traffic and the legal department squelching a plan to mine Loudoun-related content from other Web sites, like YouTube and Facebook.

Perhaps it's too easy for those of us looking in from the outside to identify the problems: a team of outsiders who didn't try hard enough to know and recruit the community; company silos getting in the way of content sharing; business processes getting in the way of progress; company brass bedazzled by a digital darling who, perhaps, wasn't right for the job; a legacy company unwilling to bend/break the rules in the disruptive here and now.

But, damn, there are a lot of valuable lessons here for us as we build our own hyperlocal communities. No. 1 is know and be a part of your community.

Related articles

• He Said, She Said On WaPo's Local Online Experiment [via Zemanta]

Many would say that the approach Rob and his team did in Lawrence is very hard to duplicate and point at Naples and the Post as examples. In our industry people tend to look at Lawrence as an example for everything since Rob's departure- college sports, local political coverage and now marketplace (launched well after he left). Lawrence may have been the first to get a handle on convergence which helped them move quickly into doing more cutting edge things with video, photos and UGC but in 2008 it is now the standard.

So, whether Rob is a genius that created the hyperlocal movement or someone who was in the right place at the right time, he definitely painted a picture that we all try to copy or improve upon.

Peter Krasilovsky did a very nice interview with Rob which covered his time at The Post and his move to Las Vegas.

I also read a very nice piece on HyperLocal by Laurence Hooper at Think Locally. He challenged the work that Rob and his team did at The Post and basically said... It isn't local or at least didn't feel local to him. His company Loladex is based in Loudoun County, Va which is where The Post launched their first hyperlocal section.

Here is an excerpt from his post-

Here’s my own definition: It’s the things we wonder about as we walk (or drive) the streets of our community. Today, for instance, I was thinking —

• What’s with that used-book store? The sign in its window seems to say its business is failing.

• What’s the asking price for that house? What does it look like inside? Why are they selling, anyway?

• Have any of my friends been to that new restaurant? Could I take the kids?

You were thinking completely different things, I’m sure. And that’s the point: Hyperlocal should be relevant to you. It should be about your day-to-day concerns in your local community. Those definitions are personal, so hyperlocal must be personal, too.

His point about it being personal is good but can any site really reach the tastes, needs and desires of everyone?

I think it is possible.... but not initially.

The first approach should be to hit the common interests of the community and then use the voice of the people to help move the site into a true hyperlocal direction.

Related Posts

Derek Anderson- Loudonextra.com- Can it get local, local.

The Wall Street Journal- Big Daily's 'HyperLocal' Flop

Why in the world would reporters and restaurateurs care about me? Because I blog about the town I live in. About 4 years ago I started a blog about my town. What started as me plinking on the keyboard about my favorite local wing or beer joints for an audience of my friends and family who humored me is now a group blog with 200 plus subscribers and out 30,000 page views a month. Ok so it's not Techcrunch or Boing Boing numbers, but it still amazes me.

I'm not writing this to toot my own horn. In fact I'm still amazed that reporters call me or people read the blog. The reason that I'm writing this is to encourage you to start a blog about your town. Or if you don't want to start a blog find one and participate (you'd be amazed, but there is probably someone out there already publishing insider news about your town), connect with your neighbors on Yelp!, or some other local gateway.

Local blogging is a great way to learn about the place you live in. For every nugget of information you publish you will probably learn double from tips or comments from the people reading your site. There has never been a better time to start a blog with multiple free platforms to use. Go ahead and give it a try you may actually learn something or make some new friends.

Toutefois, il ne faut pas confondre le site Internet hyperlocal et le journal collaboratif comme Centpapiers (100 % citoyen) ou OhmyNews (modèle hybride). Ces derniers sollicitent la participation des citoyens au niveau de la production d’articles. La finalité du travail effectué reste donc la même : rapporter des événements ou émettre des opinions. La grande différence qu’ils ont avec les organes de presse traditionnels est que comme ils ne discriminent pas au niveau des sujets abordés, ils permettent à des groupes marginaux de faire entendre leur voix. Le site Internet hyperlocal a une finalité différente : stimuler les échanges et faciliter l’organisation de la vie communautaire. Ainsi, dans ce modèle, les articles ne sont qu’une offre parmi tant d’autres.

Il y a donc plus de forums, de calendriers, les citoyens sont invités à rapporter des situations qu’ils ont vécu récemment et qui sont d’intérêt public. Il y a aussi beaucoup d’informations factuelles comme sur la collecte des ordures, sur les parties de hockey des différentes ligues dans le coin, par exemple. Des élus et des porte-parole locaux auraient aussi une place de premier plan et les citoyens pourraient échanger sur les questions abordées dans des forums. Finalement, comme les échanges entre citoyens sont encouragés la personnalisation serait de mise : plutôt que de rester anonymes, ces derniers seraient invités à se créer des profils et à donner de l’information sur leurs préférences et leurs intérêts. Ils peuvent recevoir des courriels avec du contenu les intéressant et des invitations à des événements, etc. De plus, après un certain temps, ils peuvent devenir eux-mêmes modérateurs. L’organisation, elle, s’efface et se concentre sur son rôle de modérateur et, à l’occasion de rédaction d’articles de fond.

Les sources de revenus
Encore une fois, la stratégie adoptée dans un site hyperlocal diffère de celle qu’adopterait un journal traditionnel : plutôt que de viser à augmenter ses revenus publicitaires en augmentant le nombre de visiteurs, il cherche à augmenter la valeur de chaque utilisateur. En effet, la création de profil et le fait que ses activités sont centrées géographiquement font en sorte qu’il est possible de tracer des portraits personnalisés de chaque utilisateur. Comme les probabilités d’achat sont plus hautes, les publicitaires seront prêts à payer plus. Parallèlement, les publicités locales et les petites annonces jouent une place centrale dans le modèle d’affaire pour les mêmes raisons : comme un commerçant peut s’attendre à de meilleurs rendements puisqu’il s’adresse à des résidents, il pourrait être prêt à payer plus.

Aussi, comme le site Internet hyperlocal est avant tout une plate-forme, il serait possible pour l’organisation de vendre des licences de ses logiciels ou même de lancer des sites similaires pour d’autres régions. Ainsi, elle augmenterait le territoire couvert et deviendrait plus intéressante aux yeux des annonceurs.De plus, comme, fondamentalement, le site hyperlocal cherche à permettre à ses utilisateurs de s’organiser, il pourrait faire payer certains groupes qui aimeraient avoir accès à des fonctions avancées comme des boîtes de courriels, des forums et des calendriers privés, ainsi que du soutien technique.

Il ne faut pas oublier que l’organisation qui gère le site Internet hyperlocal ne doit pas nécessairement être à but lucratif. Ainsi, elle peut chercher à se financer grâce au soutien de la communauté. Cette méthode de financement quelques avantages : les citoyens auront l’impression que le site Internet leur appartient, et comme l’organisme solliciterait directement les citoyens, il risque fort d’être plus à l’écoute et donc plus réceptive aux demandes de ses utilisateurs.

Auteur : Alexandre Cayla

Wyman, who notes that he gets three newspapers a day, gives a brutal assessment of one edition of the Arizona Republic's "Arizona Living" section -- which includes such interesting stories as "Free burrito for teachers, " "Post office food drive," and "Fight Crohn's and colitis" as well as

a short filler AP item ("Jump-start day sweetly, swiftly") about how the Tootsie Roll company has a new product: "Maxxed Energy Pops, a cleverly packed energy drink in the form of a lollipop." It’s almost hard to believe that life forms above the level of a somewhat dense tree sloth took part in the selection, editing, hed-writing and publishing of that piece of prose.

Yowza. I'm always wary of hyperlocal pushes because of the danger that papers will end up with lots of lame community-newsletter fluff like this. Of course there are ways to do hyperlocal that don't result in stories-as-boring-calendar-items; Wyman himself suggests a much better approach to one of the Arizona Living stories. So let his post be a warning to journalists everywhere, hyperlocal or otherwise. Please, please, don't end up like this:

It’s clear that everyone involved long ago had any bit of originality or innovation beaten out of them. They know that they can’t go wrong producing and designing the page to appeal to some imaginary doddering grandmother, so they scour the day’s press releases and then sit around and brainstorm to zero in on the bloodless, the trivial, and the utterly mundane.

It seems such a downright obvious thing to serve up news that is on a user's doorstep. The minutiae of life that's important because it is happening to YOU.

That's why I've called titled this post in such a provocative way. If your neighbour really was in court, you would want to know. Wouldn't you? Even a slapped wrist or an unpaid fine would be of interest despite not winning any 'scoop of the year' gongs. (Anyway, serial killer would be just plain alarming and think of the property prices!)

And property prices is where all this hyperlocal user education started. If you want to know something about your area, as a user you automatically go for the postcode. Upmystreet, Google maps . The clever bods at Teesside recognised that and are reportedly reaping the rewards with audiences and advertisers.

As someone from Boro recently told me about their experiment: "It's great. Like Facebook - but better!". Praise indeed.

But that's the exception and it's achieved by manually sorting content into postcode areas rather than by any technological wizardry.

So why then are most of the online solutions to providing hyperlocal news for a UK audience so poor at present?

Is it the fact that the technology is not quite there? The fact that most American towns and cities share names is a complicating factor as anyone whose been frustrated with attempting to get news on Topix , Google news et al will know.

But, of course, the news stories coming out in an online search can only be as good as the data going in, so is the issue just a case of lack of geotagging data at the source? 

It was reported that Northcliffe have been working on this so it will be interesting to see if that prompts changes across the industry and surely advances such as this technology to geotag live video will move this issue on.

I'd be really interested to find out how many mainstream media companies do geotag their content, at what point in the process and how it's proved useful or otherwise.

Some more links on this topic here;

http://del.icio.us/sarahhartley/hyperlocal

We've seen some so-called hyperlocal social networking sites overseas, such as i-neighbors, EveryBlock, outside.in and Yelp. They all function mainly as news or review sites, and do little to build real local social capital. If we want to live in a connected society, then we need to actually connect with each other as individuals and as groups. Enter USPLUS, a web-based initiative which aims to encourage groups, clubs and teams to list their focus purpose and associated details, promote their activities, network and grow.

The Pitch:

USPLUS is a place on the Internet for groups, clubs, and teams that provides:

• A free listing service, and over time a valuable resource for finding local activities worldwide.
• An easy to use solution for people to seek out group-based activities.
• A website (or add-on to their existing website) for groups to promote their activities and events.
• A Social Network to meet friends and make connections around real common interests.

Unlike many other social networking sites, USPLUS focuses on and captures group dynamics. People can be active or passive group members but still get value from and feel like they belong to their USPLUS community.

Accomplishments to date:

• Company set up in December 2007
• Appointed Board of Directors and Management Team
• Domain name secured
• Beta web site launched

Development plans:

• Market the site to an Australasian user base
• Develop features to maximise usability and stickability
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Target potential local interest groups with national exposure
• Develop premium service with subscription system
• Develop localised advertising system
• Get grassroots traction

Revenue model:

Advertising and subscriptions

Key Challenges:

• Establishing "street cred" with grassroots communities
• Scaling quickly enough before competition develops
• Pricing model in an untested market

Principals & Previous Experience:

Peter Cahill, Managing Director: Peter has experience in introducing digital technology into an analogue world, having done so in the prepress industry. Peter has also run a small full-service advertising agency, Fraser-Cahill Communications, and has experience in business management and the comms industry.

Ben Marino, Technical Director: Ben is a certified Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer, and has worked for Telecom and Sky City. He recently achieved a Media Design School Diploma of Internet Architecture and Development, graduating with honours and gaining an industry award for database design.

What they want from an investor:

• NZD 300,000
• Mentorship around Social Media and Marketing
• Access to networks which will help get exposure to at the right time

Dave's Commentary:

USPLUS is a young company with a big vision. There is a huge gap in the market for local communities to integrate online, and for groups and clubs to communicate with their members. As the print-based news media's demise accelerates, people will increasingly look online for local information. USPLUS has the opportunity to become the go-to resource for this kind of information.

Contact details:

Pete Cahill
pete@iqd.co.nz
Tel: (09) 3599 005

Note: If you plan to act on any information on this site, please be sure to read the disclaimer.

OurTown is een nieuwe speler op de Amerikaanse hyperlokale markt.  OurTown vertegenwoordigt 70,000 hyperlokale websites verspreid over de V.S. Op vlak van content werkt OurTown samen met lokale partners en correspondenten. Deze correspondenten houden bijna alle lokale advertentieinkomst, die zij zelf verkopen en veertig procent van de nationale opbrengst.

"We believe that the better a local editor’s site is, the more money he or she or they will make, so the incentive should be to make the site the best it can be.  Some sites will be better than others, though, and we will provide guidance to local editors who need improvement. As an example, we already are providing links to Roy Clark’s writing tips from Poynter."

"We are offering a free one-year license to the first 1,000 people who qualify and sign up to be local editors.  We encourage them to tell their friends and we extend their license for one month for every local editor that they bring on.  We encourage people to sign up as a team.  One member of the team may be better at posting the news; while the other might be a salesman... husbands and wives, two neighbors, etc."

"Our model is completely ad supported (including local classified ads) and we believe that a good local editor can make between $45,000 and $60,000 each year once they have built up a regular clientele in their area.  We will continue to sell the national ads, which we will split with the local editor, but the local editor retains all revenue generated by local ads after paying a monthly fee to the company for ad serving. Unlike the daily newspaper that needs to sell the $100,000 ad contract, OurTown editors can sell $100-a-month contracts and create significant income."

George Blake, Chief News Editor

http://wulffmorgenthaler.com/

That was the question that JEEcamp sought to answer: an 'unconference' around journalism enterprise and entrepreneurship that looked to tackle some of the big questions facing news in 2008: how do you make money from news when information is free? Where is the funding for news startups? How do you generate community? What models work for news online?

Half the attendees represented the people behind the mainstream media's attempts to get to grips with the web - the hyperlocal sites of the Teesside Gazette; the mapping and crowdsourcing of the Manchester Evening News; the blogs of the Birmingham Post.

The other half represented what is clear is an emerging cottage journalism industry: niche news websites; local blogs; citizen journalism and news prediction services.

Rick Waghorn's keynote speech on his experiences of establishing and expanding MyFootBallWriter set things going perfectly. In particular his negative experiences of Google AdSense found a very receptive audience: despite 400,000 page impressions over the summer, he said, his AdSense revenues were only $180, while in seven years the most popular Harry Potter website has earned only $6,500 from the scheme. Following proceedings online, Graham Holliday added: "Bang on on Adsense - I do around 50,000 per month and make $100 - $150 off of it."

The verdict from Rick: "Clearly if anybody is going to earn a living, it cannot be through Google Ads."

Instead Rick explained his own business model - a combination of old-fashioned local ad sales; a self-built ad service, Addiply; affiliate sales; and syndication to those big publishers looking to add more local coverage to their global brands.

This was an 'unconference', so after Rick's speech the emphasis was on discussion and exchanging experiences. The group discussing community spoke of the problem of users' "sporadic involvement"; of journalists not connecting with people online; technological barriers to instant publishing; the need for journalists to become brands. There was an anecdote about bloggers recruited by the Birmingham Post 'scooping' the paper by scheduling embargoed news to go live the minute the embargo was lifted. (Not that the journalist concerned felt this was a bad thing).

The group discussing business models scratched their heads at the possibility of OhMyNews' tip jar model working elsewhere and why it didn't make a profit from ads and syndication; whether big publishers should buy up startups; and the problems of aggregation, Martin Stabe arguing that the only aggregators that had any chance of success were those that added something, such as geotagging.

The funding group talked of the importance of five year financial forecasts; how to tackle web-ignorant banks; why there was a need for a British equivalent of the Knight Foundation; and how angel investors want to see a big existing market because the risks of complete failure are lower.

And the online news models group discussed how journalism is not just about reporting, but networking; the importance of interaction on every level rather than simply forums; and the need to get out alerts, while ensuring accuracy.

The event was covered live by a team of journalism degree students using CoverItLive at JournalismEnterprise.com, which enabled people to contribute to the discussion - and create discussions of their own - online.

In addition there was a JEEcamp aggregator which pulled together blog posts, images, video, bookmarks and tweets following the event, and a Twitter aggregator pulling together tweets from attendees. Video of the event should appear on the European Journalism Centre website. Video of Rick's speech was live streamed by Mark Comerford.

Reflections on the event worth reading elsewhere include Azeem Ahmad's report on the day; Alex Gamela's online highlights; Journalism.co.uk's reports; Charlie Beckett on community; Pete Ashton on news as a game; and Rick Waghorn's blog posts written after the event.

The day ended with a panel discussion of some of the emerging issues. As I looked out at the people gathered it occurred to me that in ten years time one half would probably have bought out the other half.

The question is, which half will be which?

We were passing around a link today from New Media Bytes called "Break up the newspapers - go niche!"

...half of the content in the local paper is wire copy - written by the WaPo or the NYT. The local media outlets don’t cover the stories that are important to him.

...it really got me thinking. I wonder what percentage of the many local papers are filled with wire stories. I took a look at the paper I used to work for and still work with - the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

For Tuesday March 11th - there were 4 stories on the front page - 2 local, 2 wire. Section B & C the is the "Iowa Today" & "Sports" section fronts and were all local. It seems like there is a good bit of local content - but it sure makes for interesting talk and speculation.

You also have to wonder what percentage of the audience is getting their national news from the "local" paper. If you cut that out - there is a significant amount of savings in paper. And if someone is really fussy and still wants the nation stuff - lets add it to a special section which can be opted into on a request basis. Now we've cut a big portion of the budget in both wires fees and paper costs and can invest more into local community.

Hmmmmm...it really makes you think about what you read, is it local - or wire? I will have to be a little more attentive and check back in. (Oh hell - who am I kidding, I rarely read the paper edition.)

Let me explain, last week we had a bank robbery. Batesville and I treked to the bank (no one was hurt) stood in the burning cold and did what we do. So it was a lot of hurry up and wait. (They caught the suspects in Nashville and dude wore a wig that looked somewhat like this.)

It's all about the hurry up and wait these days. Because the paper I work for is not a daily and we do not have access to wire services like the Associated Press, we have to be creative. Our staff is wicked small and has an almost family feel about it. The community feels a sense of ownership for this paper which has been part of the town since 1884.

When there isn't a big news story, we rely on feature stories about people in the community. (There isn't always a bank robbery going on, campers.) We also rely a lot on what's going on in city board meetings and the like. You do find some juicy stuff in that but it only applies to what's happening in our area.

We were hyperlocal before it was a word.

Sports is huge (and probably sells more papers than anything) because some of these kids playing high school athletics will only appear in newsprint once. They aren't all like, let's say, Chad Clifton who's played for the Green Bay Packers for years now but grew up in our tiny burg.

I read a lot about viral marketing, new ranges of time for a news story (remember I've discussed the length of stories such as how long Watergate dominated the news in the mid-70s or even Iran-Contra 15 years later in comparison to, let's say, how long the Spitzer story is going to be in the news) and keeping up to date with so much available at one time and how it impacts our community.

The news watercooler time has changed with the Internet and with 24/7 news. It depends on what news is happening at the time.

I used to work in radio and I miss the immediacy of delivering that kind of news. Now it's a matter of finding what we will run front page when the cycle is already somewhat over.

And sometimes we have a lot and sometimes not so much but determining what our audience wants can give you a headache.

So, it's a lot of crunch time busy then some down time where we try to determine what our community wants but the crunch time is pretty intense. And we are in the midst of learning video which, believe me, is a challenge for my old tired ass but I'm enjoying it.

And we are reorganizing to a degree to make adjustments in the world of journalism. It's why I follow guys like Jack Lail and blogs like Music City Bloggers and TennViews, which in essence has the feel of a community newspaper. Demarcationville also keep us with this as well. I'm trying to learn. I have hundreds of sites in my feedburner about the changes in news.

It's challenging.

Things are changing and this is always on my mind.

Communities As Abstractions of Geolocation

Hyperlocal by definition has a dependency on geolocation. Every location on earth is part of a myriad hierarchy of geolocation abstraction that are based on tangible or intangible boundaries - the most often thought about abstractions are neighborhoods, counties, states, etc. These abstractions often form the sense of formal and informal community for many people - what one person considers "community" may different greatly from what others consider.

Abstractions as Currency For Communicating Useful Information

In many ways, the level of geolocation abstraction is a representative "currency" for informational requirements and often provides a personalized way to think about about community at different levels.  It's important to correctly align the leve of abstraction with the requirements. Choose the wrong currency and the transaction might not make sense. For instance, using congressional districts (which are abstracts of geolocation that can span demographics as well as towns, counties, and zip codes) makes a lot of sense in the context of election results because the currency is the same as the success criteria. Election results might totally be different in a representative system when votes are aggregated by a different geolocation abstraction such as town or state or even nationally. This explains how a candidate can overall popular votes and yet lose an election. At the macro level, just meeting another American while traveling or living overseas can make an instant bond based on the geolocation abstraction of country alone.

Zip Codes and Town Names Might Not Be The Best Abstractions For Useful Data

So is zip code the right currency to use for hyperlocal blogging? Personally, I'm not so sure. I think about my zip code only a bit more than I think about my congressional district and feel about the same level of allegience to both. My chances of knowing a distant location's zip code is slim to none...well, actually just none except for 90210 and you know why that is...to be honest, I'd need to likely look it up each time. I don't even have an idea what state the 4 for zip codes in question are in. This could just be me but I'd need to have more of an emotional connection to a level of geolocation abstraction to think in terms of neighborhood or community than zip code. 

Town names have many of the same issues as zip codes albeit a stronger connection. There is still the issue of being located across the street from the dividing line that zip codes have. Just because I may live in {insert name of your town here} doesnt mean that I don't have hyperlocal interest in one town over.  The lines are simply too arbitrary.

Much like the misfit of the number of hot dogs in a package with the number of hot dog bus, we tend to use zip codes and town because that's how the information most often comes packaged. It's an easy abstraction and the path of least resistance.

Using The Raw Data of Latitude and Longitude

The FSBL geolocation engine uses latitude and longitude as our platform's internal geolocation currency. It's like using raw data rather than summarized data. Most people know what town or city they are interested in and we convert that information to a lat/long.  The math to determine a reasonable radius around that base lat/long is fairly trivial and works across the world. Just about everything in our web engine database has geolocation information wrapped around it making geolocation matching an easy process.  The link is from 2006 and is still very valid - sound functionality never goes out of style :P 

The best part of using lat/long is that it spans other geolocation abstraction boundaries. This is beneficial to both information providers and consumers of that information.  Users dont need to know what towns or neighborhoods are close to each other or what zip code they are in. In a sense, we've abstracted away the abstractions.

Suggestions For Next Steps

- wordpress plugin which allows town level lats and longs to be wrapped around blog posts

- integrating photos and videos posted by others into hyperlocal blogs by using lat and log information from photo and other media upload sites that support them.

- syndicating hyperlocal information and media so that it can be aggregated across hyperlocal sites

See Also:

Real Estate Websites of the Future
Linking Real Estate Content With User Context: Putting Better Faces On Contextual Content
Aggregating The Long Tail: Making Micro Useful
The User As The Center Of The Universe: Integration Of Real Estate Video And Geolocation

[ comments allowed ]

WALLINGFORD - The ability to find public access shows while channel surfing will play a central role in a struggle between public access advocates and AT&T's new television service, U-verse.  U-verse will group all of the state's community access channels under one U-verse channel, channel 99. After selecting 99, viewers could choose their desired public access program from a menu.

Not offering public access on a regular "surfable" channel will be detrimental, said Scott A. Hanley, manager of Wallingford Government Access Television. He said many people like to flip quickly between public access and other channels.  "This would just be an added obstacle to try to bring people to view the channel," he said.
http://www.myrecordjournal.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=19363828&BRD=2755&PAG=461&dept_id=592708&rfi=6
~

New take on an old lesson
by David Callender
The Capital Times (WI)
03/05/08

Adults of a certain age may recall the 1970s children's TV series "Schoolhouse Rock" that set lessons in American history, civics and other topics to a catchy rock beat.  And, of all the episodes on the show, probably one of the best known was "Just a Bill," featuring a talking piece of legislation that showed how a bill becomes a law.

Now with the help of Madison cartoonist Mike Konopacki and musician Peter Leidy, the reform-minded Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has turned the classic lesson into a more jaded look at contemporary politics called "Statehouse Crock."  The video on the group's Web site (www.wisdc.org/crock.php) shows how it sees special interests rigging the legislative process and keeping ordinary citizens like "Just Bill, I'm only Bill" from getting access to lawmakers.,,

Cable applications

In the wake of a new law deregulating the state's cable TV industry, five cable firms have already filed applications to provide TV service to Wisconsin consumers.  And one of them -- AT&T, which led the deregulation effort -- has already had its application approved by the Department of Financial Institutions, the pro-deregulation group TV4US announced Tuesday.

The remaining applicants include other major industry players: Charter Communications, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and CenturyTel.  Advocates of deregulation argued that the bill would open the state up to more competition between cable providers. Under the old state law, cable providers had near-exclusive access to operate under franchise agreements with each community.

In a response to the group's announcement, the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities said it is "imperative" that communities where the cable companies are seeking to locate contact the state and identify the terms of their old franchise agreements. The old agreements required cable companies to help pay for community programming -- known as public, educational and government channels -- in exchange for the right to operate.

"Failing to provide information on the number of PEG channels, PEG support and franchise fees to a video provider within 10 days of receiving notice of its application could lead to dire consequences: loss for months of community access and government channels and franchise fees," the alliance warned.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/275710
~

KREX Rising
by John Linko
John Linko (CO)
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

--->   The quarterly membership meeting of Grand Valley Peace and Justice is tonight at 7:00 PM at the St. Joseph Church offices at 3rd and White, across the street from the church. The group's meeting announcement indicated a discussion on alternative media will be part of the agenda.  This will hopefully include the development of a working group with certain benchmarks to achieve, and one of those will hopefully be persuading the City of Grand Junction to request the activation of their PEG Access Channel on the basic cable tier, which is part of the City's current franchise agreement with Bresnan.

The recent developments surrounding the partial resurrection of KREX, through cooperation between media outlets, the sharing of equipment and space, and the rapid deployment of alternative programming sources, displays very well the level of expertise and goal-oriented thinking present in our local media and educational institutions.

What's to stop the development of a coalition of these groups and outlets to provide for the space, equipment, organization, and administration of a community public access channel in Grand Junction? The answer to this and many other questions may make themselves better known starting this evening. Such a resource is long overdue in our community, as there are successfully-run examples (http://www.dcat.tv/) of such stations in smaller cities and towns across the Western Slope.   --->
http://johnlinko.blogspot.com/2008/03/krex-rising.html
~

Jackson examines its cable contract
by Fraidy Reiss
Asbury Park Press (NJ)
03/05/08

[ 2 comments ]

For four years now, Cablevision has done business in this town without a franchise agreement to regulate the company's presence here.  Soon, that might change. The Township Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday evening at the municipal building on a proposed 15-year agreement it has reached with the cable company. If the council approves the deal, it will head to the state Board of Public Utilities for review.

The town has been negotiating with Cablevision on and off since the previous franchise licensing agreement expired in December 2003. A major sticking point was the town's insistence that the cable provider keep its discount for low-income seniors at 25 percent off basic cable-television rates.  Under the proposed deal, the senior discount would remain at 25 percent. Additionally, Cablevision would give Jackson a $7,500 grant the first year of the agreement and $4,300 per year for the next 14 years, for the town to use for any cable- or telecommunications-related purpose.  The deal also calls for Cablevision to give Jackson its own public-access channel.

Councilman Scott Martin said he would like to see that channel in place by summer. It would be used to broadcast community calendars, school events and advertising for local not-for-profits, he said. "To get information out to the public about what's going on in town," he explained.  Children would be thrilled to see their school events on television, added Councilwoman Emily Ingram, who predicted the public-access channel would "bring the town together."   --->
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080309/NEWS01/803090345/1070/NEWS02
~

Council happy cable pact is shorter
Five years is time for innovations
by Nick Kotsopoulos
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
03/05/08

[ 14 comments ]

City councilors last night applauded the new cable television deal the city has struck with Charter Communications, saying its shorter-than-usual term will benefit local consumers in the long run.  The councilors are betting that by the time the cable license renewal runs its course, technological advances in the cable field will reach the point in which additional companies may be interested in coming to Worcester to provide service.  They believe such competition would not only help lower cable rates, but also improve service and programming...

Traditionally, the city has had 10-year contracts with cable franchise holders. But city councilors had urged City Manager Michael V. O’Brien to limit the length of this license renewal to no more than five years because of the rapid, ongoing changes in cable technology and competition.   --->
http://www.telegram.com/article/20080305/NEWS/803050643/1101
~

Net benefit
Cable pact charts course to fiber-optic forefront
Worcester Telegram & Gazette  (MA)
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

The most intriguing aspect of Worcester’s new five-year cable television contract is not what is in it but what is to be taken out.  For Charter Communications customers, the changes are apt to be largely invisible. The key elements are equipment upgrades for the public access, education and government channels and provisions to smooth the transition of the PEG channels to the digital tier over the next year.

In a radical departure, however, the city’s cable-based “institutional network,” owned and operated by Charter, will be phased out under the new contract. I-NET, the city’s communications link since 1993, was a technological leap forward in its day, but it now is inadequate for the city’s communications and business needs.

Replacing the I-NET will be a 20-mile fiber-optic loop linking about 100 municipal and school buildings. The cost of installing and operating the new network will be borne by a vendor to be selected through a bidding process. The vendor will recoup the cost by selling the vast excess capacity of the fiber-optic loop to public and private entities. Fees paid by the city for use of the network are to be offset by savings resulting from the phaseout of its existing infrastructure.

It would be only a slight exaggeration to say the change will be a revolution in municipal communications. The high-speed/high broadband network will transmit all forms of data, including e-mail and telephone links. It also will be available for security and energy-management monitoring, fire detection, wireless technology and more.   --->
http://www.telegram.com/article/20080305/NEWS/803050344/1020
~

An urgent call: Give us broadband, Vermont towns say
by Daniel Barlow
The Barre Montpelier Times Argus (VT)
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

Vermont voters sent a clear message to the world of high-speed Internet Tuesday: We want in.  Voters in at least 19 towns approved non-binding resolutions to join in a regional effort to bring high-speed Internet via fiber-optic to their homes during town meetings held early this week and over the weekend.  In all on Tuesday, at least 13 towns approved the resolution to join the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network and organizers of the effort anticipate a full sweep of the more than 20 towns that had the item on their agenda once all the results were in.   --->
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/NEWS02/803050363/1003/NEWS02
~

A Conversation with Laurie from the Community Media Center
by Marie-Claire
Digital Inclusion in Grand Rapids, MI
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

On Thursday, I had a brief but interesting lunch conversation with Laurie from the Community Media Center here in Grand Rapids.  We first discussed some of the CMC programs in place for area nonprofits and residents, http://www.grcmc.org/nposervices and then talked about a new program coming out once the city gets its WiMax working. It’s in charge of eventually processing and granting up to 5% of the area’s residents discounted rates on WiMax. They have also taken the task of traveling to local schools and talking about the available WiMax discount to schools.

So there will be education about our new wireless access, and discounted rates from an organization in the city. I’m not meaning for that to sound small, I mean for it to sound like a step in the right direction.  I explained to Laurie about our project idea. I talked about the pilot program, the gaps in the system, and some other stuff we’re working on. She seemed genuinely excited. She all but volunteered a venue for the pilot program when I explained some of our current stumbling blocks.   --->
http://forgr.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/a-conversation-with-laurie-from-the-community-media-center/
~

Community for Hope develops TV series
by Aldrich M. Tan
The Northwestern (WI)
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

Lisa McLaughlin said she’s always a little nervous before going on camera.  However, the topic of bullying prevention programs is an important and familiar topic for the South Park Middle School principal so it was very easy for her to talk.  McLaughlin’s interview will be part of a television series that Community for Hope of Oshkosh is producing with the help of Oshkosh Community Media Services. It is part of a six-part series that started airing last month and will feature area people addressing mental health issues and suicide, executive director Mary VanHaute said.   --->
http://www.thenorthwestern.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/OSH/80305164/1987
~

Obama Speaks Part 6
The 411 Show (TX)
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

Obama makes his campaign stop in San Antonio Texas for the 2008 primary election. Part 6. This clip aired on San Antonio Public Access TV.
http://411show.blogspot.com/2008/03/obama-speaks-part-6_05.html
~

Oregon Law Librarians (back) on TV: Topic: Family Law
by Laura Orr
Oregon Legal Research
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

On Thursday, February 28, 2008, from 8-9 p.m., the Clackamas County Law Librarian, and I, the Washington County Law Librarian, appeared again on "Legally Speaking" with the host of the show, attorney Jim Hilborn. The subject was family law. (We also sent some photos from this show into the AALL Day in the Life contest so stay tuned.)

Some of the legal information sites we talked about included: OJD Family Law website;  Legal Aid Services of Oregon; Oregon State Bar public information; Oregon Council of County Law Libraries (OCCLL) Directory.

Legally Speaking is a call-in cable public-access TV show that airs live on the 4th Thursday of each month, out of the TVCTV studios in Beaverton, Oregon and is rebroadcast at different times throughout the month on Portland metro-area cable access channels, Channel 11 or 23.   --->
http://oregonlegalresearch.blogspot.com/2008/03/oregon-law-librarians-back-on-tv-topic.html
~

Video Jam to Air at Drake University, Iowa
by Tracy
WCCA TV (MA)
03/05/08

[ comments allowed ]

Video Jam, WCCA TV 's local originated music video show, created by Mauro DePasquale and hosted by Tracy Foley, has been asked to present their show on the Residence Life Channel 7 at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa! Video Jam has produced over 500 shows since 1992 and it is seen not only in Massachusetts, but New Hampshire, California, North Dakota, and now Iowa!
http://www.wccatv.com/node/12100
~

Stars Shine in Sunshine Week Print, Broadcast Public Service Ads
American Society of Newspaper Editors
The Earth Times
03/05/08

[ no comments ]

A series of broadcast and print public service ads featuring 13 actors, who are high-profile members of The Creative Coalition, speaking about the importance of open and accountable government has been produced for Sunshine Week, March 16-22, and can be used throughout the election season in conjunction with the Sunshine Campaign. The PSAs were developed by the Radio-Television News Directors Association and Foundation, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in cooperation with The Creative Coalition, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.   --->
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/stars-shine-in-sunshine-week-print-broadcast-public-service-ads,303943.shtml
~

AmericanTowns.com Offers Unprecedented Access to Local Information for Every Town in America
Network of “Community Webspaces” Provides a Better Way for People To Find and Share Local Content Online
Business Wire
03/05/08

AmericanTowns.com LLC today raised the bar in the hyperlocal space by launching a new version of AmericanTowns.com. This version, which features a new and unique “community webspace” for each town in America, lets local residents find and share an unprecedented combination of local information: community events, local news, train schedules, charitable organizations, local videos, farmers’ markets, jobs, real estate, privacy protection, “sales and savings,” local services and a host of online and previously offline community resources.   --->
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080305006021&newsLang=en
~

compiled by Rob McCausland
Alliance for Community Media
202-393-2650
web:  http://ourchannels.org
wiki:  http://peg.ourchannels.org

The past decade has seen more change in the craft of journalism than perhaps any other. Some of the changes have erupted into the mainstream; others have nibbled at the edges. Paul Bradshaw counts the ways...

From a lecture to a conversation

Perhaps the biggest and most widely publicised change in journalism has been the increasing involvement of - and expectation of involvement by - the readers/audience. Yes, readers had always written letters, and occasionally phoned in tips, but the last ten years have seen the relationship between publisher and reader turn into something else entirely.

You could say it started with the accessibility of email, coupled with the less passive nature of the internet in general, as readers, listeners and watchers became "users". But the change really gained momentum with...

The rise of the amateur

The blogs of September 11; the camcorder images from the Asian tsunami; the mobile phone images of July 7; the Facebook pages of Virginia Tech. If you needed to read about any of these major events, you could do so - if you wished - without opening a newspaper or watching TV.

The spread of cheap camcorders and video- and photo-enabled mobile phones, coupled with blogs and the viral distribution of the internet made publishers realise they were not only competing with each other, but with the readers themselves. And when a big story broke in public, they needed to be in a position to harvest what became known as "user generated content". Thankfully the NUJ's suggestion of "witness contributions" didn't catch on...

Everyone's a paperboy/girl now

If a newspaper didn't reach a particular newsagent, or viewers in the Cumbria region were experiencing difficulties, that simply wasn't a journalist's problem. Online, however, distribution has become part of a journalist's job description, whether they realise it or not.

From your Facebook profile to the way you respond to comments on your blog, a journalist's activity online has formed a key element in any news organisation's distribution (although few have yet realised this). Meanwhile, newspaper webpages have come out in a rash of 'Digg/Blog this' buttons, and Facebook applications from the likes of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have demonstrated how important it's become for newspapers to be where the reader is, rather than the other way around.

Just a click away

Amidst all the Web 2.0 hype it's easy to forget the fundamental characteristic of news in the online era: everything is connected; and the reader is only a click or a search away from something else. This has created major opportunities and challenges for journalists.

On the one hand, journalists can now link to full documents, previous reports, and unedited material. On the other, so can the readers. Material culled from wire copy is more easily spotted; and, as Dan Rather discovered, holes in your story can be quickly highlighted.

And while doorstepping used to be between you and the Dear Departed's family, its digital equivalent is so much more public. The game has been raised - but have news organisations responded?

Really Simple Syndication

RSS is one of the most underestimated innovations in journalism. At it's most basic level it means journalists can subscribe to a range of RSS feeds in one RSS reader - and therefore not have to keep checking back to dozens of original websites for updates. But the more people play with the technology, the more is being achieved.

For one thing, RSS enables very specific consumption: readers can now subscribe to just one section of a newspaper - or even one writer. In the Sun's case, they can subscribe to search results. In terms of production, RSS enables different bits of news to be aggregated: pick a source, any source, and mash it up into a single feed. It works for Google News, why shouldn't it work again?

Mapping

2007 saw some real experimentation with mapping in UK newspapers: the Manchester Evening News mapped fatal shootings in Manchester, the Grantham Journal tracked a "killer heron" and the Lancashire Evening Post mapped roadworks and speed cameras. The Shropshire Star used it to map fuel prices.

But 2008 should mark the year mapping and geotagging gets serious. Leading the pack are Archant, with their much-awaited geotag-based website relaunches. Journalists, says Web Editor James Goffin, can now draw on a map when they submit a story, or supply postcodes. He argues it will "make for a better archive and make reporters’ lives easier in handling cuttings and follow ups." The Telegraph launched the first stage of their dynamic Flash-based political map of Britain, while the BBC are using similar technologies for their proposed local website plans, which looks likely to further increase the pressures on regional publishers.

Hyperlocal, international

The internet has released news organisations from the limitations of physical distribution and broadcast - to the extent that news organisations have seen a new market for their old print products.

The Guardian, emboldened by statistics about website visitors, took its step across the Atlantic in 2003; The Times followed in 2006, and the BBC announced plans to sell advertising on its international site last year. And figures released last month showed visitors from outside the UK outnumbering the domestic audience for the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and The Daily Mail.

Conversely, "hyperlocal" has entered the nomenclature of the news executive. Trinity Mirror's Teesside Gazette's experiments with hyperlocal, postcode-based news led to print equivalents, and likely extension to the group's other newspapers.

Databases

The biggest untapped potential in journalism online is that of databases. So far we've seen some impressive demonstrations: ChicagoCrime.org famously drew information from a crime database onto a map of the area - and was followed by similar efforts at the LA Times and Washington Post (who added house sales and schools); The Herald Tribune, meanwhile, used databases in their coverage of how complaints against teachers were handled - readers could drill down to data in a specific school.

In the UK it's The Telegraph leading the way, with football coverage that pulls up player statistics to rival ProZone, an A levels results map, and a recently unveiled political map that presents information on how local services ratings have improved or declined. Developments such as these have generated debate about whether journalists should be taught how to program. The conclusion seemed to be that it was easier to teach programmers how to do journalism.

Measurability

Most read, most commented, most emailed. Hits, pageviews and unique visitors. If you felt your editor’s news sense was as bad as his fashion sense, the measurability of the web gave you valuable ammunition; but if you thought Performance Related Pay was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Multimedia

If the pen is mightier than the sword, what does that make a microphone, camcorder and laptop... in a wifi hotspot? Newspapers dabbled in podcasts in 2005, before really mucking in 2006 when video took off and print journalists started worrying for the first time about tea staining their teeth. Now print journalists are learning about white balance, and broadcast journalists are learning about local news. And everyone is waiting for an almighty fight.