Last week I attended the first Local Social Summit in London - a day aimed at exploring the space where local content meets social media with attendees from a range of start-ups, directories, media companies, advertisers and media owners.
If you're interested in any of this type of stuff then all of the days presentations are available on SlideShare.
The two most insightful keynotes of the day were on a related theme - the impact and usage of social networking sites in comparison to how people, particularly the young, conduct their social lives in the 'real world'.
The first, 'Decoding Friends: A Generation Y View' by Robert Barnard was a research based piece with some interesting numbers:
15-29 year olds have an average of 43 online 'friends' based on recent research in UK, US and Canada.
Only 12% have more than 70 online friends
Numbers of face-to-face and online friends varies through different stages in life, whereas 'phone friends' remains fairly constant.
Following this, Bernie Hogan, a PhD from University of Oxford, presented 'Making Sense of the Networked Audience: The Case of Facebook' which provided some different numbers but similar conclusions:
A list of 12 reasons why someone might become an online friend with another individual
"Nearness is now a social property as much as a spatial one"
There was plenty of interesting discussion throughout the day and a chance to hear how a diverse range of companies are all moving into the local/social space looking for new revenue stream.
Some particular points of interest from the day:
"Obama had the same percentage of votes from young people as Bill Clinton - don't overestimate social media"
Heavy social network users are more likely to use newspapers and are more interested in local news than international.
MapZen - a free iPhone app coming soon from CloudMade that allows users to easily add points of interest to openstreetmap.
Yellix - a mobile app to help phone calls, e.g. Live directory look-up of unknown caller numbers so no more unknown callers.
And if you haven't heard about Flutter then you should take a look now:
My input involved a 5 slide presentation on the BBC's local services, a reflection that BBC Local Radio started doing local-social over 40 years ago, and then a lively panel debate on how local do you need to be to be effective and finding the right balance between content providers and content aggregators.
How local is local? What level of localness is most effective?
How will the market find the right balance between content providers and content aggregators?
The web makes the whole world social, so when does local matter?
The final item of the day will be hosted by Praized’s Seb Provencher and is titled, What does the Perfect Local Media Company Look Like in 5 Years Time.
The slides make for an interesting read and ask some really good questions... I'm looking forward to the session.
"While researching developments at the grassroots of community journalism, I've been impressed by the range and depth of coverage from local websites and blogs. This experimental project reflects both the shifting nature of journalism and the reality on the ground."
The successful candidate will be a confident blogger, know their yelps from their tweets, have a passion for local news and understand how to build relationships with the local community. A journalism qualification is desirable but not essential.
Quite correctly the report touches on different levels of localness, suggesting that audiences generally percieve a hierarchy that looks like this: UK -> My Nation -> My Region -> My Local Area -> My Community.
I like this, although I might be tempted to take out 'Local Area' and replace with My City/Town or something more specific. The word 'local' is far too ambiguous to be a useful definition.
At least this hierarchy removes the awful terms 'hyperlocal' or 'ultra-local' - 'community is a term that is much easier to relate to my surroundings.
Apparently the research showed that there are 69 media websites covering the Salford and Greater Manchester area... wow!
When it comes to the crunch, declining revenues from the traditional advertising model, there are some overdue numbers on how specialist online sites are taking all important audience away from traditional newspaper earners - think rightmove for property, Auto Trader for cars and totaljobs for recruitment.
Then a statement that "Local journalism is important because it underpins democratic participation in the UK" and it does this using four key methods: Informing, representing, campaigning and interrogating.
Next up, a panel debate on the proposal for independently funded news consortia to take over ITV's public service provision of regional news.
The basic story is that ITV are no longer required to provide regional news programmes from the point of digital switchover in 2012 and have said that, due to the cost, they will not continue.
Alex Connock, Chief Executive, Ten Alps - "We would take advertising slots on Northern Irish TV tomorrow if possible... without any news subsidy".
Ruth Spratt, Managing Director, MEN Media, unconvincingly tried to explain why additional public money is required to supply a regional news programme on channel three given that their Channel m is currently fully operational on existing funding.
John Angeli, Head of Content, Press Association - "It's not just about nightly news programmes, it's about content on all platforms".
The Press Association want to be suppliers of text, audio and video content for everyone to use across all platforms.
Michael Jermey, Director of News, Current Affairs and Sport at ITV then explained how ITV are intending to end their provision of regional news across the UK, thus saving them an estimated £68 million in production costs, but are intending to keep some ownership of the branding and look and feel of any regional news programme that takes that slot.
The current regional news time slot is estimated to be worth around £30 million in potential advertising revenue (totalled across all of the UK) which could be an incentive for independent consortia to come forward and produce a regional news programme for the channel 3 slot.
Oh, but Michael says ITV are intent on keeping any potential advertising revenue, saying that allowing independent news consortia to advertise in the slot and earn revenue would be the equivalent of top slicing ITV and this will not happen.
Michael Jermey, "We consider it our airtime, we keep the revenue".
Thankfully lunch arrived to save us from a discussion that, frankly, belongs in the past and should not be a part of the future.
Taking stock over lunch there was one thought on my mind... this is supposed to be a conference on the future of local media, not a debate on how to maintain regional television for another 15 years.
The afternoon began in much brighter spirit with Will Perrin, founder of Talk About Local, finally turning the conversation around to the subject of local and the future.
Kings Cross Environment is where it all started for Will, 800 stories in an area about 1 x 1.5 miles allowing local people to campaign, interrogate, inform and represent their small part of the UK.
The Kington Blackboard demonstrates where Talk About Local is going, aiming to train 3,000 people across the UK in the next few years in the tools, methods and techniques to set up websites for their own local areas.
Pits 'n' Pots, a website for Stoke On Trent, was hailed by Will as a perfect example of holding local democracy to account.
Want a local TV station on the Internet... try local.me, a simple model that Will and others have set up to quickly demonstrate how easy, and cheap, it can be.
So onto another panel discussion.
Robert Hardie, Content Strategy Director at Northcliffe Media said that "The Internet provides a mechanism for those people that have a story and want it published. We need to find a business model to fund journalism that can dig out the stories that people don't want published."
Neil Benson, Editorial Director, Regionals, Trinity Mirror followed that by saying that Trinity Mirror wants to expand their websites from the core business of news and sport journalism into local hubs with a much broader range of information.
Why? Because, he said, "we are hard to work with".
So, Steve Barnett from the University of Westminster asked from the back of the room, do we need professional journalists working for newspapers and broadcasters to reveal the local equivalent of the mp expenses scandal, to uncover police corruption, find the dirty hospital wards, and so on.. or can very local community sites do this?
Those that provided an answer could see a future that is already starting to exist now, where sites like Birmingham: It's Not Shit are starting to contribute to democracy in the UK, to inform, represent, campaign and interrogate.
Those that stayed silent were still trying to work out where they can find new sources of funding to prop up decades old business models that are about to die out.
Microsoft, through their MSN Local portal, are hoping to provide local news on a map, in partnership with local newspapers across the UK.
Peter Bale, executive producer of MSN, said: “We are hoping to take feeds from local newspapers and tag every piece of information to a map. Hyper-local news online has never been more important and we think this is a really interesting growth area.”
Very interested to see how this compares with Trinity Mirror's beta news map in Merseyside which has improved since it's launch last year but still does not feel very user friendly.
Geo-tagging news content is a really complex task and presenting this on a map defies the usual logic of consuming news in order of importance, can't wait to see how Microsoft tackle this.
Robin Hamman (@cybersoc) and I spent many an hour talking through this type of aggregation during his time at the BBC, primarily as method for BBC Local journalists across the UK to work more effectively with the local bloggers and active websites within their patch.
Sadly we never got past the talking part which is why it's really great to see something like this finally come alive, hooray!
Northcliffe and its digital arm Associated Northcliffe Digital have begun the roll-out of its ambitious plans for a network of hyperlocal websites.
The new platforms will be evenly distributed between areas with existing Northcliffe titles and those which are not served.
The sites are intended as platform for the local community and not as a traditional community news site, said Bryan, who said the network would be complimentary to the existing thisis network of regional news sites.
"What we are trying to do is to deliver a network of local sites that are aimed at providing local people in quite small communities a place and a space online to debate local issues," he added.
The sites look nice enough (See Exmouth as an example) and tick all the cliched boxes of current web design... a homepage segmented by round-cornered components, the ability to create a user profile, a twitter/facebook-esque status update, plus the standard newspaper diet of motors, properties, jobs and classifieds.
My concern is that the site already feels very busy and driven editorially by the desires of Northcliffe. There also seems to be very little recognition or attempt to integrate these sites with the existing blogs, websites, profiles of web active people already in the area - surely a key element of getting a foothold in any local community.
If you want to help local people in small communities get involved in their local space on the web then my hunch is that the Talk About Local approach has a better model.
Talk About Local is aiming to "empower 3,000 people directly in 150 places across nine English regions with a focus on the most disadvantaged areas." by offering free advice, training materials and support to anyone who wants give their community a voice online.
Talk About Local plans to work with UK online centres to give people the coaching and skills they need to use simple publishing tools such as popular free blog platforms.
4iP'sDan Heaf outlines the two main reasons for funding the project on the 4iP blog.
Firstly, it stimulates alternative voices bringing fresh perspectives to the web. This project is all about giving those without a voice online a chance to get themselves heard. With the emphasis on creating local sites we hope the majority of the sites will be local in flavour helping to fill the gap being left by the retreat of traditional local journalism.
Secondly, by giving voices to local activists the project continues to hold those with money and power to account. Again we hope this will take up and enhance the job once done by local newspapers.
Reading all of this made me think of BirminghamB29 which I started almost two years ago and has been gathering pace of late due to the attentions of pindec and citizensheep in particular.
There's nothing particularly "activist" about the B29 site but as an experiment in local publishing it proves that a truly local site, covering an area small enough to walk around in a few hours, will be of greater relevance and interest than most of the supposedly "local" services offered by the more traditional media.
In fact, my favourite learning from BirminghamB29 site is just how much there is to investigate, to write about, and to get out there and do, in such a relatively small area of the UK.
4IP and Screen West Midlands are making a major investment in Talk About Local to create hundreds of new community websites by giving community activists the simple skills
I hope that the T.A.L. team don't get overly hung up on the negative, almost political, focus that the 'community activist' tag suggests.
Often the power of a community lies in it's ability to have fun, to play together, and not simply when a group or individual feels that something needs to change.
...and I still wish that the ridiculous use of the phrase 'hyperlocal' could be banished forever! It's not hyperlocal, it's just local.
Diane Coyle, BBC Trustee and Chairman of the Strategic Approvals Committee, said:
"The Trust is committed to improving regional and local services from the BBC for licence fee payers but a broadband-only local video news proposal is unlikely to achieve what they want.
"Instead, we believe the BBC's priority should be improving the quality of existing regional services. We recognise that the ways of achieving this may vary in different parts of the UK. We have asked the Executive to come back to us with new proposals later this year which will then be fully scrutinised by the Trust.
The regional and local newspapers of the UK had an early Christmas present today with the announcement from the BBC Trust that it has rejected proposals from the BBC for adding video content to its network of local websites. (Disclaimer: I am involved in this proposal as part of my day job at the BBC.)
After strong protests from across the UK newspaper industry and local commercial radio operators and ITV Local, the BBC Trust has refused permission for local video "because it would not improve services for the public enough to justify either the investment of licence fee funds or the negative impact on commercial media."
Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, said,
"We believe the BBC’s priority should be improving the quality of existing services. The public wants better quality regional television news programmes and more programmes of all kinds produced in and reflecting their areas."
"Our decision today to refuse permission for local video means that local newspapers and other commercial media can invest in their online services in the knowledge that the BBC does not intend to make this new intervention in the market."
Tom Loosemore recently posted about the ability to search video footage from House of Commons debates on theyworkforyou.com, pointing out that:
The accessibility and searchability of the web transforms our ability to hold our elected representatives to account for their actions in Parliament.
Now hyper-local news mapping site Everyblock has launched in two new US cities, Charlotte and Philadelphia, and is testing some interesting new information sources which have the potential to take this accountability another step forward.
Everyblock Charlotte will be providing access to relevant information within city council meeting minutes and Charlotte zoning minutes (NB: Zoning rules regulate how land can be used. Landowners must get city council approval to develop property in ways that do not conform to current zoning classifications.)
We're analyzing the text of these meeting minutes/agendas for all locations referenced therein. If the city council or rules committee mentions something near you, you'll see it on your EveryBlock page. This is often highly relevant local information about zoning changes, etc.
Planning applications (or 'zoning changes' in US speak) have always been a great example of ultra-local information that are extremely important to the (usually) small number of people that they affect.
By making this information easily accessible, as well as a host of other related data around local services and civic issues, these sites could well lead the way towards a truly essential, ultra-local service.
Managing large sets of un-structured data, and making them easy to use, searchable and relevant is not an easy task and the location tagging and location based search mechanism will be crucial to the success of the project.
The Huffington Post is planning to expand into local news across the US, founder Arianna Huffington said last night, beginning with a site edited for the community of Chicago.
Huffington said the Chicago site would aggregate news, sports, crime, arts and business news from different local sources as well as contributions from bloggers in what will be the first of a series of projects in "dozens of US cities". The Chicago site will initially be curated by just one editor.
Maybe it's a reflection of the popular discussion topics in Chicago but I found it interesting, and slightly amusing, that the proposed content is listed as "news, sport, crime, ..."
"...I thought the two biggest problems with LoudounExtra.com were poor integration of the site with washingtonpost.com and not enough outreach into the community … ala basically me speaking with every community group that would have me."
Northcliffe Media have begun geo-coding stories produced on their "thisis" websites as the group prepares to introduce geographical targeting on the "next generation" of local news websites.
The 10 remodeled sites, including thisiscornwall.co.uk, are part of the plans to re-vamp the 55 existing sites and to add 35 new regional websites under Northcliffe's 'thisis' brand, by September this year.
Unfortunately the localisation functions are not currently visible, but should be available in a few months when there are enough geo-coded stories available to support the service.
This is a shame, and potentially missing a trick, as enabling users to watch the service develop from the ground up might have provided the opportunity for useful feedback on how the stories are being tagged.
Robert Hardie (Northcliffe content strategy director) has highlighted the difficulty in knowing how to tag an individual story with suitable location data - seemingly postcodes in this case - to ensure it is found in the right place by the right people.
In my mind the success of the service will depend on two key areas, neither of which is easy to get right:
1\ How flexible can a journalist be in tagging a story? Can multiple postcodes be associated with the same story if it affects multiple areas? Can a group of postcodes be used to illustrate a story is relevant across a whole region? How much granularity does the postcode tagging allow - postcode area/district/sector/unit?
2\ How will the visual design of the site allow users to access this content? The same questions apply as in the point above, but this time relating to the user. Can I search for stories purely on my street? Or across a wider area? And how will the editorial prioritisation of a big news story be reflected if I am searching by location rather than by size of story or time of publication?
I guess we'll have to wait a couple of months to find out!
The new sites' geographical targeting functionality will allow users to enter a postcode to find all the stories on the site that affect them. The localisation functions will remain hidden until journalists have built up enough stories with postcode data.
“It should only take month or two until we’ve built up that bulk of stories with postcode data attached to them,” said Hardie.
Because not all stories affect only one specific point, the company is finding geocoding challenging, Hardie said.
He said that while a traffic accident might affect only one location, a story about bed-blocking in hospitals would affect people over a wide area.
“On the one hand it’s opening up a major opportunity for us, but it also means we’re going have to learn new skills and make value judgements about how we tag stories with postcodes,” Hardie said.
“It’s a new skill that we’re going to have to get used to doing very cleverly,” he added.
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