Thoughts on Local Social Summit 2009

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.

LSS'09 Keynote Decoding Friends

View more documents from Local Social Summit.

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"

LSS'09 Keynote Decoding Friends

View more documents from Local Social Summit.

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.

The Perfect local Media Company in 2014

Tomorrow's Local Social Summit '09 in London promises to be an interesting and thought provoking day.

I'm speaking in a panel discussion on Local Content & Monetisation although coming from the BBC angle my focus will be more on local content and social opportunities rather than commercial monetisation.

Some key questions I'd like to discuss include:

• 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.

The Perfect Local Media Company Sebastien Provencher Lss 09 Presentation November 2009 Final

View more documents from Media Viking.

4iP funds local community website project

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.

Run by Will Perrin, the project is starting up in the West Midlands with funding provided by the 4iP/Screen West Midlands/Advantage West Midlands partnership.

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's Dan 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.

In case you missed it, the Talk About Local project even gets a specific mention in the Digital Britain report.

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.