Just thought I’d flag up this video from the Media Trust, which gives an overview of Blog Preston.
The site was started by myself in January 2009 as a place for news and information about Preston, after the Preston Citizen (weekly paper) withdrew from the city.
Joseph Stashko is co-editor of the site and gives an insight into what his role involves, how we live blogged the general election, cover stories and much more.
It’s worth a watch to help understand how a community news site goes about operating and how ‘hyperlocal’ is measured by us.
You’ve got the twitter followers, you’re getting the thumbs up on Facebook and your stats are on the way up. But does anyone in the non-virtual community know who you are?
There’s no doubt having a good online presence is important for your hyperlocal site – and by that I mean a well-stocked Twitter feed, and tended Facebook page and all the other bells and whistles. But watch your stats go up when you get offline and make the connections. Read the rest of this entry »
In this time of ‘hyperlocal business models’ and ‘how the heck do we fund this journalism business’, I think I might have found a way to earn a few extra pennies. An Amazon Affiliate store. Read the rest of this entry »
That’s the question I posed in a guest post over on Hyperlocalblogger.com. Matt very kindly allowed me to explore the subject as I looked at what I’d done with Blog Preston when I moved away. Here’s an excerpt:
Hyperlocal blogs are all about location and are generally run by people who live in the area they seek to serve. But what happens when you’ve built up a local blog and move away from the area?
I don’t think many of us would stay in an area just to keep up a local blog. We have relationships, job opportunities or other reasons for moving to pastures new. Building up a hyperlocal site takes time and dedication; you build a community around your content and, to a certain extent, yourself, but what if you’re not there?
To read the full post head on over to HyperlocalBlogger.com
The man on the street. The man on the street right? He wants to know what the candidates are going to do for him. Well, you can go out and talk to 10 people on the street, or you can talk to the man behind the screen.
Plugged in every day at work are thousands of workers, people at home and more on the web in your area – and some of them might want to ask an election candidate a question.
On Blog Preston, the local website I run for Preston, Lancashire, instead of assuming we knew best on what to ask the candidates we put a call for questions out via our website and Twitter.
We got a great response and these questions certainly gave the candidates a tough time. Local people asking local questions on local issues. It was all done via email, so certainly gave candidates time to do their research and consider their opinion – but I think that’s good and gives the reader a better idea of who this person is that they might vote for.
I’d strongly recommend doing this for your hyperlocal blog, source the questions from your audience and drill them direct to your candidates. Democracy in action.
Not sure I’d call yourCardiff ‘hyperlocal’ – it’s probably just local. But nice article from Laura Oliver on journalism.co.uk on the launch of yourCardiff and the idea behind it.
It has my journey from journalism degree, to student media, to placements, to running Blog Preston (now that’s probably more hyperlocal, as Preston’s a smaller city). But I’m not going to get into the debate about what is, or isn’t, hyperlocal. It’s all good stuff.
At the Talk About Local Unconference there was a lot of talk about creating a network of hyperlocal blogs. Talk About Local are doing a superb job of getting people started in blogging for their local community – but what about those people already underway or who have bigger aspirations?
I have learned through working on Blog Preston since January 2009 that there is a real thirst for community content about the place where you live. The local media is fixated on scandal, car crashes and the like and misses the community content. There is a real space and it needs to be filled.
The Talk About Local Unconference has convinced me that Blog Local can work. Our idea is to create a network of local blogs, some of them will be created under the ‘Blog [insert location]‘ brand and we will support these centrally with technical help and guidance on creating good and interesting community content. Others will be established blogs that are already happy with their technical stuff and their content, but would like to opt in to a wider network of local blogs.
We would use the powerful WordPress Multi-user platform to create this network, and be able to create powerful plug-ins for local blogs that deliver relevant local information. One thing we’ve learned from the failure of local media groups at trying to fit standard templates is that it doesn’t work, Blackpool is different to Preston, Preston is different to Harrogate and Harrogate is different to Southampton. Each of them has a different audience the the website for the ‘Blog [insert location]‘ site needs to reflect that and it also needs to take into account the skills of the person updating it. If they are better with a camera than they are with words, it needs to be more of a photojournalism blog. If they can’t take a good picture to save their life, it’s more of a wordy affair but with a design that compensates for this and keeps it interesting.
One of the struggles for anyone running a local blog is content. Not everyone who starts or wants to start up a community blog is a recent journalism graduate or unemployed graduate. They don’t have the legal training, they don’t know how to knock out 250 words into 10 minutes and they don’t often know where to look for stories. Often local blogs wither and die after a few months when they think there’s nothing left to write about. Wrong. There is always information, events, opinion, gossip, news, photos, in your local area – you just need to build a network and tap into it. Blog Local will support its network to do this and to keep producing good content.
Add to this that Blog Local is not-for-profit, so the content is driven by the community and not by shareholders and it creates an interesting concept. Taking the new technology and tools available to create a mix-mash of community blogs across the UK, producing local content and information.
Is there a business model in this? I’m not 100 per cent sure yet but I do know that over the next few months we’re going to be working with some very exciting new people to help create a network of local and community blogs that can help lift the lid on their local communities.
Recent Comments