Top Ten Hyper-Local Trends

1. Big Society

“Today is the start of a deep and serious reform agenda to take power away from politicians and give it to people.”

(David Cameron, 18th May 2010)

“That’s because we know instinctively that the state is often too inhuman, monolithic and clumsy to tackle our deepest social problems. We know that the best ideas come from the ground up,

not the top down. We know that when you give people and communities more power over their lives, more power to come together and work together to make life better – great things

happen.”

Core Principles1. Give communities more powers 2. Encourage people to take an active role in their communities 3. Transfer power from central to local government 4. Support co-ops, mutuals, charities and social enterprises 5. Publish government data

Big Society Launch, No 10, 18 May 2010

whetherman 18 May 2010, 4:00PMWorrying to see Toby Young grinning away there in the background (apologies if it isn't him). Taking the earliest possible opportunity to get in his bid to take money, staff and resources out of the existing education system so that he can use them to get a better education for his own kids

left side of table:

Neil Jameson – London CitizensWilliam Perrin – Talk About Local(Lord) Nat Wei – The Big Society NetworkFrancis Maude – minister for the Cabinet OfficeMartha Lane Fox – AntigoneDavid Cameron – Prime MinisterCamila Batmanghelidjh – Kids CompanyGeoff Mulgan – Young FoundationDawn Austwick – Esmee Fairbairn FoundationAlly (Alastair) Tibbitt – Greener LeithRob Owen – St Giles Trust

right side of table:Paul Twivy – CEO, The Big Society NetworkDavid Robinson – Community LinksLord Victor Adebowale – Turning PointAdele Blakeborough – CAN BreakthroughDick Atkinson – Balsall Heath ForumNick Clegg – Deputy Prime MinisterHilary Cottam – ParticipleNick Hurd – Minister for Civil SocietyRay Mallon – Mayor of MiddlesboroughRolande Anderson – director of what was formerly The Office of the Third SectorStephen Howard – Business in the Community

2. A new vision for local television

“I have long believed that the lack of high quality local TV is one of the biggest gaps in British broadcasting.”

Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport

8 June 2010

RTS, 28 September 2010

• Removal of all local cross-media ownership rules

• Public service broadcasting to be “redefined” with greater emphasis on delivery of local content

• Legislation to clarify which PSB channels should get guaranteed page one position on EPG

Jeremy Hunt has now outlined measures to improve the prospects for local TV:

Shott Report: interim findings

Nicholas Shott identified commercial challenges in delivering local TV on DTT:

• May be more appropriate to plan for local “services” rather than channels

• An existing national channel could act as “host” for local TV “windows” at set times OR offer on-screen prompt to “red button” services

• Limited number of services based on largest urban conurbations

• Additional revenue sources needed e.g. channel sponsorship

• Long term future may lie with IPTV

3. Open Data and Transparency

Government transparency agenda includes a commitment to make public all Council Expenditure over £500, salaries of Public Servants earning £150,000+ and organograms.

CLG are encouraging financially literate citizens to act as ‘Armchair Auditors’ scrutinising Council expenditure in a similar manner to the way that the Guardian askedpeople to help them review MP’s expenses.

Adrian Short’s Website for the Royal Borough Of Windsor &

Maidenhead

OpenlyLocal is charting which Councils have open data or not, matching up spending data by Council, and matching suppliers with real companies (using sites likeCompaniesOpenHouse) to compare spending with companies across several Councils.

Lots of sites are using other off the shelf resources e.g. mySociety tools

FixMyStreet: report, view, or discuss local problems like graffiti, fly tipping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting.32,000 problems reported across the UK. Users get updates and notifications that problems have been fixed.

TheyWorkForYou: one-stop shop about your Westminster MP. Includes their voting record, speeches and email alerts when they speak in the House.

4. Civic Engagement

Means for two way engagement from the public with elected officials, Councils et al.Sites belonging to officials, or a means for them to contribute on other Forums.

“Formby First” started May 2007.

Sean Brady is a Parish Councillor.

Formby, small seaside townin Merseyside.

Or you might find other officials using sites and forums set up by others.

Councils are also embracing hyper-local tools and social media…

Xxxxx Barnet Council using FixMyStreet: http://barnet.fixmystreet.com/

• Walsall Council wanted to use Flickr pics on their website. • Designed a Flickr friendly header to sit across all pages.• Asked the Walsall Flickr group to add the tag ‘walsallweb’ to

each picture they wanted considered. • 400 shots tagged for consideration in three days.

“People taking pictures of the place they live and seeing them showcased on their council’s website HAS to be a good idea.”

Dan Slee, Senior Press and Publicity Officer at Walsall Council, on his personal blog.

5. Social Capital

“Social capital describes the pattern and intensity of networks among people and the shared values which arise from those networks. Greater interaction between people generates a greater sense of community spirit.” (ONS)

• Like many Londoners, I couldn’t identify my neighbours in a line up.

• But I happily use the power of the crowd to book hotels (Tripadvisor) buy online (eBay) or choose a restaurant (TopTable).

• And now I do this locally too. Finding tradesmen, or a cat sitter based on recommendations of local people I don’t know.

• Will also leave comments and recommendations: feel more closely connected to physical community as a result, even if often my only interaction is virtual.

6. Location Based Services

Information and entertainment services, accessed through mobile networks which harness the ability to identify the geographical position of the device/user.

Characteristics• Share your location – and status - with friends. • Discover businesses and services near you.• Rate aforementioned businesses and services.• See if your friends are nearby, or invite them to join you. • Rewards / incentives to share e.g. badges, discounts etc.

Best known examples: Foursquare and Facebook Places. Others, often US only atm: Gowalla, SCVNGR, Whrrl, Loopt and Brightkite

“Foursquare is a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend- finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users "check in" to a place when they're there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they've been and who they've been there with.”

• Launched at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas in March 2009.• c3 million users worldwide (August 2010).• 15,000 venues experimenting with Special Offers on foursquare.

Insert Fsq in Space slide

Facebook Places

Launched August 2010. Just 9 months after development started.

Focused on getting the three core elements right :1) finding friends, 2) checking-in, 3) building stories about places

Will add rewards or deals with locations/companies in the future.

Still small fry…

Why?

1. It’s pretty new, so low awareness. 7% awareness amongst adults in US, April 2010.

2. Low understanding of benefits.

3. Low numbers vs. critical mass.“None of my friends are on it. so what’s the point?”Not enough businesses /deals to merit signing up.

4. Privacy“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home.” http://pleaserobme.com/

5. Big brands late to the party But large user base may mean leapfrogging more ‘established’ services.

But big potential for growth

Individuals1. Desire to share where we are, what we are doing and what we are thinking.2. On-going rise of the smartphone.3. Access to free stuff, or discounts. 4. Herd mentality (follow your friends).5. Location based activity becomes the norm.

Businesses• Develop relationship with customers – consumer insight and can drive loyalty

e.g. Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times. ("Foursquare says you've been here 10 times? That's a free drink for you!")

• If your competitors are there, then you will have to follow suit.

• Once integration is possible, can squirt out messages on all platforms / programmes.

7. Advertising

Location Based Advertising• Predicted value $1.8bn by 2015, up from est. $43m in 2010 (ABI Research Sept 10)

• Uses a mix of GPS, Wi-Fi, and /or Cell-ID depending on the product or service, the region, the consumers, and the location accuracy required.

• Targets users with relevant local information, and ads for local businesses.

• Google, says such ads already get 8% more clickthroughs than basic mobile ads.

Already live in the UK • O2 customers signed up to O2 More receive messages pushed from Starbucks and

L'Oreal, regardless of their handset or contract, but only when they pass through locations pertinent to those companies.

• Service is opt in. Launched 15/10/10. No more than one message a day.

Some other advertising things to note

AgenciesHyper-local media buying agency Oxbury Media, has built up an ad network of 10,000 sub local newspaper publications and sites representing a 10m+ audience.

Addiply"You know how you used to place an advert in the window of your local Post Office? This is Norfolk's answer to Google AdSense..."

Matches advertisers directly to community publishers, without third party intervention.

Commercial PortalsSuch as: BeLocal.com, http://www.welovelocal.com,

http://trustedplaces.com (Yell), http://www.localmole.co.uk/ (Trinity Mirror), http://www.localmouth.com/ and http://www.yourlocalweb.co.uk/

8. Traditional Media goes hyper… local

• Launched mid launched mid September 2010. Pan-Scottish roll out by end 2011.

• Six pilot sites: www.stv.tv/airdrie, www.stv.tv/bellshill, www.stv.tv/coatbridge, www.stv.tv/cumbernauld, www.stv.tv/motherwell, and www.stv.tv/wishaw.(Branded according to area, e.g. STV Motherwell or STV Cumbernauld)

• Content: news, events listings, ratings and reviews, weather, traffic, business directory. Plus information from local public bodies, sports organisations, theatre groups, schools, church groups, and other engaged community members.

• Editorial team working with “content partners and community contributors” to encourage UGC (as well as producing their own material).

• Links to media courses, training for contributors in web publishing and writing.

• Digital advertising opportunities e.g. banner ads, classified listings. • Plusnet launch sponsor.

Newspapers going hyper-local

Smaller titles have always existed alongside bigger ones. Examples of new initiatives include:

Associated Northcliffe Digital• 23 Localpeople projects launched in 2009, mostly in the South West. • Associated says Localpeople has grown on average 22% p/m. Now has 100 websites.• Aims to expand to 200 by Summer 2011.

Guardian LocalDesigned to bring “a small-scale community approach to local newsgathering” in Edinburgh, Leeds and Cardiff . Each location has a dedicated beatblogger working in communities, finding stories and using mySociety tools, e.g. TheyWorkForYou.com and FixMyStreet.com.

Trinity MirrorTeesside Gazette, has 10 online hyperlocal blogs, which each focus on a single postcode and are run by unpaid volunteers.

Sites like that for the TM owned Uxbridge Gazette also contains links to hyper-local platforms.

Newspaper sites typically have sites within a site e.g. this is Croydon Today

Xxxx

9. The changing face of Journalism

"A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting.”

"But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night.… It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism."

"Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. Terrible things are said online because they are anonymous. People say things online that they wouldn't dream of saying inperson.”

Andrew Marr, at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, October 2010

Two worlds collide?

“I’m a journalist, not a blogger. I use a blog platform to publish, but that doesn’t make me a second class citizen in the journalism world.”

But while I love newspapers, came from them and hope they continue to find a place…. I’m begging them to stop seeing bloggers as enemies. Many bloggers are journalists, part of the news ecosystem, colleagues that are entitled to respect.”

Danny Sullivan, Journalist and Blogger, 2009

But they’re not mutually exclusiveRoy Greenslade of the Guardian and City University also covers his neighbourhood – Kemp Town in Brighton – for the local paper, as a community reporter.

Andrew Gilligan, London Editor of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph (and formerly of the Evening Standard and BBC News) writes a weekly column for a hyper-local site in the area he lives in. “Gilligan's Greenwich" - http://www.greenwich.co.uk/andrew-gilligan/

Two worlds collide

But is hyper-local journalism?

That’s a whole debate we don’t have time for today. But we can touch on it…

• Some bloggers say it isn’t and are keen to stress they’re not journalists.

Jon Bounds, Birmingham: It’s Not Shit (“Mildly sarcastic since 2002″)“I’m not a journalist, nor have aspirations to be one gives the site freedom — that it doesn’t solicit adverts (the few on the site are unpaid favours to friends) gives it a strength. A strength to not cover things that aren’t interesting, and to be seen as independent.”

• Other sites stem from journalistic backgrounds:

The Lichfield Blog was launched in January 2009, by Ross Hawkes, senior lecturer in journalism at Staffs Uni. Started his journalistic career at the now defunct Lichfield Post.

Saddleworthnews.com – edited by Richard Jones, a journalist who is currently a stay-at-home dad and who voluntarily updates his site.

Overlaps

I would argue that many hyper-local sites shares many of the characteristics and content we expect from journalists; from newspapers, from Regional TV news, from local radio…

• Holding authority to account• Investigations• Council Reporting• Local campaigns• Coverage of events; from Festivals to General Elections• Local News• Local Sport• What’s On and Listings• Classifieds• Reporting on Emergencies

Some quick examples…

Investigations

• “The site helps you build a team to investigate that – and that team will suggest ‘challenges’ to pursue in getting answers.

• Sometimes we will build tools that make getting those answers easier.• This is not a discussion forum, or a news website – although you might have

discussions or link to stories elsewhere. It is a community of curious people, and a set of tools to help those people find each other, and get answers.”

Conceived by Paul Bradshaw and co-proposed by Heather Brooke, the journalist whokick-started the drive for disclosure of MPs’ expenses.

Funded by 4iP and Screen WM..

Launched Summer 2009.

Holding public bodies to account

The £25,000 website which attracts just 10 visitors a day

• FOI from the Saddleworth News hyper-local site to Oldham Council.• Showed “Oldham Says” received just 2,548 unique visits in the six months to the end of

September 2010.

• “Oldham Says” is aimed at residents.• Supports a local strategic partnership for the area, which brings together

representatives from bodies including the council, Greater Manchester Police, the local NHS, the education sector and others, to tackle various problems.

FOI showed“With a total of £25,544 having been spent on setting up the site, that’s roughly equivalent to an incredible £10 for each and every click.

The site’s readership has been particularly low in the last two months, with just 268 people logging on in August and 296 doing so in September.”

Council Reporting

Ventnor Blog, Isle of Wight Pits n Pots, Stoke

Making sense of the CSR

BCU MA Online Journalism students have set up a hyperlocal blog for the 50,000 public sector workers in the region, primarily to report those budget cuts and how they are affecting people.

http://birminghambudgetcuts.blogspot.com/

Ventnor blog solicited, and published, a range of responses from IoW related bodies: • IW Council Reaction To Government Spending Review• Hampshire Police Authority: Response To Comprehensive Spending Review• Chancellor’s Spending Review Deepens Concern of LINk Members (Local Involvement Networks are individuals and community groups, such as faith groups and residents' associations, working together to improve health and social care services).

Covering Emergencies

In 2006 the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was won by the blog run by the New Orleans Times Picayune during Hurricane Katrina. The site showed how the paper continued to provide vital information online when the paper couldn’t otherwise reach key audiences.

Extract:

“T-P EVACUATING Tuesday, 9:40 a.m.The Times-Picayune is evacuating it's New Orleans building.Water continues to rise around our building, as it is throughout the region. We want to evacuate our employees and families while we are still able to safely leave our building.

Our plan is to head across the Mississippi River on the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west bank of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. From there, we'll try to head to Houma.

Our plan, obviously, is to resume providing news to our readers ASAP. Please refer back to this site for continuing information as soon as we are able to provide it.”

News and Sport

Hertsweb.tv. recorded and streamed General Election hustings live, using a vision mixer he

had bought on eBay for £50.

Lichfield Blog – 12,000 uniques a month, 10 stories a day. News only.In contrast thisislichfield.co.uk only publishes stories on a Thursday when they also come out in print.

Or Sports sites like Norwich City:

http://norwichcity.myfootballwriter.com/

And dedicated local sports sections on sites like Mon-TV.

Either way, journalism is changing…

From trainingCUNY received $3 million to create the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism.

To working practises ChiTownDailyNews.org in Illinois employs four journalists but is training 350 neighborhood Volunteers to write about their community, finding stories the mainstream press would never hear about.

Spot Us, launched in November 2008 and is a nonprofit project, based in San Francisco. Pioneering “community funded reporting” by getting freelance journalists to pitch specific news stories, explaining online why the topic deserves further investigation.

If members of the public agree, they can make a donation — sometimes just $10 or $20 — to pay the journalist to produce the more detailed story.

And fundingGoogle has given $5m to fund xxxx (CHECK)Non-profits emerging: http://www.public-press.org/ (San Fran) or in DC the http://washingtonindependent.com/ .

+ The Knight Foundations annual $5m digital news challenge.

10. Drive to get more people online

Martha Lane Fox appointed by The Prime Minister as the UK Digital Champion. (June 10)

Role includes:• encouraging as many people as possible to get online in the lifetime of this Parliament, • advising Government on realising efficiencies through the online delivery of public services.

Manifesto for a ‘Networked Nation’. (July 10) • one fifth of the population in the UK, 10 million people, is not online.• missing out on consumer savings, access to vital information and educational success as a result.

The Manifesto called for urgent action to get millions more online by the end of 2012 with key roles for government, industry and charities with the aim:

“To get everyone of working age online by the end of this Parliament, so that everyone who then retires will have skills to enjoy benefits of the web”.

Top Ten Recap

Theme Activity

Political 1. Big Society2. Local TV3. Open Data & Transparency

Societal 4. Civic Engagement incl. Councils 2.05. Social capital

Business 6. Location Based Services7. Advertising8. Traditional Media goes hyper-local

Journalism 9. Community reporting and holding authority to account

Driver to get more people online

10. Driven by Government and by some businesses