Mashable: 17 Killer Mashups for Taking Control of Your Government
Saturday, 15 November 2008, 13:11
"Recently, the Washington DC government launched the Apps for Democracy contest to encourage developers to build applications using its data. Today, the winners were announced, and below, we take a closer look at 17 of them."
Birmingham Mail: Birmingham City Council allows cameras in meetings
Tuesday, 21 October 2008, 22:01
"Birmingham City Council is to allow cameras to routinely broadcast its meetings for the first time. … Political debate will soon be broadcast on the internetDespite being Britain’s largest local authority, Birmingham is way behind with more than 80 councils already webcasting meetings…"
Local-20
Tuesday, 21 October 2008, 21:49
"Local-20 from Koano provides in-depth analysis of Local 2.0 sites around the world. You can explore the latest Local 2.0 sites organized by categories and countries."
Journalism.co.uk: mySociety turns five today - how can journalists best use its sites?
Wednesday, 15 October 2008, 12:17
Francis Irving on what MySociety might do next: "Everything from a TheyWorkForYou for local government, to working out ways to turn more information from all our sites into news stories. We won't be finished until all parts of our government have well made IT, designed for and from the point of view of the ordinary citizen."
NBC: NBC Local Media targets ‘locals only’ with new website launch
Tuesday, 14 October 2008, 07:07
NBC press release: "Embracing a new business strategy, NBC Local Media will launch websites targeting "Locals Only," providing news, entertainment and information for the true city insider. No longer an adjunct to its local television station, the new sites will feature content from a wide variety of sources — including print, online publications, bloggers, individuals and NBC's local television stations."
NBC: NBC Local Media targets ‘locals only’ with new website launch
Tuesday, 14 October 2008, 07:07
NBC press release: "Embracing a new business strategy, NBC Local Media will launch websites targeting "Locals Only," providing news, entertainment and information for the true city insider. No longer an adjunct to its local television station, the new sites will feature content from a wide variety of sources — including print, online publications, bloggers, individuals and NBC's local television stations."
Power of Information Task Force: Unlocking the Power of Local Government Information
Friday, 10 October 2008, 17:47
"Having gathered some advice from colleagues, this is our draft recommendation for local councils wanting to follow a Power of Information approach"
Nashville is Talking: Nashville area consumers use Twitter to find gas
Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 08:17
"Nashville area consumers are using Twitter to find gas during the gas shortage affecting the area. Consumers are also posting geo-tagged tweets for precise locations…"
Planning applications as hyperlocal news
Monday, 22 September 2008, 07:59
The mysterious Grey Cardigan this weekend blogged about his infuriation with his local weekly’s habit of using news of local planning applications to fill the space left over above the birth, death and marriage announcements in the classified section:
[T]aken as a measure of usefulness to readers living in rural idyll, whether or not a near neighbour is about to attach a carbuncle to their cottage is probably the most important news the paper can bring us; more so, even, than the inevitable uproar about bin collections on the front page.
But because the space available for planning applications is variable, some weeks they will be perfectly legible while on others they will be down to 6pt or worse, or even published incomplete or left out altogether. I know it’s a small thing, but it annoys me that such a valuable service is treated so poorly. It might be ineptitude, it might be laziness, but it’s little things like this that endanger sales.
I hope Grey will forgive the intervention of a mere newsroom “Web Monkey (Special Projects)” like myself, but he is absolutely right.
In addition to endangering their print sales, the approach to planning applications taken by Grey’s local rag is also endangering the relevance of its website — even though its parent company has, no doubt, recently professed a “hyperlocal” news strategy of some sort.
In online journalism circles, this would be discussed as an example of what Steven Johnson calls the “Pothole Paradox“: the fact that seemingly trivial developments happening near people’s homes interest them a great deal, while similar events occurring 100 metres further down the road are mind-numbingly boring.
The trick is to find a technological solution that will solve this paradox by targeting hyperlocal information, like planning application news, to only the handful of people who care a great deal about any given instance of it. Websites like Johnson’s Outside.in and Everyblock are attempting to do this through geotagging local public sector information and local bloggers’ posts to deliver this sort of “pothole news” to people wherever they live.
Its also the sort of thing that (most) local newspapers — and their websites — don’t do particularly well.
While the Grey Cardigan’s local paper is (like many others like it) still squeezing planning application details into 6pt type, two UK websites - PlanningAlerts.com and PlanningFinder.co.uk are busy coming up with a better way of providing this information to its former readers.
Both sites work the same way: Enter your postcode, and the site will automatically send you an e-mail alert if any neighbour within a given radius proposes said monstrous carbuncle extension.
Why aren’t local papers providing clever online services like this? It’s certainly a medium more appropriate to reporting planning applications than a weekly digest in 6pt type.
Services mapping local information to readers’ location like this are a tiny part of a bigger trend to develop the geographic web and its ancillary, local search — where the relevance of information is measured by its proximity to readers’ current location or to places significant to them. The mobile phone operators understand the commercial significance of this, as does Google. Why do you think they are investing so much money in cartography?
They’re coming after the local papers that no longer offer the most efficient way of getting local information to their readers.
Morning Advertiser: New warning on food hygiene breaches
Tuesday, 2 September 2008, 09:44
A great example of Freedom of Information working as intended: "The country's biggest independent stock auditors says food operators risk losing their reputations - and their businesses - if they ignore food safety issues. … as operators are increasingly under the microscope for hygiene with the national roll-out of Scores on the Doors and increased media interest."
Brand Republic: Gordon’s Republic: Walking with the dinosaurs: Time Out magazine
Monday, 1 September 2008, 14:04
Gordon Macmillan: "Time Out should … already have a great website. It should be the first and only stop for listings in London or elsewhere in the UK. It could have owned free listings across the UK and built up a powerful website. But it hasn't and there are many other places to go and find that information. If Time Out wants to get there now it will have to hustle and muscle to do so and that will be expensive."
Basingstoke Gazette: New Website To Reveal Safe Places To Eat
Sunday, 31 August 2008, 14:22
Same old story: Local paper covers local data service that it could have built itself. This time from the Basingstoke Gazette: "Safe2eat will list the latest food safety assessments by Hart District Council's environmental officers, and was set to go online on Friday."
Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 10:24
Comments
Dave Hill picks up on a local London newspaper’s disdain for bloggers. "Most blogs are little more than a self-indulgent soapbox for those arrogant and egotistical enough to believe their opinions deserve a public airing."
Wednesday, 2 July 2008, 06:09
Comments
"[T]he trouble is, for many people, local news is boring and not relevant to them. And hyper-local (aka, local-local) is even more so. This is especially so for people who don’t have strong ties to the community in which they live."
