Nieman Journalism Lab: The Newsonomics of Google Grouponomics

Ken Doctor on Groupon: "the remorse being expressed in newspaper buildings across America this week is the same: Why didn’t we come up with that idea? The remorse should go deeper; check out the Groupon Merchant Services page, and try to find a similar one, with similar marketing support, offered by a newspaper company online. In fact, Groupon’s whole pitch to merchants, cheerfully animated in its Grouponomics section, is a textbook lesson in selling local."

paidContent:UK: Local Media May Have Blown Another Online Ads Opportunity

Robert Andrews: "Through daily coupon deals, place reviews and location sharing, local services is where it’s at. That should finally mean boom-time for local newspapers ... Yet look at the booming crop of next-generation local ad services and you’ll see none was devised by the operators who once had the market all to themselves. "

Online Journalism Blog: Online journalists left out in the cold by local government

"[Canadian journalist Hedy Korbee's] experiences of local government [in Birmingham] – and of local journalism – have left her incredulous. Since arriving Hedy has attended every council meeting – she notes that reporters from the BBC and ITV regional news do not attend. Her attempts to get responses to stories from elected officials have been met with stonewalling and silence."

Information Aesthetics: Urban Open Data: 100 Million 311 Calls in New York Visualized -

"Wired recently published an interesting article titled "What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York [wired.com] digesting some of the insights that can be derived by analyzing more than 100 million 311 calls that have been placed in New York since its inception in March 2003 ... "

Information Aesthetics: Urban Open Data: 100 Million 311 Calls in New York Visualized -

"Wired recently published an interesting article titled "What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York [wired.com] digesting some of the insights that can be derived by analyzing more than 100 million 311 calls that have been placed in New York since its inception in March 2003 ... "

Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog: Another opportunity lost

"Facebook’s announcement yesterday of its entry into the “check-in” space is yet another blow to local media. Local businesses — many of whom already are deep into Facebook — are now being encouraged to create their “places” pages, which is what users will see when they check in via Facebook. Why is FB doing this? The gold in the hills of local advertising."

ReadWriteWeb: Facebook’s Places Feature About to Launch

"Facebook's location service 'Places' is speeding towards an imminent launch ... Advertising exec Dave Morgan has argued ... that the rise of location based services, because they are so easy to use and compelling, will suck the advertising life-blood out of local newspapers, radio and journalism."

Nieman Journalism Lab: Opening up journalism’s boundaries to bring change back in: How Knight and its News Challenge have evolved

"[The Knight Foundation] has sought to innovate journalism in part by stepping away from it, by making a strategic shift from 'journalism' to 'information.' This broadening of boundaries has created crucial space for innovators — from inside and outside journalism — to set forth a reformed view of what journalism is and ought to be. ... If the 'problem' for journalism in an era of digital disruption was the need to find new or refurbished models through which journalism’s core functions and societal benefits could be achieved — to 'meet the information needs of communities,' in the foundation’s common refrain — then Knight was making a break from its past in turning away from faith in industry expertise and toward an acknowledgement that the solutions may well come from the aggregate expertise of a participatory crowd of contributors."

Press Gazette: Local Heroes 2010: The future of local news starts here

"Kingston University and Press Gazette have teamed up to host a unique one-day conference - Local Heroes 2010 - to showcase success stories and innovation in UK local journalism. ... Confirmed speakers include: Former Birmingham Post and Mail editor in chief Steve Dyson, Teesside Gazette editor Darren Thwaites, ultra local blogging pioneer William Perrin and David Parkin, founder of successful local business news website TheBusinessDesk."

Comment is Free: I, too, mourn good local newspapers. But this lot just aren’t worth saving

George Monbiot: "Like my colleagues, I mourn [local papers'] death; unlike them I believe it happened decades ago. For many years the local press has been one of Britain's most potent threats to democracy, championing the overdog, misrepresenting democratic choices, defending business, the police and local elites from those who seek to challenge them. Media commentators lament the death of what might have been. It bears no relationship to what is."