Getting serious about hyperlocal, part 3... Parts 2 and 3 of this series covered legal issues and journalism. Now I’m going to cover that big elephant in the room: money. Much (most, all?) of the hyperlocal efforts at the moment are voluntary, passion-driven projects. Many I’m sure cost only time; it’s easy enough to run a site...

Getting serious about hyperlocal, part 2... While the conversation continues around legal issues, burning issue number two in my mind is the quality of hyperlocal content. I’m very fortunate that at the helm of The Lichfield Blog is former journalist and current journalism lecturer, Ross Hawkes. I’ve learnt a lot from Ross, mainly...

Getting serious about hyperlocal, part 1... More and more as things progress with The Lichfield Blog it’s becoming apparent to me that hyperlocal has a real part to play in the changing local media landscape. So it’s time to get serious and look at what we need to do if we’re to make a serious contribution to local media. There...

A short note for Mr Stott before he come... There’s plenty of discussion going on in Government about putting data out and what to put out and how to put it out and all that nonsense. Especially in local government. It sounds like there’s concern that releasing data isn’t good enough and that government has a responsibility to...

Recognition for The Lichfield Blog just ... When I first got involved in The Lichfield Blog back in February this year I had no idea that six months later I’d be writing a business plan for a brand new social enterprise. The Lichfield Blog banner up at Fuse Acoustic '09 I never thought I’d be looking at stats showing an average...

Government asks for 2Mbps, Virgin offers... First, let’s forget those who don’t want broadband for a second and consider only those who have and use broadband services. I’ll keep this short. How can the UK Government possibly think that asking for 2Mbps in it’s preliminary Digital Britain report is anywhere near acceptable? Virgin,...

Citizen journalism: Friend or foe to tra... Recently I’ve become involved in a relative new project, The Lichfield Blog. As you may gather from the name it’s a blog, about Lichfield. I’m really proud to be part of something that has such a switched on and engaged little team behind it. It was especially gratifying to watch as...

I don’t want broadband, leave me a... There is a lot of buzz at the moment about broadband in Britain, mainly thanks to the Digital Britain report. I’m a firm believer in technology as a driver of innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation so I definitely see that as a good thing. That said, I have a feeling it might be mis-directed....

The tablet that knows you’ve swall... Photo credit: kjarrett When my Dad – a sufferer of Pick’s Disease – was still living at home, there was always concern about whether he was remembering to take the many tablets he was prescribed. There were many times where he’d be trying to figure out which day it was and therefore...

IE8: Saviour of the Semantic Web, or Usa... I’ve been pushing web standards for years, so the news that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 will support W3C guidelines by default is very welcome from where I’m sitting. There is one problem, though. They’ve announced that sites including CNN, Facebook and MySpace won’t...