Tools for hyperlocals: OpenlyLocal Wordpress plugin I’m starting to develop a range of tools for hyperlocal sites, taking advantage of the extensibility of blogging platform, Wordpress. My first effort is using the fantastic OpenlyLocal site and all the data provided in raw XML. So far, I’ve built the bare bones of the plugin, an admin page to select the local authority and then a simple widget which displays upcoming council meetings. Very simple widget. There is a big list of ideas in my head of what I could do with this but I’m not sure what would be most desirable to the masses (I want it all, now) so I’ve...

If you run a hyperlocal, or you’re interested in #opendata, e-mail your MP about this That this House calls on the Government to ensure that transport timetables for rail and bus operators are made freely available for re-use, using an open standards format, thus enabling voluntary and commercial organisations to publish the data on their own digital platforms. via edmi.parliament.uk This Early Day Motion (EDM) asks parliament to promote the release of bus and train timetables in a format that could easily be consumed by others, including hyperlocals, bloggers and government sites. This should lead to more, better tools for accessing public travel information....

Court ruling could be good news for hyperlocal Newsquest says the High Court judgement clarifies for the first time that newspaper websites hosting user-generated content are, subject to certain conditions, protected from liability. (holdthefrontpage) This is potentially very good for hyperlocals and community bloggers who are hosting comments. It suggests that we do have protection from defamatory statements. However, it’s still not crystal clear as this article specifically refers to newspaper web sites. Something a hyperlocal alliance could work towards clarifying? This was posted via web from Philip’s posterous

Why I don’t think journalists need business skills There’s tons of talk around hyperlocal and local media at the moment and some of it is about the kind of skills journalists need*. Not being a journalist, I’m looking at it from a business perspective. We have a good system with The Lichfield Blog. Ross is the journalist, that’s what he does – he writes a large proportion of the articles and works with the contributors. I deal with the technical, behind the scenes stuff and the advertising that we’re trialling. In my view it’s the best way for it to work; Ross is left to do what he does best...

£72.50/mth ain’t bad for The Lichfield Blog What started as ’suck it and see’ exercise is now generating over £70 in ad revenue each month for The Lichfield Blog. With 7 out of 8 ad spots now taken up on the blog I’m wondering whether there is some money to be made here… We’ve made very little effort to actually tell people about the ad slots, other than a few tweets, so our advertisers appear to see value in snapping them up. The last 30 days has seen close to 40,000 page views on The Lichfield Blog. For those interested in the advertising stats, that’s 25 pence for every thousand...

This is why we do it After a not so great week I’m really glad I got off my arse and made it to Birmingham Social Media Café. Whenever I go to these things I always wonder whether I’ll get anything out of it but there’s always been at least one thing that’s made it worthwhile. Today was no exception with a few good conversations but one really stood out. A few minutes after standing myself next to Rebecca Sykes she turned to me and told me how she’d been hoping to talk to me just to say how much she liked The Lichfield Blog. Rebecca has recently moved to Lichfield...

There is no web 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 This is deliberately similar to my first Posterous post, “There is no new vs. old media“… There is no web 1.0 or web 2.0 or even web 3.0. There is only the evolving web. I despise the use of the phrase “web 2.0″ when it relates to web design, for example – it implies that it needs to have cool jQuery and Ajax stuff going on. You know what, if you’re building a site figure out your user need and build it using the right technologies. Don’t just build a “web 2.0″ site ’cause it’s what all the cool kids...

Are you bostin? via youtube.com I can’t claim to be much of a bostin bloke myself having been brought up in North Warwickshire but you’ve gotta love the “allroight” at the end This was posted via web from Philip’s posterous

News is an onion Pic: Jason Scragz A wise ogre once told a donkey, “Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.” I’d like to add a third to the ‘things with layers list’; online news. While the news industry is going through all this change I’m making sense of it by comparing it to onions. The way I see it, there are several layers; Bloggers Hyperlocal news providers Local newspapers Regional TV news National news providers I’ve separated bloggers and hyperlocal for a very important reason –...

There is no new vs. old media I’ve said it many times at various events this year but I decided a short but sweet blog post was needed (and what better place than my as yet unused Posterous). Here goes… There is no new and old media. There is only evolving media. Right now it’s going through what I consider to be a paradigm shift – a period of uncertainty which is changing all our perceptions of how news will be delivered and by whom. I’m fortunate enough to be at the forefront of this evolution, and boy is it exciting! This was posted via web from Philip’s...