City of Seattle promotes neighborhood blogs
This is cool — got the tip via this Tweet from Neighborlogs.
The City of Seattle home page is filled with links to information about the nasty winter weather that’s hit the city over the past several days. And one of the links they include says Neighborhood Blogs. Nice!
(click for larger version)
That’s pretty darn cool if you ask me — great recognition for the power of local blogs to offer great information that traditional media are too big and/or too slow to cover.
Hyperlocal News Roundup
Holidays and family birthdays are keeping me super-busy these days, but here are a couple hyperlocal bits of news worth passing along on this snowy, cold weekend in the Pacific Northwest:
First, Cory Bergman made a prediction a couple weeks ago on Lost Remote:
With thousands of journalists losing their jobs, I have an easy prediction to make: neighborhood blogging will explode.
Cory says that he’s already getting lots of emails from journalist-types asking how to start something like his excellent MyBallard.com, a blog about a Seattle neighborhood.
Second, Adrian Holovaty writes on his personal blog about how EveryBlock.com is shredding the “hyperlocal” name in favor of something new: microlocal:
This gives a much better sense of our focus. It’s unambiguous in its level of detail: the 1400 block of S. Hill Street in Seattle is unequivocally “micro.” Is a neighborhood micro? Yeah, kinda, depending on the size. An entire county, a borough, or city/suburb? No.
Micro implies intense focus, incredibly small scale and rich depth — all of which describe EveryBlock’s general take on things. Best of all, people I’ve talked to seem to understand the term implicitly, as isn’t the case with the much more vague “hyperlocal.”
I think he raises a good point, mainly because when I started this blog, someone completely unfamiliar with the idea of “hyperlocal” wondered if it meant excited blogging. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to change the name and domain. 
Hyperlocal & Blogging’s Future
“What does the future hold for blogging?” is an awfully heavy question to tackle, but that’s what a bunch of bloggers did last week on Problogger. The replies were good and varied, and worthy of more thought and discussion. But only one person touched on anything remotely hyperlocal in his reply, and that was Lee Robertson:
The future of blogging is to help in creating community. To connect with those around us, whether they live across town or across the world. Blogging is about telling stories, whether the stories are for your business, your hobby or your family. Blogging makes it easy to tell those stories and connect with the people that want to hear them. I might be a bit of an idealist that sharing information can help us actually get to know each other and understand each other better. I have to wonder if the future for blogging is perhaps to take a step back from the professional blogging that we are seeing so much of and becoming a little more personal again.
He’s actually hitting on two things there — the local and the personal. Definitely related, and there’s plenty of room for both no matter what type of local blogger you are.
I obviously think the future of blogging will include the hyperlocal element much more than it does today. (I wouldn’t have created this blog if I felt otherwise, right?) As traditional media continues to shrink, we’ll see more and more local blogs taking up the role of community kiosk and becoming valuable, trusted sources of local information.
Your turn: How would you answer the question, “What is the future of blogging?” Comments are open….
5 Types of Hyperlocal Bloggers
As I’ve been exploring the world of hyperlocal blogging — which, I have to confess, is a lot bigger and wider than I expected — I’ve come upon several different types of local blogs and bloggers. I think many local blogs can be classified into five categories. Each category is essentially an answer to the question, Why are you running a local blog?
Here are my five categories, and I’ll invite you to add ones I’ve missed in the comments.
Five Types of Hyperlocal Bloggers
The Business Blogger
I’ll list this one first because it’s the type of local blogger I am, and the one I’m most familiar with. The hyperlocal business blogger is using his/her blog to attract leads and/or customers. This is why my wife and I started four local blogs earlier this year. I suspect many local bloggers in this category are in the real estate industry, like my wife is. (She’s an agent.) But other types of business owners could be local bloggers, too — plumbers, store owners, you name it.
The hyperlocal business blogger may have to be careful in how s/he blogs. Since the underlying goal is to attract customers, this type of blogger may want to avoid the types of posts that might offend or turn away some segment of the blog’s readership. Hyperlocal business blogging can be a delicate balancing act.
The News Blogger
The local news blogger is someone who keeps current on what’s happening in his/her area, and uses the blog to keep readers informed, too. This type of local blogger probably attends a lot of governmental and other organizational meetings in the evenings to report on important decisions being made. S/He may also own a police scanner and listen to it throughout the day, ready to grab a camera and head out to shoot photos or video of any noteworthy incidents in the neighborhood.
A successful hyperlocal news blog may be a group effort. It makes sense to have several people contributing to the blog, either as formal writers or at least as “stringers” who share news tips with the blog owner.
The Social/Activist Blogger
This is an off-shoot of the News Blogger. The social/activist blogger is also interested in current news and events in his/her coverage area, but really focuses mostly on a single cause, single group of people, or single issue. Examples would be a local education blogger who writes exclusively about what the local school district(s) are doing, or maybe an animal rights blogger who writes about what’s happening with local veterinarians, pet stores, animal-related groups, and even local parks (and the rights that pets have in them).
Passion is a must for this type of blogger. If done well, this type of hyperlocal blog can attract a loyal following thanks to strong word-of-mouth.
The Community/Connector Blogger
This type of blogger is all about using his/her blog to create connections locally. This often happens by promoting neighborhood events and attending/blogging about them. But it also involves some of the same types of content that other types of local blogs employ, such as reporting important community news (road closures, business closings, etc.) that you might also see a News Blogger doing.
Think of this type of blogger as someone who takes everything on the bulletin board at your local grocery store and turns it into great, local blog content. If you need to know when the next swap meet is happening at the local school gym, this blogger will be the kind to tell you.
The Casual/Personal Blogger
This is my catch-all category for hyperlocal blogs that don’t seem to fit any of the other categories. This blogger uses his/her local blog in the way that blogs were originally used — as a place to share personal thoughts and experiences in an informal setting. Blog posts here might be about favorite classes or teachers at the local community college, or random recaps of local shopping experiences. Some of the content doesn’t even count as “local” on these blogs. Off-topic? This type of local blogger doesn’t really care.
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Those are the types of local bloggers I’ve come across so far. Now it’s your turn to make this post better by telling me what I’ve left out. Comments are open.
Hyperlocal News Roundup
While I’m trying to piece together a post on hyperlocal blogging in big cities vs. smaller towns (have a couple different directions in mind), here are a couple pieces of hyperlocal news to pass along:
At the outside.in blog, Nina recently wrote a very detailed Getting Started with StoryMaps guide, offering all kinds of screenshots to show how to add StoryMaps to your blog. These are widgets that will display your blog archives on a map. Jog your memory by reading my old post: outside.in Launches Blogger Map Widget.
On the EveryBlock blog, Adrian Holovaty recently announced changes to EveryBlock’s interior pages that expand on their “anything that can be a link should be a link” philosophy. That means there are a lot of new pages offering incredibly granular neighborhood information. An example from the blog post is this page showing abandoned cars reported in Washington, DC. This increased filtering means bloggers can find a wide variety of local information in the cities that EveryBlock covers. If you need a refresher on what EveryBlock is and how to get your blog included, here’s my old post: Submit Your Blog to EveryBlock.com.
Your turn: What else is going on in the hyperlocal space that bloggers should know about? Tell us in the comments.
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