Lost Remote tries defining Hyperlocal

by Matt on Feb 24, 2010 in Industry

This’ll be familiar to longtime readers of HLB: Lost Remote (a site you really should be reading, by the way) has taken a stab at defining “hyperlocal.” You may recall my post last fall, Defining Hyperlocal, that tried pretty much the same thing.

In Lost Remote’s case, they’re defining it in terms of a relation to “local” and “niche,” as well:

“Hyperlocal” covers neighborhoods, while “local” covers towns and cities. We get some press releases here about how stations or newspapers are starting new “hyperlocal” websites that cover their city or a given topic in their city (say, “moms”). A mom blog is a niche site. A neighborhood blog is hyperlocal. A city blog is local.

I definitely agree on the “niche” part, but I maintain that the definition of local vs. hyperlocal depends on

  1. Geography
  2. Content

Geography: In very small towns where neighborhoods are poorly defined or just don’t matter, you can be hyperlocal and still cover the whole town/city. I live in a city of about 10,000 people and, while we have a few distinct neighborhoods, I maintain that our blog is hyperlocal even though it covers city-wide events and (non-hard) news.

Content: I believe that what you cover also plays into the definition. What sets hyperlocal news sites apart is often a focus on covering minutiae that traditional media ignores — school board meetings, planning commission meetings, Little League sports, etc. Even if you cover a full city/town, I’d say you’re hyperlocal if your blog/site goes deeper (i.e., “hyper”) in its local coverage than what people are used to getting from the paper and TV news.

I know we already went through this definition stuff, but feel free to add your thoughts in the comments if you have an opinion.

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  1. Defining Hyperlocal


February 24, 2010 | Filed Under Industry 

Comments

3 Responses to “Lost Remote tries defining Hyperlocal”

  1. Justin, Neighborlogs on February 24th, 2010 12:12 pm

    “In very small towns where neighborhoods are poorly defined or just don’t matter, you can be hyperlocal and still cover the whole town/city.”

    Yup — that’s why it would be better to think about hyperlocal coverage in terms of focus on a set of assets that make up a ‘community’ http://neighborlogs.com/2010/02/24/the-hyperlocal-asset-package

  2. David Brazeal on February 24th, 2010 3:05 pm

    I think of my high school sports site as “hyperlocal.” But I think of the weekly newspaper as “local.” I’m not sure why that is, but I think I agree with you — it’s as much about the depth of the topic as the size of the geography.

  3. Mike Ramsey on February 25th, 2010 9:16 pm

    It really depends area to area. Our local news is covering 2 counties that combined have 5 high schools. So, hyperlocal for me could be breaking up to report on individual towns within the county that have their own high school. Somebody could come along and one up me and go to the neighboorhood or block level, and they could be one upped by a blog that covers a household.

    Hyperlocal is relative. Zooming in more than the next guy.

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