Archive for Uncategorized

Talk About Local is 'go'

We now have a signed contract with 4IP with funding from Screen West Midlands and Advantage West Midlands – thanks to Daniel Heaf,  Melanie Hayes and Jason Hall in particular. The pre-publicity is out there in the Guardian today, thanks to Jemima Kiss. Money is starting to come through and we can now get the [...]

Community sites 'ain't afraid of no trolls' (and the new Northcliffe platform)

Sites run by community activists, people campaigning to change things in their community have a strong interest not to be full of internet nutters. If activists sites are perceived to be bonkers then people don’t take the campaigns seriously. Troll abuse is not an issue that local web publishers raise with me – either they don’t attract at as in my case, or they manage it fine.

Local news, but not as we know it – reviewing media histrionics about local news

‘This is an emergency. Act now, or local news will die’ said Polly Toynbee’s headline writer in one of the alarmist pieces about the fate of local news in the past month. As readers will know I see a rosy future for hyperlocal or ultralocal news in volunteer-run community websites.  And am hopefully close to [...]

West Ealing Neighbours

There are many urban villages in London, some old, some newer like West Ealing, where there is a good community site run by local residents.  West Ealing Neighbours is run by a residents association who aim to stick up for their patch.  So like a traditional RA there is a constitution of sorts.  As well [...]

Wirksworth – another fine small town web site, forum, magazine

Wirksworth is a Derbyshire town with a good community based magazine style website with a simple discussion forum attached.  Wirksworth.net is nicely executed by a local group of volunteers in a not for profit company.  The site integrates video from youtube, photos from flickr and a feed from the forum.  The forum is a simple [...]

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