Are you disappointed that you didn’t make it in to the Guardian 100 most powerful people in media?

Well don’t be downhearted because Talk About Local are listing the UnHundred, a slightly tongue in cheek but entirely legitimate & serious list of the top 100 people and sites from the hyperlocal and alternative on-line media communities. Like the Talk About Local UnAwards but better.

We want the people who run the sites that make you laugh, sites that make you think & sites that help you with your hyperlocal projects or people who have done something for the benefit of their community or the wider hyperlocal community, or just something that you like. We are looking for things like:

• On-line community radio stations
• Local Twitter feeds
• Message boards
• Facebook groups
• Podcasts
• Using Video
• Using Pictures
• Local news sites
• Satire
• Most helpful person
• Useful resource sites

If you nominate a site try and tell us who it is who is behind it, the awards are for people after all, if you don’t know don’t worry we’ll try and find them for you.

There are no categories that you need to fit in to, it is totally open to any sites that fit in to the basic criteria of, not being mainstream media and should be predominantly online.

We’ll have a panel of judges from the hyperlocal & on-line media communities who will discuss each nomination and compile the final 100.

Nominations are open now by leaving a comment below. All we need for you to nominate someone is a name & a URL but the more info you can give us the better and 1 or 2 sentences about why you are nominating them.

The top 10 of the UnHundred will win a VIP wristband for the next Talk About Local Unconference.

Clare White has started to put her old journalist skills back in to action to write Talk About Local newsletters.

We are going to try and do these every month, with a round up of the latest & best new Talk About Local sites, the latests hints, tips and step by step guides.

Our first news letter was sent out this morning to our partner centres from UK Online and anyone who has attended one of our unconferences.  

We think that is possibly a little unfair so if you want to read our first newsletter you can by clicking HERE (opens in new window)

If you like what you read and want to sign up to recieve future editions of our news letter you can do by adding your E-mail address here

So that’s it all over and done with, for now at least.

#TAL10, our second un-conference had a lot to live up to after #TAL09 but again managed to surprise us with not only it’s popularity but also the quality of the people who attended and the sites that they run, that is before we start looking at their ideas for the future!

We had booked Old Broadcasting House in Leeds to capacity for the event and ended up with it about 3/4 full, the weather and lack of flights in to the UK were responsible for some of the non attendees. While others I’m sure decided not to attend as there were no food based sports like Pork Pie Rounders.

As expected the whole event was blogged by almost all of the attendees and reported on most accurately and efficiently by Sarah Hartley from the Guardian along with Hannah, John & Tom from the Guardian Local Blogs. Their reporting on the day can be seen here.

Michael Grimes also made notes on the sessions he attended during the day.

Journalism.co.uk also reported on the Un-Awards which were presented after the un-conference had closed. The Guardian also reported on the Un-Award winners here.

Un-Award winner Josh Haliday from SR2 Blog gives us his thoughts on the days events on his personal blog.

Philip John gives us his account over at JournalLocal as does Damian Radcliffe onDPC. The excellent Greener Leith report by Alistar Tibbitt and finally and by no means least Matt from My Tunstall writes

Twitter was, and still is, awash with the #TAL10 tag which link to many interesting posts which we have archived here.

Pictures are being uploaded to our Flickr Group.

Whilst things are gearing up for the talk about local Unconference this  Saturday don’t forget the social event of the year that directly follows it. I am of course referring to the glittering talk about local Unawards ceremony this Saturday 17th April from 6pm onwards in Chilli White, Leeds.

This grand occasion will see the best hyperlocal talent in the UK getting recognition for their efforts in the shape of a round of a applause, a raising of glasses and a beautiful badge to adorn their website.

The talk about local team have carefully considered your suggestions for categories, and have whittled them down to the list below. If deserving winners for these titles spring to mind, please comment your suggestions with reasons why. This Friday a panel of esteemed judges (us lot) will hide away in a locked room, consider your comments along with our own personal preferences, and decide upon the winners arbitrarily. Who said democracy was dead?

All hyperlocal community websites in the UK are eligible for one of the following Unawards, so speak now or until next year hold our peace:

The cream of the hyperlocal crop:

• Overall winner
• Best Hyperlocal Twitter stream
• Best Hyperlocal Story/Post
• Most Inspirational site
• Best local special interest website
• Best campaign
• Best investigation/investigative reporting
• Best community engagement
• Best council coverage
• The UnTourist Board Award for a site that attracts visitors to a place
• Most innovative use of data
• Best use of video
• Best use of audio
• Best use of photography
• Best use of a map
• The Hyperlocal Extreme Award for thrilling, breathtaking or dangerous hyperlocal reporting
• LOL Award for making us laugh

With thanks to those that support us….

• Best support to hyperlocal bloggers
• UK Hyperlocal Favourite Tool
• Best public sector backing of hyperlocals

And those that don’t….

• Best attack by traditional media

We have now closed the nominations for the Talk About Local UnAwards categories and will make final decisions as to which of the categories we are going to open up for nominations over the Christmas & New Year break.

The highly coveted UnAwards will be presented at a ceremony which will take place a little later than we first said and somewhere other than the West Midlands.

We have been speaking to a sponsor for the next Talk About Local UnConference and we are currently investigating some venues in the the North of England for an event in the first quarter of 2010.  Once we have got a confirmed venue we will give you more details.  The UnAwards will be presented at a glittering ceremony after the UnConference.

All that remains is for William, Nicky, Clare and I to wish you a very happy Christmas & New Year.

The post you have all been waiting for……

We are proud to announce the inaugural #TAL UnAwards.  Shortly after the 2010 car of the year is announced by the motor industry, the best hyperlocal bloggers from the UK will be invited to #TAL UnAwards09, a no expense spent awards ceremony for the best hyperlocal blogs of 2009 in a venue to be confirmed in the Midlands.

This red possibly carpeted event, will be the highlight of the hyperlocal year with the much sought after awards being presented, not only will you get a badge to put on your award winning blog, but you may, if we get our act together, get a real proper award to take home or leave in the taxi back to the station.

The ill conceived plan for the unAwards goes something like this:

• Suggestions for award categories
• Nominations for each category
• Voting
• After some arbitrary time scale voting will close
• The Talk About Local Team will collate the votes*
• We present the awards**

So all that remains is for me to declare the suggestions for categories open, please leave your suggestions in the comments below.

*If it rains on any day when voting is open or we feel that we know better than the hyperlocal community we may apply the duckworth lewis scoring method to get the correct results.

**It may be possible to influence the results even at this late stage with bribes of alcohol for the TAL team***

***It won’t but we will take the bribes anyway.

Wow!

That is probably the best thing I can say about this weekends event.

We were not really sure what to expect on Saturday morning, we had spent the whole of the last week planning the un-conference getting swhag from sponsors and working out the logistics of getting it all to Stoke-on-Trent. On Saturday morning once we had set up at the uni, we said well all we need now are people.  At 9am the first delegates started to arrive, at 9:30 there was a queue and the breakfast oatcakes had gone! By 10 we had about 50 people signed in, this was our personal success point, we had said all along if we get 50 or 60 people we’d be happy.  At 1030 there were still people arriving the room was getting pretty full and people were starting to organise the days sessions on the boards.

People! Photo Simon Perry

Post-it notes on the board with the days sessions on

The final delegate count was 88, which is fantastic number for our first event and the free lunch seemed to go down well.

In the afternoon Nicky did a session on games which culminated with a game of pork pie rounders, yes you read correctly PORK PIE rounders..

Pork Pie Rounders Picture Will Perrin

We are not sure that Nicky will be allowed in to Stoke-on-Trent again as she used the local Wrights pies for the game and this would be treated as sacrilege, but if we don’t tell anyone she might be ok…

There were too many sessions to mention here but some of the highlights were Andrew Stott speaking about data.gov, Nick Booth on Social Media Surgeries, Will Perrin on Talk About Local and the future of Hyperlocal blogging.

I personally got a lot from it, met up with some old friends made a lot of new friends and contacts and I hope that each delegate not only made some connections and contacts but also learnt something or shared something that will help others who are hyperlocal publishing.

Since the event a number of posts have been written and videos uploaded by people who attended so we thought we should try and list as many as we can here.

RaveCam

The #TAL09 rave cam, @franbury got feedback from people as they were leaving the Un-Conference

A full playlist of TAL09 Videos on YouTube can be viewed here

Twitter

26 pages of Twittery goodness can be seen here on Tweet Doc

If you prefer something a little more animated look at #tal09 on Visible Tweets

Flickr

A lot of delegates took pictures at the event and posted them to our Flickr pool.  If you took pictures please feel free to add them to the pool for us to share

There have been many blog posts about the un-conference most of which are linked in the comments below.  If you know of any posts that we haven’t  got a link to or have not had a pingback drop us a quick mail at the address below and we’ll sort it out.

Feel free to leave feedback here or drop us a mail to info[@]talkaboutlocal.org