Using BuddyPress to Beef Up Hyperlocal Citizen Journalism
Ted Mann
The term “hyperlocal” is popping up more and more on the interwebs lately. When you hear it, what do you think of?
– Town-based blogs?
– A reinvention of journalism as we know it?
– Big media’s latest desperate ploy to save their eroding business?
– CitySearch for the ‘burbs?
All true. All fair ways to describe what has become one of the hottest trends in the media industry in the past year.
Everybody from AOL (Patch.com) to MSNBC (Everyblock) to the New York Times (The Local) is attempting to get a piece of the hyperlocal pie. And whether or not you think one of these sites holds the promise of becoming Facebook for small towns — or the misfortune to become Microsoft Sidewalk 2.0 — it’s clear that they’re helping cover city council meetings in a way they haven’t been in years., and at the same time, bringing the power of the blog format to citizen journalism.
There is one problem most of these sites face, though: How do you empower the community and get them to join your blog, while preventing the whole thing from devolving into a forum-like free-all-all? (Apologies to all bbPress and forum enthusiasts out there.)
