Local and hyperlocal news

One of the most intriguing areas of development in the digital news industry has been the emergence of the concept of 'hyperlocal'. Most major newspaper publishers have at least some experimentation with this format of news, and many grassroots independent sites have sprung up, some of which appear to be flourishing in influence, if not in revenue.

As 2010 begins, several papers are experimenting with new business models for their local coverage. I argued that people should not put Johnston Press on trial over their paywall experiment. I may not be impressed with the implementation, but at least they are trying out new ways of paying for the production of content.

I still find some of the 'services' provided by local newspapers perplexing and out-dated. I've blogged about this in "My first term - a seventies pull-out in a noughties local paper?" and this post about things newspapers could stop doing.

Last year I produced a series of blog posts for 'Local newspaper week', looking at the local newspapers in the area that I lived at the time - Muswell Hill. As well as looking at the role of advertising and democracy in the local press, there were also several posts looking at the impact of free council newspapers on the wider local media business.

I've also produced several series of reviews looking at particular aspects of the websites belonging to a range of leading local and regional newspapers.

• Local search: Using site search in regional press websites
• Local social: Social bookmarking links in the UK's top regional papers
• Local RSS: What do the leading regional newspapers offer?