Hyperlocal News: A New of World of Journalism, Sustainable Business Models, and the $30B Local Ad Market promises to be a very interesting NYC panel session. As board organizer of the event for MITEF-NYC, I am pleased to have a very strong and diverse mix of panelists, and look forward to some stimulating dialog. Aside from major players like the NY Times and Patch, we have a smaller startup, the Alternative Press, and Outside.in, a technology/infrastructure provider.
A very nice preview article on the event, and on the MIT Enterprise Forum, was published today by The Alternative Press.
From my "user-centered media" perspective, hyperlocal is an interesting development, with farther to go in use-centered control of locality -- as to geography, time, and context. Instead of just a newspaper focused on my community, I want to see more context sensitivity and control. Sometimes I want to know:
- why there are sirens in my neighborhood right now (more and longer than usual, this being Manhattan)?
- what are the fireworks I see on the Hudson now, and how do I get advance notice of them?
- what events match my interest profile (graded by distance vs. level of interest)?
- about my home location, my work location, or a location I am visiting or passing through.
I don't know that the panel will get to these questions, but there are many other interesting ones they will address. I have been involved in various online news services since the late '80s, and what I see as interesting is not always shared by the powers that be.
One of my recent projects (with impact yet to be determined) is a radically new pricing process for digital media called FairPay. This has strong potential for news services, including hyperlocal ones. More on that is on the at my FairPay Zone blog.
Of course I will be at the event, and will be happy to discuss FairPay, and other user-centered issues, with anyone there.
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