Hyperlocal Belfast.

So what is Hyperlocal? Damned if I know – and I just did a presentation on the thing at Barcamp Belfast.

For a definition of Hyperlocal blogging go here, then check out this fantastic resource and finally have a wee read of these two very different examples of how it works.

The very articulate Alan In Belfast helped me host the chat and showed everyone an interview with Nicky Getgood (of Digbeth is Good), about the practicalities and reasons for blogging on a very local-local scale.

Nicky talked briefly about how hyperlocal blogging can really bring communities together… even for the opening of local ATMs:

So the talk was really an introduction to Hyperlocal and also a chance to see if there’s an appetite for such a site in Belfast – which I now think there is.

There is a wealth of content about Belfast being published on the web at the moment. Just look at sites like Lookaly,  Secret Belfast and Slugger O’Toole and you start to appreciate how healthy this city’s online community is.

So why don’t we bring this all together. But how – I’m not entirely sure.

One of the things we did was to pass out a handful of Community Telegraphs. I asked everyone to rip out anything they found interesting or useful to get a sense of what people look for in local news.

Out of the 38 articles featured in the North Belfast Community Telegraph (May 19th) there were only 14 which attendees found of interest or value. Less than half of the entire paper.

The top five articles were:

Police Reports – 5 people picked police reports including this one on falling crime figures in Newtownabbey.

Whiteabbey A&E closure – There were 4 clippings for the closure of Whiteabbey Hospital’s A&E department.

‘Students show that they Care about their art work‘ – A story about UU art students showing their wares at a local nursing home piqued the interest of 4 attendees.

Court Reports – ‘Man fined for cutting trees’, a story about a Malone architect who hacked down four defenceless trees in a conservation area, garnered a surprising amount of interest (3 people) from the Barcamp audience.

CT on the grapevine – 3 people chose this reader contributions section which  included news about upcoming events, festivals or days of interest in North Belfast (split in to different areas – Antrim Road, N Belfast, Waterworks and N’abbey.)

I’ll talk about hyperlocal more in my next post and about how it might work in Belfast.

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