Outside.in, which has raised $12 million over the last two years, got its biggest endorsement to date, notes Paid Content. CNN will invest $7 million in the hyperlocal aggregator. CNN.com, with more than 30 million monthly unique users, is by far the biggest publisher to run Outside.in’s content.
Outside.in’s new publisher program lets Dow Jones and the NY Post, for example, pay Outside.in for an ad-free version of their feed, or they can get feeds for free if they include ads.
Hyper Local is the new green.
Fisher Communications has launched a network of 28 hyperlocal neighborhood Web sites in the Portland market and 10 in the Eugene market after similar hyperlocal websites in their Seattle homebase.
The Seattle Times is working with established blogs in the region, including MyBallard.com and the West Seattle Blog. The Times partnership with the local blogs is funded through a grant from the Knight Foundation. It includes four goals, according to the press release.
Earlier this year, after falling ad sales, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, founded in 1863, stopped their print edition on March 17, 2009, when it became an online newspaper.
Other hyperlocal developments include:
WikiCity has jumped on the hyperlocal bandwagon, to include traditional news sites, blogs, and hybrids. WikiCity started in late 2008, notes Nieman Jouralism Lab, but announced itself formally this summer with local content for just more than 22,000 U.S. communities.
- Msnbc.com recently purchase of EveryBlock, a Web site that offers neighborhood news in 15 cities including Seattle. EveryBlock released their source code a few months ago.
- Netvibes has launched a News and Lifestyle Dashboard with real-time feeds. It lets users check their Twitter, Facebook, widget apps, notifications, podcast subscriptions, photos and notifications.
- Google’s living story experiment explores new ways to interact with news. Google hopes to make these tools available to any publisher that wants to use them. Reporters and editors at the Washington Post and The NY Times were sought to help develop the the Living Stories prototype which offers a single url with a succinct summary of the whole story and regular updates.
- Citizen news site NowPublic has been sold to another company in the “hyperlocal” space, Examiner.com, notes C/Net.
- Fwix has an iPhone application that enables its users to file news updates, photos and videos, live from the field. The site serves you news relevant to your local region by detecting the location of your IP address. San Francisco-based Fwix says it is is available in 80 U.S. and Canadian cities.
- GroundReport, says the new iPhone GS will make it easier for average people to gather and distribute video footage. Livestream enables live video on location.
- NPR has launched a Local Journalism Project in a pilot project where a group of NPR stations expand original reporting, curating, distributing and sharing online content about high-interest, specialized subjects.
- Google is Now Showing Ads On iPhone Map
- NeighborGoods is a web site that lets you share stuff with people in your neighborhood. For example, if you need to borrow a power drill for a home improvement project, you can search for someone in the NeighborGoods community who’s willing to lend one.
- Five major publishers announced a new digital publishing venture often called a Hulu for publishers. Competing publishers, including Time Inc, Condé Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corp will be equity partners in the Joint Venture to develop open standards for cross-platform e-reader technology, advertising and digital sales.
- The new Boxee Beta software collects videos and music from Web sites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Comedy Central and Pandora, and presents it in a visually friendly format that resembles a television directory, while adding some features from social networks, explains the NY Times. According to Boxee, competing boxes such as Roku, AppleTV, video games and internet connected BlueRay players are too limited and receive only the Web services chosen by a particular aggregator.
Related Newspaper and Location services articles on Dailywireless include; Google’s Real Time News, Hulu for Publishers Announced, Boxee Box, NPR Launches Local Journalism Project, Internet Advertising: Down But Mobile, WSJ Mobile: $2/week, Apple Tablet Confronts Publishers, Open Source: Moving Up, Ocean Observatories: The Ultimate Splash Page, Web2go Localizes Media, Google Crowdsources Live Traffic on Maps, Merits of Twitter Location Debated, Rental Bikes: Free with Location-based Apps?, Tom Tom: $99 iPhone Navigation App, Location-based Apps from Navigon and Skyhook, Tracking Tools, Loopt on Sprint Instinct, and Navigation: There’s an App for That.
