The news people are interested in is called "hyperlocal news." It's personalized, with information about happenings just in your neighborhood and surrounding areas.

"Neighborhood Street" by stock.xchng user akhafer

Hyperlocal news sites have been multiplying over the past few years, since many print newspapers have been cutting back and shutting down. People are craving local news, and they need someplace to find it. According to The New York Times, many of these hyperlocal startup sites don't employ journalists; instead, they collect relevant content they find on blogs and other sources. Examples of these sites include EveryBlock, Outside.in and Fwix.

While these aggregators have low operating costs, they can also lack comprehensive and quality content because they rely on bloggers, who lack credibility. A couple years ago AOL CEO Tim Armstrong saw a need for more reliable news and he created Patch, which hires a few local journalists to cover town meetings and events, in addition to pulling content from other sources. Originally covering news just in New Jersey, Patch has now expanded to nine states across the country.

Patch Homepage

Other sites are now following in Patch's footsteps. All over the country larger investors have been launching more professional hyperlocal news sites, fully staffed with experienced reporters.

An example here in NYC is DNAinfo, created and funded by Joe Ricketts, founder of Ameritrade and member of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs. DNAinfo engages its audience through a combination of written stories, multimedia (photo galleries and videos), and social media. Many of the reporters, like @JulieShapiro, use Twitter to provide real-time news updates to locals.

DNAinfo Homepage

Although hyperlocal news sites are giving their audiences what they want and gaining dedicated followers, they still aren't immune to the news industry's struggle for profitability. Hyperlocal news presents a paradox for advertisers, who want the narrow audiences but also want to reach a lot of people. The key is finding local advertisers who are only looking to reach a small but highly targeted group.

Patch Editor in Chief Brian Farnham is working hard to attract these advertisers, and he's concentrating his focus beyond banner ads to directories and self-service ads, according to MediaShift. Farnham's overall goal is sustaining local journalism, but he can't do that without advertising. "There's no free press unless it's a profitable press," said Farnham.

What's your take on hyperlocal news? Will it be profitable enough to survive?

But what exactly is it? Usually I wouldn't quote Wikipedia, but since Wikipedia is one the most successful examples of crowdsourcing, it seems appropriate in this case. Crowdsourcing is "the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call." Jeff Howe first coined the term in a June 2006 article in Wired called "The Rise of Crowdsourcing."

"Crowd" by Flickr user James Cridland

Crowdsourcing has a lot of benefits for businesses struggling to find a solution to a problem. It provides access to many different opinions and backgrounds, and it empowers customers or users. For example, all the food companies that have consumers vote on a new flavor of a product, thus crowdsourcing the decision, are making their fans feel special by including them in the decision-making process.

Since its inception, crowdsourcing has been used in various endeavors, from encyclopedias (Wikipedia) to software development (think iPhone apps). And now with the growing trend of real-time web interaction, there are even more creative uses of crowdsourcing. Here are some recent original examples:

• Dating: Dating Brian is a site created by 23-year-old Brian in his quest to find love in New York City. He's going on 30 dates in 30 days, and he's crowdsourcing every decision, from which girls he chooses to where they go to what he should wear. Mashable reports that Dating Brian is actually an experiment for Brian's internship with BBH, but either way, this experiment could change the whole online dating realm. Watch Brian's intro video below:
• Filmmaking: "Life in a Day" is a feature film that will document one day through the eyes of people all over the world. On July 24th everyone had the opportunity to provide their unique prospective by filming anything from mundane traffic jams and family dinners to once-in-a-lifetime weddings and births. Director Kevin McDonald and Executive Producer Ridley Scott will create the film entirely from submitted footage.
• Parking: Google's new Andorid App called Open Spot encourages users to hit the app's "Mark a Spot" button whenever they leave a parking space or pass by an open space. Users looking for parking spaces will see different colored dots on a map representing open spots. The color changes depending on how long ago the spot was marked. One issue with this app is incentive for marking spots, as TechCrunch points out that the only reward right now is Karma.
• Fashion Design: Fashion Stake, which launches on September 1st, lets you decide which items go from sample to retail. Users can browse different collections and invest in the designers they like, which gives them credits toward buying from that designer in the future. The site also lets users comment on the collections, from recommending new pieces to criticizing the direction of the designer, according to ReadWriteWeb.

As helpful as crowdsourcing can be, it's not right for every project, and there are some risks. Back to the new flavor example, the company might get thousands of joke responses but only a dozen really good ideas. Someone needs to sort through all the jokes to find the legitimate responses. Also, there can be legal or copyright risks, especially when creative work is involved. Since the company usually has no prior relationship with the people submitting ideas, these people can't always be trusted.

What's your experience with crowdsourcing? Share your thoughts in the comments!

"No Substitute" by Flickr user accent on eclectic

As a result of Amazon's announcement, Mashable decided to focus their weekly Web Faceoff series on E-books vs. Print Books. The question for readers this week is "Which do you prefer? e-books or print books." As of Tuesday afternoon, printed books are ahead with 40.7% of the 1,785 votes, with e-books at 24.5% and the diplomatic "both have their advantages" at 34.8%.

Of course these results aren't conclusive yet, but digital books are definitely gaining on the old-fashioned printed books. The real question now is which e-reader will come out on top?

"Amazon Kindle PDF" by Flickr user goXunuReviews

From Amazon's Kindle to Barnes & Noble's Nook to Sony's Reader, there are plenty of quality options out there, and new ones pop up all the time. Sharp just announced they're joining the market with an e-reader that might run on Verizon's network.

And then Apple complicated things last spring by introducing the iPad, which has all the e-reader capabilities plus other apps. There is speculation that the iPad will beat out all the other e-readers, though e-readers do have their own benefits, like lower cost, smaller size, and longer battery life.

"iPad stand" by Flickr user Veronica Belmont

So what does the future hold for e-readers? ireaderreview.com has a few ideas in its list of the "10 most important eReader developments in the rest of 2010." Among them are rumors of an iPad mini, a Kindle App store, and the Nook opening up to Android Apps. What are your predictions for the rest of the year?

Some companies have already mastered creative Internet advertising. The Internet Advertising Competition, produced by the Web Marketing Association, recognizes the best in online advertising in dozens of categories in every industry, from Best Insurance Online Video to Best Leisure Online Campaign to Best B2B Rich Media Online Ad.

Here are some of our favorite 2010 winners:

Best of Show Rich Media Online Ad:

"Living Breathless"

Agency: Cossette

Look at the ad in action for the full effect. The desperation in the video would definitely get a reader's attention.

"Living Breathless" Rich Media Online Ad

Best Consumer Goods Website:

"The Next Big Thing"

Agency: VML

This website features a surreal interactive landscape that highlights the product benefits of LG's largest-capacity washing machine in a fun, creative way.

"The Next Big Thing" Website

Best Newspaper Website:

"Unplug. It's Sunday."

Agency: IQ Interactive

This website introducing the new and improved Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday paper captures the essence of a relaxing Sunday. You can explore the features of the newspaper by clicking on objects in different rooms of the lazy Sunday home.

"Unplug. It's Sunday." Website

The most successful online ad campaigns are the ones that go viral, like the recent Old Spice campaign. It's hard to predict what goes viral, as we wrote about before, but Wiedan + Kennedy had a flawless strategy to bring the "Old Spice guy" into the limelight. The Old Spice campaign will undoubtedly win big in next year's Internet Advertising Competition.

What's the best Internet advertising you've seen recently?

At the time I had no idea that what I should really be striving for was an internship that would give me a rent-free, decked out NYC apartment. That's right, MRM worldwide is housing their five interns together for free for six months. And this is no typical first apartment in the city; on the contrary, it comes fully furnished (by Ikea and CB2), including a flat-screen TV and a grill for barbecuing on the big outdoor balcony.

"building" by stock.xchng user ilco

MRM started this upgraded internship program to attract the most qualified and talented applicants, who they were losing to more well-known agencies. But what about all the smaller companies, like startups, which don't have enough expendable income to pay for their employees' apartments?

Clinching the young rising stars could be as simple as tweaking the wording of your want ads. Just follow the same advice that job applicants get - show how you're different and emphasize what you can offer. Here are some tips:

• Highlight how the internship will benefit the intern. Will it lead to a job with the company? Will it give the intern new pieces for his/her portfolio?
• Explain how your company is different than all the other companies in your industry. Pretend you're doing a new business pitch. What's your unique selling point?
• Talk about company culture. Is it a shorts and flip flops environment, or suit and tie? Is the office fridge stocked with Coronas or Perrier?
• Be honest about the work the intern will be doing. If it's mostly photocopying and filing, the intern will find out eventually, so be upfront about it. Better that you find someone willing to put in some hard work than someone who quits after the first day because the job isn't as glamorous as the ad suggested.
• And most importantly, offer free snacks!

"At work" by stock.xchng user piovasco

Which methods have worked best for you to find the premier intern?

There are two main types of SEO. On-page SEO involves editing elements on your website to make it more searchable, and off-page SEO involves increasing inbound links to your website. Here are some tips for both types that will get your site to the top of the search engines:

On-Page SEO

• Keywords - Before you do anything else, determine the best keywords for your website. These aren't necessarily the words that describe your company best, but the words that consumers are most likely to use when they search for you. Enter your URL into Google's search-based keyword tool to see your optimum keywords.
• Page Titles - The title of each webpage is also the title of the search result for that page, so it needs to include relevant keywords. But be sure to keep it under 70 characters because anything after that won't fit in search results.
• Optimized URL - Like the title of the page, the URL should also allude to the page's content. If the URL is just a jumble of random letters and numbers, the search engine will have no way of categorizing the page.
• Tagging - Tag everything! Use alt tagging for every image, and tag every post on your blog. Use keywords that pertain to your business as a whole, as well as to the specific topic of the post.
• Internal Links - Whenever possible, link to other pages within your website. Make sure that every page links back to the homepage. If you reference another page or a prior post, link to that page.

"Your Link Here - SEO Comic" by Flickr user ByronShell

Off-Page SEO

• Links on Social Networking Sites - Link to your website as often as possible from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. If other people share or retweet your link, it increases the number of inbound links to your site. And search engines love inbound links.
• Website/Blog Directories - List your website on reputable and relevant directories. Technorati is a great directory for blogs. Other directories exist for all different website categories, like Idealist.org for nonprofit organizations.
• Guest Posts - With a guest blog post, you're always guaranteed a link to your blog from your guest's website, and every link counts!
• Anchor Text - Be sure that the anchor text (the text people click on to follow the link), as well as the text around the link, includes keywords.

Which SEO methods have worked best for you? Do you spend a lot of time on SEO for your site?

Reminder: As important as SEO is, content should still be your chief concern. Once more people start visiting your website, you want them to like what they see so they keep coming back!

"NY Tech MeetUp, November 2006" by Flickr user sd

The next meetup is tonight (July 6th) at 7:oo pm at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Blip.tv Co-Founder Dina Kaplan will emcee the event, and new media expert Clay Shirky will share some of his wisdom. The meetup will also feature demos from the following innovative startups:

• StuffBuff lets you auction stuff anywhere
• Comixology is the leading digital comic store
• Jetsetter insider access to the places you want to go
• HotPotato share what you're doing with friends
• HowAboutWe puts the date on a pedestal
• BetterFly makes you a better person
• Frontal changes the way web apps are built

Over 800 people attend each of these meetups, so they are a great place to network with your peers and keep up with the industry. Of course, if you really want to keep track of the tech scene, NYC isn't the only city you need to monitor.

The Economist recently wrote about the success of tech startups throughout Europe.  Although Europe was slow to join the start-up bandwagon, they're working fast to make up for lost time. London in particular is currently building up a thriving startup community.

Next Monday a new working space and innovation center for tech startups called TechHub is opening in central London's "Silicon Roundabout" district. In the TechHub blog, they liken their philosophy on work and offices to the Seth Godin's ideas in his post "Goodbye to the Office." Basically, they believe that as long as you have a laptop and wifi, you don't need a physical office.

In fact, TechHub says that "having like-minded people around you who are working on other things, in different companies can be thought-provoking and incredibly useful in terms of new perspectives and ideas."

"Red lady" by stock.xchng user alicja_sto

This philosophy seems to be catching on, because TechHub has some pretty big supporters. Google just signed on as one of the first founding sponsors of TechHub, along with Pearson publishing company. Google's goal in supporting TechHub is to maintain "an affordable, buzzing and creative working environment" for aspiring tech businesses, according to Google Android Developer Advocate Reto Meier.

TechHub is catering to local London-based companies, as well as to international businesses. Their membership options include the TechHub Annual Membership, which lets you book a desk at TechHub whenever you're in the area for only £10 a day.

If TechHub is anything like Image Space Media's old home, TechSpace, it will be a great place for startups to develop and prosper!

Confused as to which teams are left in the World Cup and wondering when those teams play? World Weblog Whizz provides us with a nice bracket (below) and more about the games, here.

Click here to visit World Weblog Whizz to find out what's going on in the world!

Probably not.

Images are a valuable addition to any blog entry. Of course we're a little biased because we think images are awesome, but this Master of SEO post "The Importance of Pictures in your Blog Posts" agrees with us.

So what kind of images should you use? First, they should always be relevant to your post. Some images might help you prove a point, like a graph or chart. Or they could visually represent what you're talking about, like a screenshot of a website you're profiling or photos of muffins for a baking blog.

Images can also bring humor to your blog, in the form of cartoons or comics. And they can provide an emotional connection to your readers. Who doesn't love looking at a couple of cute and cuddly puppies?

"Puppies" by Flickr user Kiwi NZ

Case in point.

Now where do you go about finding these images? The simplest way is taking photos yourself, since you don't have to worry about copyrights. But of course if you're writing about Paris and you've never been to Paris, you'll need to use someone else's pictures.

There are a bunch of great stock photography websites out there. If you want a huge selection of great quality images and you have some pocket change, check out these sites:

iStockphoto - Offers royalty-free photos and illustrations starting at only one dollar.

Getty Images - Offers creative and editorial photos, but many of them are rights-managed, with restrictions on duration of use, size, placement etc.

If you don't want to spend any money, here are some great free options:

stock.xchng - Decent selection of mostly larger files, which means better quality images. You do have to sign up to download the images, but registration is quick and free.

Flickr Creative Commons - You can use all these Flickr photos for free, as long as you give the photographer credit, because the photos have a Creative Commons license. Generally a good selection, though the photos are more amateur, and the files aren't very large.

Everystockphoto.com - Database of free stock photos from a bunch of sites, including stock.xchng, Flickr, photoXpress, morgueFile and Image*After.

Everystockphoto.com search results for "Cuba"

Now that you know why images are essential to your blog and where you can find them, here are a couple best practices for image use:

1. Always check the license on the individual image, no matter which site it comes from. Even if the image is free, you might have to credit the photographer or link back to the site, or there could be other usage restrictions.
2. Don't go overboard with images. Two or three per post is plenty. The content of your blog is still most important, and images should complement and enhance your posts, not overshadow them.

What's your favorite stock photography site? Did we miss any good ones? Let us know in the comments!

One feature they've all been gushing about is the new and improved camera. The iPhone 3 had a three megapixel camera with no flash, but the new iPhone actually has two cameras - a VGA camera on the front for video chatting and a five megapixel camera on the back with LED flash and 5x digital zoom. According to Engadget's review of the iPhone 4, the camera also has better photon-collecting capabilities, which lets in more light, resulting in better photos.

Engadget posted some photos they took with the iPhone, and they all came out beautiful. Two of the photos below are Engadget's iPhone 4 photos, and one is from a Nikon Coolpix digital camera. Can you guess which is which?

Ok, Engadget's watermarks makes it pretty easy to pick out the iPhone photos, but without those marks, it would be a tough call. The clarity of all three photos is very similar.

Do you have the iPhone4? Take some photos and post them on our Facebook page so we can see them!