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?

When the Huffington Post launched its Social News site on Facebook Connect in mid-August, the site received 6,925,000 unique users in September according to comScore. Social News allows users to link to Huffington Post articles directly onto their Facebook profile using a pop-up window and one section even them see what their Facebook friends are reading on the site.

According to Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau, Facebook-referred traffic is up 48% since the launch of its Facebook Connect site and 15% of all comments now come through Facebook. Users of the political news blog increased by 50% over the last year, surpassing The Washington Post and BBC. This is pretty impressive for an independent blog that is barely four years old.

We predict that many news organizations will follow in the HuffPost’s footsteps and encourage all of our online news publishers to appoint a social media editor ASAP!

Source: guardian.co.uk

In August, we listed some helpful online tips for small newspapers, including creating a Twitter tree of accounts, tweeting a live headline feed, posting online events, and blogging. With more and more online news publications signing up for our technology, we've decided to introduce another basic way to connect readers to your organization: user-generated blogs.

Using user-generated content can help enhance the relationship between you and your readers. Implementing social tools that your readers are already using is a great way to involve your audience and enable them to share information through photos, videos, and written posts. For example, CNN's iReport allows users to submit articles, videos, and photos that are unedited or screened before they are posted. "At CNN we live for news," states the About section on iReport. "We love talking about it. And we know that there's a whole lot more to it than what you see on TV or read on your favorite Website. So we've launched an independent world where you, the iReport.com community, tell the stories we're not used to seeing. And the most compelling, important, and urgent ones may get seen on CNN."

The best part is, user-generated photos can be added to your Image Space Media Image Manager so you'll end up with more images on your website. Not only will you build a stronger sense of community, but you could potentially increase the earnings for your site!