Tag: Hyperlocal
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4 years and 2 months later… TheyWorkForYou plugin gets an update
Shocking it’s been so long really, but I’ve finally revived my TheyWorkForYou WordPress plugin. When I first released it, all the plugin did was supply a TheyWorkForYou widget. Nothing’s changed! That’s for good reason though… At the time, the latest version of WordPress was 2.8.6 and we’re now on 3.8.1 so a lot has changed!…
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New WordPress Plugin: WS7 Weather Widget
One of the great local bloggers around Lichfield is Kevin Jones who, every day, uses his own weather station to provide a forecast for the area. It’s a great service and one that we try and retweet through Lichfield Live. I wanted to provide our visitors with something more and so, after some collaboration with…
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NESTA Destination Local – initial reaction to funded projects
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article for the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network about Destination Local in which I outlined my view that the hyperlocal sector would be better helped by small amounts of money, with less stringent criteria, aimed directly at independent hyperlocals rather than any tom, dick or harry with the…
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Planning Applications for WordPress: New Plugin
It was great to hear last week of the progress Chris and his team at OpenlyLocal have made on resurrecting Planning Alerts. Thanks to their efforts we now have a site where we can view planning alerts for each council across the country. Not all councils are there yet, but it’s a great start. As…
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Blogger arrested for filming council meeting
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the Police arrest hobbyists for taking photos of public events they’re now arresting bloggers for filming council meetings. While my request to film council meetings in Lichfield was met with no resistance it seems some councillors seem to be living in an entirely different reality. I’ll be writing…
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Comment on Journalists: We know we care, but do our readers?
On occasion I post a comment somewhere I’d like to keep hold of. So here’s my comment on a post by David Higgerson talking about something I said at news:rewired. Blimey, I really need to stop ranting at news rewired! If only because I end up wanting to explain myself. You’ve done that for me…
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Comment on Why Bloggers Shouldn’t Work For Free
I just commented on a blog post by one of The Lichfield Blog’s excellent contributors, Annette Rubery. She talks about the closure of Guardian Local and the attitude of the Guardian towards contributions. I wanted to make sure you, my readers, saw my comment, so here it is; This is something I think about a…
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A deconstruction of how TBD and Patch do hyperlocal
Yesterday I said that hyperlocals must find the network if they are to be sustainable. Today I want to take you through networks like Patch and TBD.com. TBD Upon visiting TBD.com it’s hard to see how it even is hyperlocal. Under the logo we see the tagline “All over Washington” but its’s hard to see…
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Five ways to make a difference with data – a round up of #madwdwm
As part of the Making a difference with data project I was asked to run an ‘unworkshop’ for the West Midlands which pulled together hyperlocal site owners, local government folk and data geeks. Thanks to Nick Booth‘s generosity we had a suitable venue where we could gather. We had 16 people altogether and a good mix of backgrounds. It was…