The cover of the recent Destination Local report into the hyperlocal industry by Damian Radcliffe
Nesta has announced the 10 local media projects to each receive up to £50,000 in funding as part a Destination Local project to help develop "the next generation of hyperlocal media services".
The charity announced earlier this year it would put forward a £1 million investment for the hyperlocal media industry, along with the technology strategy board, with each body to select 10 projects each - 20 in total - to share the funding. The 10 winning technology strategy board projects, which have not yet been announced, are focused more on the "enabling technologies" that provide the platforms to support such services.
According to a release, each of the winning projects will receive up to £50,000 "to build and test prototypes that will deliver the next generation of very local, mobile services such as news, public services and citizen journalism."
Projects outlined by the winners across the UK include new location-based news apps, mobile citizen journalism reporting platforms, local information guides, html version websites and a Welsh-language mobile news and information service.
This includes the #21VC project, which aims "to develop the Loddoneye hyperlocal blog into a wifi access portal", and is discussed further on the Loddoneye hyperlocal blog here. Another winner is the Kentishtowner, which plans to "develop an HTML5 version of the website and will include geo-tagging of all data optimised for mobile devices". The site outlines its plans further here.
The 10 announced by Nesta are listed below, and more information is available on each of them on Nesta's website.
- Locali: Craigavon, Northern Ireland
- My Town: Welshpool and Newtown, Wales
- Local Edge: Leith and Broughton, Scotland
- LocalSay: London, England
- LOL! Leeds Online: Leeds, England
- Papur Dre: Caernarfon, Wales
- Our Town: Glasgow, Scotland
- #21VC: Loddon, England
- URTV: Helensburgh, Scotland
- Kentishtowner, Kentish Town, England
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