Friday, January 23, 2009

Talk about local

One of the problems of this new media/digital/information age is the fear that those less connected will get left behind.

I was glad then when I was made aware of a a proposal to help active citizens create ultra or hyperlocal sites about their neighbourhood/community/locality.(thanks to Paul Bradshaw and Craig McGinty)

Check out the proposal Talk about local HERE

This is a brief synopsis

Talk About Local intends to train thousands of people who don’t have a voice to find a powerful online expression for their neighbourhoods, even if they can’t use the internet today. The project will create a legacy of independent community sites across the country, owned, mainstreamed and updated by ordinary local people as a volunteer effort.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I really like the Talk about Local idea/philosophy/initiative - Jeff Jarvis had an interesting take on it here: http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/01/24/newspaper-subsidy-try-this/

Instead of subsiding newspapers and trying to keep the old format alive, instead invest in broadband roll out, training etc. It should be a lot easier for us in the UK to achieve with a smaller population.

It'd also create some jobs! I recently set up a community site for Preston (still in very early stages) - http://prestonblog.wordpress.com and it's gathering lots of views and got a few guest writers coming soon to add content.