Update to snapshot of UK local newspaper activity

This is the first post from yesterday’s DEN meeting at UCLAN. As always, it was a stimulating afternoon and evening giving all of us regional online types plenty to think about and the expected controversial moment.

Below is a list of some of the regional activity going on at the moment which in essence serves to update the slideshow I produced way back in May – just without the slides.

I will update this blog soon with a post about the legal briefing and another about the Journalism Leader’s Forum panel which raised plenty of good points particularly about the role (or possible lack of role) for news in successful online communities.

The buzz at the moment is inevitably community and interaction with a strong push on hyperlocal offerings achieved through geo-tagging.

Trinity seem to be storming ahead in these areas with a raft of initiatives including;

* Fantastic live blog across titles to provide truly interactive coverage of the banking crisis. Love the way it just takes the issue to the community in such a medium-friendly way. Sticky stuff.

* Liverpool now geo-tagging all news content in order to offer users hyperlocal content option navigated by a map. We heard that it’s done by subs manually adding postcodes to every story. At the moment they have a limitation of one location per story but will soon do multiples. This is being rolled out across the group. Archant also understoon to be doing the same.

Outside of Trinity;
* Carlisle has launched a series of hyperlocal community blogs including http://www.aspatrialocal.co.ukand www.maryportlocal.co.uk. To see the full range, click on an article and navigate links on the right-hand side of the page.