The third annual Talk About Local unconference event for independent website operators and bloggers wrapped up last night with the now much anticipated awards ceremony to celebrate the year’s achievement in the hyperlocal sphere.
It’s a tongue in cheek affair complete with prizes of no-value (oven glove anyone?) and categories which myself and the TAL team make-up on the night.
But it’s far from worthless.
Underneath the hilarity and general piss-taking, this yearly opportunity to acknowledge some of the remarkable work being done by bloggers up and down the UK in some ways shows just how difficult it is to measure success in this area.
The standard metrics we use for media measure often just don’t fit.
How do you measure online activity that has prompted neighbours to start talking and organise a litter clear up campaign? Counting page impressions doesn’t tell that story.
Or the tireless efforts of dogged council reporting in the face of uncooperative press offices? Dwell time’s fairly irrelevant.
Or the hosting of business pages which means every single trader in a small town is connected and hooked up to provide offers on a Facebook community page? Week on week percentage revenue rise doesn’t come close to the value of that.
So while the measures are ridiculous, they are also a stark reminder that this is an environment where the rules are different.
Here’s my priceless picks which involved journalism in the hyperlocal space;
- The toy medical kit award for forensic work – the tireless VentnorBlog bloggers for their council reporting work which this year included this simple but transparent spreadsheet to show live updates of how votes were cast.
- Sprinkling fairydust in an urban environment – this went to one of my Guardian Local staff, beatblogger Hannah Waldram to recognise the work she’s been doing engaging with communities in Cardiff.
- Hottest story of the year – the oven glove of success will be worn this year by Richard from SaddleworthNews for his work on the Phil Woolas story.
- The mythical unicorn of co-operation – goes to the Birmingham Mail for their work to collaborate with bloggers in that city to produce news content.
- The site with balls – Manchester-based InsidetheM60 received a fetching pair for their dogged fight for independent journalism.
- And finally the overall winner is just that. The BlogPreston team, Andy Halls, Joseph Stashko and Ed Walker will have to share a small reporter’s notebook in recognition of some great work this year, most notably incorporating social media elements in fresh new ways and being successful in a bid for Nesta funding which will mean they can increase their involvement in the community there.
Well done to all! See you next year.
If you’ve blogged about this event, please do share the link in the comments below.
Dim Sum Digital 
great piece – especially the metrics. thanks as ever for your help and support.
through the haze i do remember other #TAL11 unawards
The stuffed bird for best rural site – the wonderful emerging fenland farmers community in cambridgeshire. including the epic ‘watch out there’s bulb fly about’ and this lady’s great pair of tatties
http://fenlandfarmers.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/huge-agri-potaotes-can-anyone-better-these/
The broken plastic aquarium for best campaign – mytunstall for their campaign to save some victorian swimming baths http://mytunstall.co.uk/11/03/sad-loss-tunstall-uks-oldest-victorian-pool-tunstall-pool-shut-stoke-on-trent-city-council-tun
and the teapot of achievement for Sheffield Forum for their extraordinary achievement breaking the 5 million posts barrier http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/
we didn’t have anyone in the room who was from sheffield so i gave the teapot to John from Leeds who is trying to get it to them.
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Many thanks for the award TAL, I’m really honoured that all of the posters on MyTunstall’s fight the cuts,save the pool’s campaigning have had a little recognition. If/when the pool reopens, the unaward will be taking pride of place in the foyer. It’s not every swimming pool in the land that can say it’s got a broken aquaria TAL11 award.
Hyperlocal can work to organise and bring people together, and a little website in the deepest darkest depths of stoke on trent is testament to that. Mostly it wasn’t the website that did it, but people’s love of the pool, but I’d to say me and the website did our part.
Just gutted that I missed the TAL11 event, but missed it for the right reasons covering a local dog show with my phone recorder and a camera.
Matt
My Tunstall
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Great round-up of a very useful and enjoyable day. I’ll have you know that oven glove is far from worthless though. It’s worth £1.99 (someone left the price tag on). I’ll have to try to win another one next year to complete the pair!
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Thanks for the mention and the brief chat on Saturday.
I would love to talk to you some more sometime about how I believe other independents could benefit from our business model
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