One of the selection criteria was that “the service makes use of mobile technology to deliver a geographically relevant local service”, so nearly all the winners feature mobile apps or HTML5 websites. (Intriguingly, one winner – #21VC / 21st Century Village Correspondent – is instead going to develop the Loddoneye hyperlocal blog into a wi-fi access portal!)
It’ll be interesting to see where the balance between hyperlocal websites and mobile apps rests, and whether many ‘sites’ manage to successfully span both. Nesta comment on their Destination Local strategy:
Other players, such as Talk About Local, do a great job helping to establish, train and support publishers. We wanted instead to support the creation of new platforms and services - especially for mobile devices that are aware and responsive to location. By doing this, Nesta and its partners want to encourage innovation to generate some public knowledge about what works and what doesn't work and what the challenges will be as new forms of mobile consumption develop.
Locali in Craigavon were one of the successful entrants. I’m trying to find contact details for Locali and will post more about their pitch and plans if and when I get in touch with them. In the meantime, here’s their two minute video and blurb.
Locali will interact with the community, local council and local businesses to facilitate improved local engagement through a location-aware smartphone app. The app will provide hyperlocal news and information - streamlining existing public information together with new hyperlocal content. It will also allow citizens to feedback issues directly to the local council.
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