Tuesday, May 31, 2011

STV goes in search of Hyperlocal news

This observer, with nothing better to do followed a link to a page giving details of the Forres and Nairn Welfare league. Elgin Thistle beat Nairn United 5-1 unfortunatly but there's a home Derby down the riverside between United and Wanderers tomorrow evening (weds). It seems STV are branching out into "hyperlocal" news. Here's the page that show the towns they cover. They don't have anything for the Highlands yet but they have a page for Forres where you can add events, stories etc. It needs a bit of filling up but maybe the like of this site is how many people will access local news in the future as many newspapers find themselves with declining sales and may disappear altogether..
Maybe it's just the time of year but this observer's regular use of Google News for Nairn related items seems to be bearing less and less fruit? Are we generally making less news or are the big boys like the P&J not so interested anymore? Perhaps it's all just going behind paywalls where no one will see it?
Only time will tell if STV finds that it can run a profitable business model running local news sites throughout Scotland but good luck to them for a fine effort so far, a lot better than a few other efforts that are available online these days.

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