The internet is a great tool for sharing knowledge across the globe. It has made it easier for us to know more about what's happening in Los Angeles and London than where we live. It has caused the term ‘flat earth' to be used again; referring to the way the web allows us to converse and work without travel time and ignoring time zones.

The internet and the web have made the world a smaller place and it's getting smaller, but there's a new phenomenon emerging called ‘hyperlocal'.
Simply put, it means a person's connection with a very small geographical area. However, it is not just represented by local news or community websites. It means a local community is both reading about the news and events of its region and actively contributing to and creating the content. This is not ground breaking thought though, as people have written letters to local newspapers since they began. The difference is that they are now actually taking part in writing the news. That's what a lot of blogs are; home written news. But more than that, people can now also post video, pictures and audio from their phones or other personal devices. They can interact and comment in real time and actively change the direction of a report or discussion.
For ‘hyperlocal' to work well, it needs a focal point which represents the community and concentrates on local news and events, or those which affect the local community; seeing the world through a local lens.
With so many large sites reporting national and international news, why would you want a local site to do the same?
When I was first asked to work with Sun Media and saw what they were trying to do, I saw a great example of ‘hyperlocal'. Local bloggers talking about local issues, local people calling in local news and all of it being put together by a local company which believes in its local community and has a keen desire to supply the best local content it can.
Of course there is another side to ‘hyperlocal'; advertisers. Whether we like it or not, unless we want to pay for our web content, we have to raise money from advertising to pay for the power and staff to put it all together. There is nothing wrong with this approach and with a ‘hyperlocal' site, the advertising is also local. This is important for local advertisers as they are able to be very accurate about their audience targeting; saving them money and raising their profile where it often matters the most – the town they live and work in.