Hyper-Local News Coming to Twitter?

(MoneyWatch)  Even as the collapse of the old media models seems to be accelerating, revealing systemic structural flaws that are catastrophic in nature, the outlines of a new media model are coming to life right before our eyes.

Over and over, this past year, the potentials being unlocked by companies like Outside In and Every Block, and Topix to extend the news business down to a block by block level has thrilled me.

Why? Because especially in big cities and most of their suburbs, millions of people live lives plagued by loneliness, alienation, and an inability to connect. Outside of the hard-core of us who are true news junkies, always seeking another fix, most people actually find what journalists dig up depressing, confusing, and even terrifying.

Thanks to technologies like the ones you and I utilize, dear reader, when I compose these words, and you interact with them, by (hint) adding comments, forwarding them to friends, or recommending the piece on the toolbar, we are building virtual communities of people based on interest, not location.

But we also are physical beings, and we cannot simply transport ourselves to whatever far-flung location that might better meet our needs on a whim. Rather, our neighborhood is our world, in many respects, so we have to get the most out of it that we can.

Back to the news that inspired this post. Germany's Der Spiegel published an interview with Twitter CEO Evan Williams that suggests that the micro-blogging platform may be developing the ability to let people find out what is happening in their immediate vicinity. According to TechCrunch, "that would basically mean that Twitter could actively ping users about local events that are going on in their neighborhood, in real-time, based on the location they've indicated."
Think about it, fellow ambulance-chasers. There is a news market here, which, when joined with the hyper-local ad models we've discussed, is a piece of the puzzle of how to build a new media business model.

Stay tuned.

Thanks to Brent Harrison for pointing me to this story.