The importance of place: being social is hyperlocal

Brian Wardindolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty

Developing content based on places is relevant to audiences

• Approx 1,500 hits per day

• Over 50,000 hits per month

• Approx 1,000 RSS subscribers

• Over 11,000 hits on Google map

• Inclusion in Google place pages

Location metadata

• Location metadata is crucial to content being identifiable as being about a place

• The audience for your location data is people and machines

• Treat place as a theme• Develop a taxonomy that includes ‘who’,

‘what’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘how’• For example: “dinner, Sri Lankan, Melbourne,

Hawthorn, Glenferrie Rd, restaurant, review”

Google mapsmelbournegastronome.com

Google mapsindolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty - automated

Google place pages

Google place pages

VeGMeL

• Aggregates vegan food bloggers from Melbourne

• Builds community

• Encourages collaboration

• Aggregates by theme without using metadata

Melbourne local news sites

• Aggregate contributions from hundreds of content creators

• Uses metadata tags so 1 blog can contribute to multiple sites

• Thousands of posts about local areas

• Art, music, fashion, food, events

• Free to read and contribute• No advertising, no exploitation• The local newspapers of the

future

Aggregation and

syndication

Results

• Inclusion in Google place

pages

• High search rank returns

• More hits

• More regular readers and

subscribers

Geo data tools

• wordpress.org/extend/plugins/geopress/

• code.google.com/p/wordpress-geo-mashup/

The future

• Real-time mobility– Make better choices with better information

• Location awareness– Sorting content by location rather than chronology

– Display content about what’s closest to me

• Augmented reality– Point phone at things to discover content about

them