The local and community news “aggregator” space is poised to become increasingly important. Local news staffs, obviously, are being whittled away with the declining economics of local news. But there is more local content than ever, via blogs, pro/amateur content, reviews and other sources.
Already, the aggregator space is well populated by sites such as Topix.net, …

Outside.in, a major aggregator of local blogs, has begun the integration with CNN that was announced last December at our Interactive Local Media conference in L.A. First up is integration with CNN’s home page, weather page and profile page. On the home page, users can click on Local Weather & News in the right sidebar, …

Local news cooperatives are now in development in San Diego, Chicago, Hawaii and San Francisco. The latter, known as The Bay Area News Project, is building up with a $5 million investment from philanthropist Warren Hellman, who apparently thought it would be a better idea to start fresh than buy The San Francisco Chronicle.
According to …

A couple of stories caught my attention today. First, Reach Media Group (RMG), a digital out-of-home company that we’ve previously written about, signed a deal to push New York Times content to its network of 800 coffee shops, cafes and eateries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.
According to the press release, …

Wired on the iPad, via All Things D
Next month, Apple’s iPad comes out (and I will buy one). But what will be the impact of iPads and tablets from other companies on traditional media? Many are considering it to be the new magazine form factor. In theory, the iPad would make online ads compelling, and …

The debate about the future of journalism reached the height of silliness last year when journalist turned banker Steven Rattner suggested that The New York Times be subsidized by the government like the BBC. But the economics of journalism has always driven the format, aside from journalistic labors of love ranging from penny savers in …

EBay founder Pierre Omidyar  and former eBay VP Randy Ching are setting up a local public affairs and civic news site in Hawaii, where Omidyar lives, according to a post on Omidyar’s blog that was picked up by paidContent. Former Rocky Mountain News Editor and Publisher John Temple has been hired as its editor, and …

Digital media is more cannibalistic than complementary and is seriously eating into the demand for traditional news sources such as newspapers, TV and news magazines, according to the third annual survey of news users done by Outsell Inc.
The survey findings are based on almost 3,000 consumers and are fully detailed in Outsell’s “News Users 2009” …

Neil Budde of DailyMe and Mike Orren of Pegasus News helped the ILM:09 audience understand what it takes to offer a truly customized news offering that is engaging and relevant.
One of the key takeaways both Orren and Budde discussed was the idea that not everything can or should be customized on the news site. …

Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed newspaper publishers this morning at the NAA Annual Convention in San Diego, giving a high-level, thought-provoking talk (without apparent notes) about the future of information and the role that newspapers, search and consumers will play in it. (While I attended the event, the talk was streamed online here.)
Schmidt noted that …

The “Deconstructing Internet Yellow Pages” panel at DMS ’08 revealed a number of areas in which IYPs need to evolve. Based on Kelsey’s IYP research, conference chair and TKG Program Director Charles Laughlin said, “IYPs appear too conservative and unwilling to do what it takes to win in the local search space.”
One of the …

The Huffington Post has a certain glamour about it and is able to attract an “A” list of contributors. There is always something interesting on it, and its readership is apparently between 3 million and 8 million unique.
Now it is going to go local, with a launch in Chicago this summer, and at least a …

Yellow Pages Group in New Zealand announced two online partnerships geared toward extending visibility for its advertisers.
The first partnership is with realestate.co.nz, New Zealand’s largest online listing site, and the second is with shopnewwzealand.co.nz, the leading online store featuring New Zealand made products.
According to a Scoop Independent News article, the partnerships ”are the first in a …

More detail has come out on Seat Pagine Gialle’s proposed sale of its foreign properties. The goal, according to an interview with Reuters, is “to shift its attention back to Italy to mine a boom in Internet use in the country instead of looking for growth abroad. That means units Telegate in Germany, Thomson Directories …

Google has begun to place geotagged news stories in Google Earth. By mousing over news icons on the map, preview windows appear that show stories from Google News. This adds to the news stories it was already plotting via its partnership with The New York Times.
This is also similar to what MetaCarta does with news stories …

Alibaba is China’s answer to Google and Yahoo!. The online site is 39 percent owned by Yahoo and recently entered a strategic partnership with Infomedia, the second-largest Yellow Pages publisher in India.
The agreement with Infomedia provides Alibaba access to the second-largest population in Asia. The deal with Infomedia opens the opportunity to sell online advertising …

Lawrence, Massachusetts-based Yellow Pages publisher LocalTel has partnered with Google’s AdWords program to sell keywords on Google and Google Maps, and for ads to appear on partner sites within Google’s AdSense network. According to the press release, “ Through a new strategic relationship with Google, LocalTel has become a Google Adwords authorized re-seller allowing businesses …

MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton is well known within the newspaper industry as one of the least sentimental businessmen among all the publishers. He’s taken a hard line against journalistic “excess,” resulting in products that have been highly profitable but not critically acclaimed. At the same time, in search of new revenue streams, he’s been …

Yellow Pages Group Canada has signed an agreement with Copernic, owners of Mamma.com, to supply local Canadian advertiser listings to the mamma.com search engine. According to the press release from Copernic, “The agreement means local search queries will be served YellowPages.ca listings in premium positions clearly identified as local listings.”
Mamma.com is a well established search …

Pagesjaunes France has announced it will take a dramatic pricing approach in its largest urban markets where it will cut print costs by 20 percent while raising online costs on average by 50 percent. The goal of the pricing program is to move more revenues into online while reducing the revenue growth risk created by …