As reported by Journalism.co.uk last week, the Guardian’s trial of hyperlocal advertising system Addiply has spread across all three of its recently launched local “beatblogs”. The system, which offers low cost adverts that can be sold on a weekly or monthly basis with different rates for different sized customers, went live on the Leeds site last Thursday before being introduced to the Cardiff and Edinburgh Guardian Local sites.

Publishers retain 90 per cent of the revenue earned from the ads, with the remaining 10 per cent split between Addiply and PayPal.

“One of the things Addiply is good for is for people to be able to promote their own community events and local services. It’s not designed or intended to bring in big name advertisers; it’s more for the smaller advertisers in the community or for people listing individual items for sale,” Sarah Hartley, Guardian Local launch editor, told Journalism.co.uk last week.

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Guardian Media Group has just sold its regional arm to Trinity Mirror, but the group’s still exploring local territory, with its new Guardian Local project, first rolling out in Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

The Guardian’s first beat blog has launched today:

• www.guardian.co.uk/leeds

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger called it a “tiny toe in local web water” over Twitter.

Its designated blogger is John Baron (@johncbaron). Introducing the site today, Baron provides a run-down of local Leeds activity and its first guest blogger – Leeds Student editor Virginia Newman, “who’s writing her take on the planned strikes by Leeds University staff”.

Features include a ‘find your councillor’ search and ‘report local problems’ feature powered by MySociety; Flickr content; Delicious links – and Leeds-only Soul Mates adverts.

Expect sites for Cardiff and Edinburgh soon.

• Guardian recruiting ‘beatbloggers’ for new local project
• Guardian names three new Beatbloggers
• Finding the value in Guardian local ‘experiment’
• Hyperlocal ad trial spreads to Guardian Local’s Edinburgh and Cardiff sites
• Guardian Local on Twitter; wants to talk to local bloggers

Tony Elliott, the proprietor of listings magazine Time Out, is considering selling control of the title to help fund online expansion.

“We want to develop in Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester; in Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And we’d certainly not look to launch magazines in places like Paris or Los Angeles without a developed website in place first,” he told the Times.

Full story at this link…

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The Yorkshire Evening Post is to launch its own web-tv series investigating six haunted buildings in Leeds, writes Sinead Scanlon for Journalism.co.uk.

A team from the Post will be joined by television medium Barrie John and ‘paranormal investigator’ Lynne Robinson, a press release from Johnston Press said.

The paper is hoping to appeal to an international online audience with the series, which will also be hosted on a separate website hauntedleeds.co.uk.

“This series represents the opportunities the web has given newspapers like ours. With this series, we’re hopefully going to show what can be achieved by pushing our own relatively modest understanding of video to its limit,” said Geoff Fox, Yorkshire Evening Post’s digital editor and series producer.

“It’s a testament to the willingness of our staff to adapt and embrace modern technology to enable them to successfully explore new mediums outside the realms of print.”

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Many bloggers will ‘fall by the wayside’, because they lack integrity, Sir Christopher Meyer, chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), told the Yorkshire Post.

Meyer, who was speaking ahead of a PCC open day in Leeds, said blogs would undergo a process of ‘natural selection’ by readers:

“There are publications which fall under our responsibility, and there is some wild and woolly stuff on the internet that does not. As far as blogs are concerned, I believe there will be a process of natural selection. Readers will soon sort out what they can rely on and what they can’t. As time goes by, a lot of these bloggers will fall by the wayside.

“If you have a well-known and respected brand, that is very important. The integrity of the brand becomes very important, and if you can see information in that publication or on the website that tells you that you can go to the PCC if you wish to raise a grievance, then it becomes a reinforcement of that brand’s integrity. You’re not going to get that on a blog.”

Meyer also expressed concerns about citizen journalism and again urged readers to use news websites that show ‘integrity’, such as newspaper websites.

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