Hyperlocal, but not yet hyper(locally)active

When a word moves from the realm of the geekerati into the mainstream media, it's often a sign that some kind of cultural shift is afoot.

And so it is this week, as Victor Keegan writes an interesting piece in Technology Guardian on "hyperlocal". And, satisfyingly, Patient Opinion gets a mention.

To be fair, although we do offer some kind of hyperlocal potential, I don't think we have yet delivered it sufficiently. Perhaps our new API and RSS feeds will help a bit (see blog post not quite yet written), although we'll need to find some lat/long data to make them properly useful.

But Keegan's piece prompted a different thought: so far, the emphasis of hyperlocal seems to be almost entirely on providing information, rather than supporting civic involvement or community action. Again not yet delivered, but very definitely on the Patient Opinion"to do" list, is something a bit more along these lines.

As always in times of crisis and upheaval, we must recall Marx: "Bloggers have only complained about the world, in various ways. The point is to change it."

I think this applies to hyperlocal too.