New Washington D.C. news and culture website and TBD has begun a map-based project to chart problems on the city's metro service. Readers are invited to contribute reports to a map, identifying the location of the problem.

Launched by the creators of Politico, TBD opened on 9 August following a construction period of nearly a year. A dozen reporters cover different aspects of DC life, and their work is supplemented by a network of 129 community bloggers who cover neighbourhoods across the area. Six people are focused on engaging with the community via social networks. TBD offers very local news, providing a zip code-based search function that provides readers with a feed of their most local news from newspapers, magazines and blogs.

TBD's metro initiative hopes to track reports and hold public transport service WMATA responsible for resolving problems, such as broken escalators or flooded platforms, as they occur. Readers can submit reports directly to the map, send an email to the site or tweet an alert with the hashtag #tbdwmata.The map was created using Crowdmap, a service from Ushahidi, which uses 'crowdmapping' to help spread information in times of crisis.

Much of hyperlocal news' potential to succeed lies in its ability to inform readers about matters that are really relevant to their everyday lives, news that they cannot find elsewhere, and TBD's new project fits very much into that category. Will it help the new outlet to become essential reading for D.C. residents?

Source: TBD