UK: US-based hyperlocal news source outside.in announces launch

Posted by Alisa Zykova on October 3, 2008 at 8:16 AM

US-based outside.in, which gathers content from local news outlets and bloggers, announces that launched a beta version in the UK. The firm may also open a UK office to complement the launch.

Outside.in's Nina Grigoriev says that "popularity" and "low barriers to entry of creating original content" are behind the site's success. Furthermore, the popularity of personalized Internet content and the "failure of the newspaper industry to capitalize on featuring hyperlocal content" may have factored in.

The hyperlocal news content and information source permits Web users to search and sort out content by location. Outside.in's GeoToolkit feature lets publishers geotag material. Statistics are then provided on how readers view the submissions and how they rate against other local content providers.

According to Journalism.co.uk, outside.in was launched in the US in November 2006 and reportedly has an audience of nearly half a million educated, mostly female users, nearly 40% of which are between 18 and 34 years.

Source: Journalism.co.uk