Local mobile advertising: what's ahead for 2013?

Last week, analysts from BIA/Kelsey took a look ahead at what 2013 might hold for local mobile media. Some of their anticipated trends could prove interesting, and perhaps lucrative, for community news and information sites that hope to turn mobile media into a revenue stream. In a Jan. 23 webinar, top BIA/Kelsey analysts offered these predictions, among others...

Covering San Antonio's MLK Day march: Go for Plan D!

Whenever live coverage meets high tech, on-the-fly learning is par for the course. So this week in San Antonio, Texas, the staff of NOWcastSA wasn't deterred when their initial plans for live crowdsourced coverage of a huge community event hit major technical glitches. Here's how they quickly jumped to plan B, and beyond, until they found a combination of tools and processes that worked.

"Don't sweat it if you're up to plan D!" laughed managing director Charlotte-Anne Lucas. "Stay creative and focused. There are always options."

Mobile content strategy: It's really about being adaptive

Whether you're making your community news/info website more mobile-friendly, or perhaps creating your own smartphone or tablet app, it helps to consider how to optimize your content, not just your design and user interface, for mobile devices. A new book, Content Strategy for Mobile, offers some options and lessons that community site owners might put to use in order to better serve their communities.

Robert Niles on making money from niche news sites

Community or locally focused websites are just another kind of digital content niche -- and there are many ways for niche sites to earn revenue. In a new e-book, longtime niche news publisher Robert Niles explains how to make money from niche news. In a recent interview he explained how his advice can apply to local news and information.

Floodlight: New digital tool helps Colorado organizations tell their stories

A data-driven local foundation is empowering the many non-profit and community organizations it works with to tell their stories and present information without having to be experts in blogging or data visualization.

ConnectOC: Connecting Orange County's haves and have-nots with public data

ConnectOC challenges Orange County's vision of itself as a place of prosperity with the stark facts about homelessness, hunger, education, and healthcare -- and wants to connect civic data to civic action.    

You've got data -- Now what? School Facts Jax tames the tangle of school data

What do people really want from your data?  

These days, data -- data visualization, data journalism, and data-driven civic apps -- are the new black.  There are hackathons, national data challenges, grant programs, and groups putting coders to work on behalf of cities.

Partnerships help citizen news sites gain visibility and engage community

Libraries, colleges and other community institutions play a key role in helping citizen news sites raise their visibility and attract contributors

Did The New York Times 'miss the boat' on Bradley Manning hearing? Not necessarily

The Times' public editor chastises the newsroom for not staffing an important hearing for the analyst accused of a massive leak of government documents to Wikileaks. Pushback: Does it make sense for news outlets to cover events that many other journalists are covering when there is less and less time available for unique enterprise reporting?

Making it work: Web-based tools that will help you get it done

What are the tools that Knight Community Information grantees and others working around news and civic engagement find most useful today? Are there universal favorites the rest of us would do well to check out? In the interest of improving workplace skills –especially as we look ahead to 2013—we checked in with some Knight grantees and friends to see what resources they recommended.