How To: Create Local News Mashups

Blogger Adrian Short has published a useful guide to building local news mashups.

Short blogs about hyperlocal news in Stonecot Hill (Sutton) and has created a Twitter feed for the area which pulls together news stories from a range of websites.

This mashup can be used by Short to gather leads for his own blog and also acts as a hyperlocal news distribution tool in its own right.



His step-by-step graphic guide illustrates the way that RSS feeds from news sources - his own blog, the Sutton Guardian and the website of his local MP - are filtered to supply relevant material to the feed.

Short also explains how his Yahoo Pipes mashup creation pulls in content from the local council website without the use of RSS feeds.

And he believes that all websites should pay attention to their mashable-friendly credentials.

“If you run a website, it’s time to start thinking of mashability with the same degree of seriousness as you treat human visitors.

“Your website needs to serve up feeds and APIs so that other programs can connect to your content and deliver it to people in ways and contexts that they find useful.”

[HT - Journalism.co.uk]