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The article focuses on hyperlocal news Web sites created by citizens to provide information to communities and social networks whose size prevents them from being covered by traditional mass news media. The Web sites serve communities ranging in size from Dutton, Montana, population 375, to teenagers living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The sites examined were founded in part thanks to grants from the Knight Foundation and the University of Maryland journalism school. The organizers of the sites are surveyed, and almost all are highly positive about the experience and optimistic about the future success of the Web sites. Costs of the projects are very low, so the organizers do not rate them though conventional business metrics. Most do wish to generate enough revenue to be able to pay their contributing reporters.

The article presents a first person account of the workings of Backfence Inc., a series of hyperlocal news Web sites which serve the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. The sites depend on user-generated content and use of local concerns that would never be covered by a major metropolitan newspaper and are covered by community newspapers only on a sporadic basis. The sites do not practice traditional journalism, and their standards for publication concerning such matters as sourcing and objectivity are far less rigid. The sites are not supposed to offer competition to larger news organizations. They are supplements which are too narrowly focused to exist on anything but a small scale. Journalists should consider these sites resources to use rather than as an economic foe.

A list is presented of recommendations for persons wishing to start a hyperlocal news Web site for their social network or community. The first priority is realizing that dealing with citizen journalists requires a great deal of personal interaction and a constant need to be aware of the contributors' motivations. Creating a high public profile in the community is essential for the Web site's organizers. Organizers should be aware that as in all volunteer-based activities, growth will be sporadic, there will be many more people peripherally involved than there are regular contributors, and that success cannot be measured by a conventional business model.