When first visiting our Facebook page or website, a lot of people ask, \”Hey…why the Blue hair girl on the site?\”. Good question and we would be lying to say that at first, we just loved the look of her hair but then it started to resonated in a different light considering what we\’re trying to do. This isn\’t just a case of creating a story after the fact so let\’s look at why we love having her out in front for the Zipper local news and local gossip app.

First of all, she doesn\’t have a name and when we were originally trying to find a face for the new Zipper app, it was almost immediate when we saw her picture. Sure, there was the initial guttural response of \”How cool is that picture!\” but it went deeper than that. What\’s unique and different about the picture. First, of course is the bright blue hair and we\’re not jumping on the Katy Perry bandwagon (although, we gladly take a seat if offered). It\’s pretty obvious what the blue hair signifies. It\’s different, fresh, and stridently counter-culture but in a way that\’s not counter-culture or over-aggressive. It\’s equally cool which is tough to do when you\’re that far out of the norm. Red hair probably wouldn\’t have pulled it and jet black hair has other connotations. Blue hair signifies a new approach which exactly what we want to bring to the local news and local gossip online world with our Zipper smart phone app. It immediately captures your attention without putting off even the most conservative of folks. It feels light and fun at the same time as going against all available norms. That\’s the Zipper. That\’s the idea of you, the public creating and reading local news immediately created by others in your area. Now, you and the thousands of yous in your area are the local news reporter. That\’s cool. That\’s blue. That\’s only part of why we loved the picture to represent a fresh, exciting way of getting your local news.

The expressions she shows are so specific to the whole gist of the Zipper as well that it was a perfect fit on top of our initial love of the look. In one of the pictures, she has her finger up in front of her mouth as if to say keep it down. This fit in perfectly with our local gossip offering. Any times there’s a secret that a friend doesn’t want you to tell, it’s probably gossip and by definition, it’s probably local. In the other pictures, she represents the excitement of learning something new that matters to you. This is local news in the new way we want to bring it. Why does some 50 year old editor at the local newspaper get to dictate what is and what isn’t local news? The answer “Well, it’s always been that way” isn’t a good one and it’s no longer true. The general freshness of our blue girl’s look represents this break from the staid and tired way of getting, filtering, and capturing local news and local gossip.

We’re not saying that you should go out dye your hair blue but we feel that breaking from decades of antiquated local news gathering and dissemination with the Zipper smart phone app is the online equivalent. We’ll have a blue streak after using this new tool. Everyone’s a reporter now. That’s fresh!

Dennis Jarvis writes extensively about local news and local gossip smart phone apps.