News has been around since civilization itself with an innate human tendency to want to know things. Blame it on the brain’s outright disgust with holes in information which has an evolutionary root. That may noise in the bushes may just make you lunch…better to know what it is. Maybe the need for human news is an extension of that noise emanating from the bush. Either way, it’s firmly embedded in our culture and no matter what means of distribution we currently fancy, the basic definition of news and local news are about the same as verbal village update on what’s going on from 10,000 years ago. Let’s dig a little deeper to find out what causes a piece of information to make that transition into the realm of news.

We loved the series Rome on HBO a few years back. Part of what make it great viewing aside from the visceral elements was a look into the daily lives re-created of ancient Rome. One of the best images was of the Roman citizen who would give the recent news updates, senatorial and sublime, verbally on the streets. He was heavy set with a flowing Roman robe and tended to exaggerate and embellish this news delivery with poetic punctuation. Just one more reason Rome was so cool. It’s was also interesting to see news delivery with our ancient (2000 years counts, right) ancestors. The availability of news may be broader now but the intent and goal was the same.

Whether then or now, what makes information news? We could be simplistic and just say that news information new to the viewer but that misses a critical component. News is the information that not only is new to the viewer but it’s information that adds value. This is the difference between the outcome of the local election and the count of street signs on a given road. One adds value to your attained knowledge of the world while the other is minutia…what the brain was designed through evolution to actively filter out and ignore. Different people get different value from different kinds of information and to avoid using different one more time, let’s think of your uncle who only reads the sports page or your sister who religiously absorbs the international news. Everyone has a different set of rules as to the information they value and we mentioned, value is the key determining factor. What about local news? Good question.

Back to our simplistic view of world, local news is just information that we value originating or pertaining to our locality. The real question here is the definition of local in local news. Is it our city? Our State? Our neighborhood? Do we differentiate based on zip codes? The answer is yes for all the above to some extent. There is news or valued information pertaining to all different levels of locality and all are important at various times.

How does the Zipper local news and local gossip app look at the question of valued information? Very simply (continuing with our theme). We let the audience decide. The local people decide what is valued information both by providing the local info and by rating and viewing it. Ultimately, the definition of local news is greatly expanded because of this and you, the viewer get to decide. Granted, there will be the flotsam and jetsam that other’s might find to be news (really? Justin Bieber hair salon??) but that’s probably really important to someone (translated as 10-14 year old girls). The flipside to this is that you will find much more in-depth and timely information on your particular valued local information. There in lies the benefit to the Zipper local news app. It can be all things to all people. All on your smart phone. We define that as something valuable.

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