Your Local gets to the heart of what local news and local gossip really is in nature. We can all go online to quickly find out what\’s going on half way around the world and we know every single detail (really, did we need the lunch menu play by play??) of your social network is up to through Facebook but what about everything in between? That\’s a gap that makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the pavement so let\’s see if we can bridge the gap with our Zipper smart phone app. Specifying what area you want to cover for the local news and local gossip coverage is key to reigning in this gap. Your Local is a big part of this so let\’s dig deeper.

Your Local is one of the Locations you can select when filtering what local news or gossip you want to check out (or create) with zips. The beauty of basing a local news app on a smart phone app is that location is built right into the device. Ever notice when a website tries to do this, they\’ll usually place you in a city or hub by you (hopefully) but world\’s apart. That\’s not local in most cases. Your smart phone automatically keeps track of your location both your actual physical location and your home front. The \”Your Local\” selection in the Zipper refers to your home front which is probably your actual locations on most days unless you\’re some kind of fugitive (for that pants you\’ve been wearing!).

So Your Local is the area roughly around your home base. We say roughly because it will partially depend on how populous your area is. Your area in Los Angeles means a very different thing than your area in east Texas where the closest town by 20 miles away with not much in between. The trick to making the Your Local filter really match your local is the distance setting. Usually, we recommend 30 miles but this is a feature you can change in your settings to fine-tune the ability of the Zipper to truly capture local news and local gossip based on what you mean by local. The \”Your Local\” setting is typically the default location setting and you\’ll probably find yourself within this location quite a bit. It gives the widest net of local news and local gossip information available while still maintaining any semblance of the meaning \”local\”. You can always use the channel to further fine tune the local news net that the Zipper casts while keeping the location as \”Your Local\”. What are the alternatives to the Your Local?

You can switch to \”Current Local\” to match information when traveling away from your home base. This can be helpful while on vacation or traveling in other cities. You can also switch back to \”Your Local\” while away to see what\’s going on at home if you get a little homesick. There are also more specific location filters such as High School or College which will narrow down to local news and local gossip associated with a particular school alone. These are very popular locations for kids in school because let\’s face it, their school is their local. If they need to look beyond the protective walls of their schools, they can always switch back to Your Local for the full richness of information available to them.

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