When it comes to local news, there\’s the serious stuff and then there\’s the OTHER stuff. Local gossip falls under that other stuff category but let\’s face it…we all love it and it\’s probably been around since we could walk upright. It\’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon so we wanted the Zipper app to help you find local gossip with the Gossip Channel. What exactly is the Gossip Channel and how do we use it to find the best digs on local smack talk. Let\’s take a look,

First, what\’s a Channel in the world of the Zipper anyway? The channel is a quick and easy way to narrow the info both found and submitted on the Zipper app. There\’s a lot of local info out there with all kinds of angles and colors. Occasionally, we have something specifically that we want to find or find out about. That\’s where the channel comes in handy. You can quickly, and from any window, click the Channel button for a drop down of available channels to choose from with the classic pinwheel interface. You can now thumb through various categories such as news, gossip, deals, sports, music, eats, etc to filter the local zips that will show on the main window. You can also use this same filter ability when writing and posting zips so that your message get a tighter and cleaner tag so that people interested in that type of message will more easily find it. This is incredibly useful when you start to have 100\’s if not 1000\’s of zips containing all various types of local news and gossip. Speaking of gossip, let\’s look at the gossip channel.

Sometimes we want hard local news action and some times we just want eye candy. That\’s where the gossip channel comes into play. The gossip channel is where you go find all the juicy news. If your location is set to wide net such as \”Ur Local\”, then the gossip may be about the shakers and movers in the area. Obviously, this is going to be very different in Los Angeles than in a tiny 2000 people town but the effect is the same…just differences in degree but not kind. So what\’s fit to print in the gossip section and how do you go about doing it. First of all, any Zip that\’s posted in the local gossip channel will be under the anonymous handle and avatar by default. Let\’s face it…it\’s not gossip if your real name is there for all to see. This follows the traditional means of communication gossip which is always in hushed tones and quiet voices. Taking local gossip to the web with our Zipper app is not different. You can also cross combine the Gossip channel with your High School Location. This is probably where the rubber meets the pavement for this particular Channel at least in the early days of the app as there will be plenty of grist there for local gossip.

Even though the local gossip posts are generally anonymous (you can post with real handle if you like), try to keep things clean. The same rules that apply in the real world to libel, slander, and the like apply in the digital world with the Zipper app. If gossip is true then it might be tough to really argue but also keep in mind that malicious messages can be hurtful and ultimately, karma has a nasty way of bringing things back in balance. Even with local gossip.

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