This is my reply to the post about Hyperlocal sites on PaidContent.
Hyper local is great if they are part of the main site and there is update content available.
Also if it is local url such as brisbane.news.com.au or news.com.au/brisbane these are perfect for visitors to remember and will be easier for actual humans to use. But when this is taken to far such as www.news.com.au/local-news/australia/queensland/south-east/brisbane… people will find it annoying and newspapers will have to rely on search engines again to get visitors deep into the site. If you make your local sites useless to humans you are giving the power back to search engines, so you are back at step 1….
It seems that many of the hyperlocal sites out there are maintained by individuals and often struggle to update everything even on a yearly basis, but they can be quite useful as they don’t list a butcher as being local unless they physically are.
There is more control and less chance that a big supermarket will be listed on these sites as they are often anti-corporate and community supported.