ReadWriteWeb

Hyperlocal and mobile news are the big news industry buzzwords these days. AOL is going all out with its Patch initiative and every few months a new hyperlocal news effort is announced, sparking the morbid curiosity of the news industry to see how it will eventually work or fail.

Google may be coming to kill them all.

Google announced today that its "News Near You" product, tied into Google News, will be available from Android and iPhones browsers. The beauty of this for Google is that it costs them essentially nothing to roll out this service whereas Patch and other local initiatives like Washington, D.C.-centric TBD.com spent considerable sums to break into the hyperlocal market. Can Google come in and wipe them aside in one fell swoop?

The hyperlocal news site Fwix launched a revamp to its service yesterday, allowing readers on its website to customize and socialize their news feed. Fwix users can follow local and hyperlocal topics, as well as follow other readers who share their interests. Taking advantage of Facebook's recently released Open Graph API, Fwix now allows likes, comments and sharing of news stories. Noting that Facebook currently doesn't "do location," Fwix founder and CEO Darian Shirazi said that the updates to Fwix allow them to connect local data to the social graph, creating an ecosystem of real-time local and hyperlocal news.

For a long time, technology has been touted as a force that can help us connect globally. But the urge to stay connected locally remains. And the same technological innovations that have facilitated global commerce and communication now seem to be turned towards helping us (re)connect to our neighborhoods, communities and local businesses. As buzz around location-based networks and services grows, "the local" is poised to be a place that's increasingly the emphasis for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Can apartment buildings be communities? Modern times bear little resemblance to the A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, it-takes-a-village scenes of yesteryear; but one startup, at least, is attempting to foster a greater sense of community on a hyperlocal level.

BuildingBulletins provides a simple, social interface for building residents to communicate with one another on just about any relevant topic. From community classes to Craigslist-style classifieds, the site lets residents connect with their neighbors and, as one of their cofounders wrote to us, "get stuff done in their building."

Yesterday, as Facebook rolled out their revamped homepage which delivered new features like real-time updates, filters, and an improved sharing box, another update was quietly occurring behind the scenes. While everyone was busy analyzing the front-end changes to the user interface, Facebook announced to advertisers there were some major updates coming for them as well. According to a Facebook blog post, advertisers are now able to target ads based on languages spoken and the location of users.