In 2006, Boston.com launched a local search tool that was supposed to be a big part of the site’s future. The project made perfect sense on paper: Readers would get search results focused on eastern Massachusetts. Those results would mix the best of the machine and human worlds by using algorithms and editors’ picks. Next [...]

The web has disrupted the way news organizations think about geography and concepts like “national” and “local.” National newspapers like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are planning local editions in the Bay Area and elsewhere, where online competition has weakened local newspapers. National brands like ESPN and the Huffington Post are launching [...]

Newspapers have long viewed themselves as a kind of virtual public space — a place for community members to trade information and learn about each other. New media, however, has largely thrived on specialization: think clubhouses, not the town square.
With a $40,000 grant from the Knight News Challenge, Boston artist John Ewing hopes to [...]