Talk about good news! 

I am thrilled to share that Neighborhood Pages - an idea that grew out of Oakland Local - is one of 10 finalists in the We Media PitchIt Challenge. This means I will be pitching Neighborhood Pages in New York City on April 6 to a super-cool panel of judges who will award early stage funding to two of the projects that present,

How does it work?

We Media is an annual conference about media convergence that supports innovation. Pitch It is a program to award funding to projects that "inform, inspire and incubate innovation that improves the human experience in the digital world."

Our idea of Neighborhood Pages takes what we've learned from two years of planning, launching and running Oakland Local, plus what we see from our colleagues around the country who are doing local sites, and creates a business that provides software, hands-on training and a network of peers to everyone who wants to start and operate a hyper-local site. 

What's the idea?

Well, hyper-local news sites like Oakland Local are springing up all over the country, but there's no widely accessible resources to help site operators keep from making the same mistakes over and over. In a time when well-funded local media is increasingly centralized (think Patch and Gothamist), Neighborhood Pages offers a way to minimize mistakes and accelerate learning for hyper-local site operators by offering tech, training and community.

Working with open-source software installs and centralizing and managing tech for news site operators, Neighborhood Pages offers members a range of online classes, webinars and peer learning circles to help address critical questions about topics such as managing volunteers, understanding Google analytics, estimating costs for news and viable revenue streams that far too many hyper-local site operators are having to learn on their own, rather than having a centralized resource where they can learn best practices and connect with others. 

So, what happens next?

The full list of finalists (congrats, everyone!) is right here (see below) and we will all be in NYC on April 6 pitching away. (Note: If you'd like to help me develop my pitch or listen to me practice, get in touch.)

• Clear Health Costs
• FastCast
• Longshot Media
• Meridian Stories
• Neighborhood Pages
• NewsWar
• Pando Projects
• Stable Renters
• 180 Create

To register for the conference, click here.